The Habert de Montmor Family
Originating in Artois, the Habert de Montmor Family, whose ancestors had grown rich in the trade by the flour, as can make it suppose the family armorial bearings, "D'azur au chevron d'or accompagné de trois anilles d'argent", was established in Ile de France in 1543, with Philippe Habert, in the châtellenie of Beaurain, on the commune of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis. It is with a licence in right, that this provincial tried its chance in the capital. Appointed criminal clerk of the clerk's office then to advise at the Parliament of Paris and in 1534 clerk of the police chiefs instituted by François 1st with Alençon to fight against the Reform, it will finish its career as prosecutor in Châtelet in 1540, before dying out five years later in 1545.
By marrying Radegonde Hodon, girl and grand-daughter of notaries and secretaries of the King, it made a brilliance marriage, more especially as the young wife was the niece of the famous scientist and humanistic Guillaume Budé. What made it possible to the family to quickly reach a consequent fortune and to be honourably known in Paris.
It is his son, Louis Habert, born in 1530, successively secretary of finances of the king (1566), general treasurer of the galères (1582) then treasurer of extraordinary of the wars (1584), finally to advise of State (1588) and knight about the Michaelmas (1620), which we owe the construction of the castle of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis, on a ground which was pledged for him on January 16, 1580 per Henri de Lorraine, duc de Guise et de Chevreuse. Consequently the commune of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis, took the name of its lord to become Mênil-Habert and this until the Revolution of 1789.Six children were born from the union between Louis Habert and Marie Rubentel, whose three wire arrived to high situations.
Jean, the elder one, was a treasurer of the Saving since the end of the reign of Henri IV; Pierre, prior of Saint-Arnould of Crépy-in-Valois, was named in 1627 bishop of Cahors and provided the functions of first chaplain of Sir, duke of Orleans, at the court of Louis XIII; and Louis, sior of Maincourt, was to advise with the great council in 1608. One their sisters, Catherine married Charles de Malon, lord of Bercy, Conflans and Charenton, adviser at the Parliament then president of the great council in 1608, while the last girl, Francoise, were a nun with the royal priory of High-Heathers about Fontevrault.
From 1566 with his death on April 21, 1622, Louis Habert did not have of cease to increase his real estate while becoming purchaser of a great number of arpents of ground, farms and mills on the neighbouring cities of Mesnil. Transactions in transactions its field will extend to its death on more than 200 hectares. it is in 1589 that it gives the order to the workmen to dig the ditches which surround the castle and the buildings and of built the turns of enclosure. In 1592, the residence seigneuriale of Habert de Montmor was livable.
In 1622, to the death of Louis, this one returned to his elder son, to Jean. This last was strongly enriches in its load by treasurer by the saving, function of most significant since it consisted in managing the receipts of the kingdom. What was worth to him in Historiettes de Tallemant des Réaux the nickname of "Montmor the Rich'". Jean Habert, of share his function was in relation to all the financial ones of the time, and by lending significant sums realising of strong interests, could make bear fruit its capital. What lets still say to Tallemant des Réaux which the fortune of Jean Habert could be somewhat doubtful.
Jean had made him also an excellent marriage, since it married in 1596, Anne Hue of Mirosmesnil. She belonged to two families with the historical names and of extremely old origins. She was the girl, of Antoine Hue of Mirosmesnil, secretary of the king and Master of the Room to the sums of money and Marie de Phélippeaux. Its position and its fortune quite naturally led it to want to settle more richly in Paris. It is thus, which in 1623, it was made build in Le Marais, high place of the nobility in this beginning of the XVIIe century, street Sainte-Avoye (today 79 street of the Temple) a luxurious hotel which took the name of Hotel of Montmor. Immensely rich, Jean Habert, one of the principal creditors of the financier Mesme Gallet, ruined with the play, will benefit from it to buy to him on November 23, 1627, the Hotel of Sully then unfinished. It was only a question for him of carrying out a real business, as he was common at that time, since he resold the hotel later a few months, April 27, 1628, boxing a large benefit, in Roland de Neufbourg, lord of Sarcelles, adviser of State.
It is in the hotel which bears today always its name, that Jean Habert, marquis de Marigny and count de Hauteville died out on April 21, 1639, old of soixante-neuf years. It was buried in the church of Saint Nicolas des Champs in Paris. Of its union with Anne Hue de Miromesnil, were born five children among which Henri-Louis, which will become Master of the requests and academician, impassioned for the letters and the well-read men, sciences and the scientists, arts and the artists of which he was the guard, and his two sisters who contracted brilliant alliances: Anne who married in first weddings in 1618 Charles de Lauzières, marquis de Thémine, first rider of Gaston of Orleans, brother of Louis XIII, widow in 1621, it marry on April 18, 1634 in the Mesnil-Saint-Denis, with François-Hannibal d' Estrées, brother of beautiful Gabrielle, favorite of Henri IV, par and Marshal of France and ambassador in Rome, and finally the Marie junior who married in 1626, thanks to the complicity of Grand Condé, Louis d' Aloigny, marquis de Rochefort, knight of the Orders of the King, lieutenant-General in Berry.
Anne Hue survived two years her husband Jean Habert. After its death, and under the terms of a division of 10 October 1643, made between Henri-Louis and his two sisters, the hotel of Montmor and the castle of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis became the properties of this one, which already lived them with his wife and her children.
New Mister de Montmor, Henri-Louis Habert will illustrate the line of Habert by his personality and the place which he held in the intellectual company of the XVIIe century. Born in 1603, provided with an excellent education, it obtained thanks to its talents and its alliances, a responsibility of advising at the Parliament of Paris, whereas it is old only twenty two years in 1625. Its taste for refinement and the intellectual life, easily leads it to attend the literary world and to cross the doors of the show of the marchioness of Rambouillet, or already her two cousins, Germain and Philippe Habert, all the two members of the Academy and familiar of the house of Conrart, had versified for a few years. Named "the Three Habert" by their contemporaries, our young poets by the greenness of their rondeaux defrayed sometimes those which one called the coterie of "Illustres bergers". Henri-Louis Habert with the timid temperament had however to be delighted by let himself involve by his two cousins more daring than him.
Our three poets, left nevertheless splendid rondeaux the and madrigaux one, among whom those composed for the "Guirlande de Julie" offered to Julie d' Angennes by the her in love gallant duke Charles de Montausier, whose "Narcisse" and "Le Souci" for Philippe, "Narcisse" and "Rose" for Germain say Cérisy, and "Le Perce-Neige" (the Snowdrop) for Henri-Louis. Still let us note the splendid poem "the Temple of dead" written by Philippe, "the Metamorphosis of the Eyes of Philis in stars" published by Germain, or the epigram "On the bronze horse of the Statue of Henri IV" whom Henri-Louis composed.
Already another passion, that of sciences, were going to invade this man with astonishing knowledge for the time. It is extremely probably at this same period that it made the meeting of the Mersenne Father, monk of the order of "Les Minimes", with whom it will animate the meetings with the hotel of Montmor and it is in 1636, that the latter will dedicate to him its "Harmonie Universelle". It is thus, quite naturally that Henri-Louis was called in 1634, to occupy the thirty-fifth armchair of the prestigious French Academy. It was one of very first to pronounce on March 5, 1635, a speech under the title "L'utilité des conférences". It accepted then during three months, from April at July 1635 in its house of the street Sainte-Avoye, the meetings of the Academy, before it is not installed in the Louvre in 1672 per Louis XIV. Large friend of of sciences, Henri-Louis Habert de Montmor was interested particularly in questions of physics and natural history, and made its house the cradle of the future Academy of Science, receiving in its hotel, the scientific celebrities of its time, such as Gassendi, Descartes, Etienne Pascal, Roberval, Desargues, the Dupuy brothers...
The year 1637 was outstanding in the life of our scholar. It is indeed on this date that "the Three Habert" which agitated the Hotel of Rambouillet separate. Philippe, police chief of artillery accidentally finds death as a combatant in front of the castle of Emery, in Hainault, Germain embraces the ecclesiastical career and becomes commendatory abbot abbeys of Notre-Dame de la Roche and Saint-Vigor of Cérisy-la-Forêt, while Henri-Louis convole in weddings with Henriette-Marie de Buade de Frontenac, sister of the future governor of Canada, Louis de Buade de Frontenac, relationship of Beauharnais-Pontchartrain, the Gobelin, the Epinay-Saint-Luc, Chavigny-Bouthillier.
The life with the Hotel of Montmor, will then be rythmée between the many births of the couple (fifteen children of 1638 to 1657) and the scientific meetings which became as for them increasingly frequent. As a true patron, Henri-Louis put a point of honor to receive at his place all the mathematicians, the physicists, the astronomers, the doctors, or the travellers eager to come to discuss on the ideas and new technologies of the century. Moreover, it opened with all its aegis its richissime library, whose Guy Patin says to us that "the books were beautiful there and in great number". Colbert, bought three years after the death of Henri-Louis, October the 24, and 29 1682, sixty thirteen old Latin manuscripts, which are preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale today. Thanks to the inventory which Etienne Baluze drew up, bibliothècaire library of Colbert, we have an idea of the eclectic choice of Henri-Louis Habert de Montmor.
One will notice inter alia: Cicéron, César, Properce, Juvénal, La Pharsale de Lucain, Paul Orose, Boèce, holy Augustin, Lactance, Les Pandectres de Justinien, Policratus of Jean de Salisbury, Homélie on the feste of Pasque flowered of Jean Gaigny, Esguillon of divine love, Le Livre des ruraux prouffitz of Pierre de Crescens, L'Arbre des batailles, La Destruction de Troyes la Grant, Le Roman de Saint Graal, Le Livre de la chasse of Gaston Phoebus, Historia orientalis of Jacques of Vitry, Les Amours of Philippe Desportes, like six specimens of the Bible. To note finally that Henri-Louis, in his capacity as executor of his friend the abbot de Marolles, accepted with the death of this last in 1668, its book "Natalis in Evangelia".
In January 1648, during the minority of Louis XIV and the regency of Anne of Austria, the first "Fronde" as parliamentary bursts, following an edict of Mazarin which created new taxes, and announced that "la paulette" would be renewed. This tax was equivalent to the 60e of the price of the office which certain civils servant paid, and thanks to which the heredity of the known as office was assured. It was proposed in 1604 by a secretary of the king named Paulet, from where its name. Being a Master of the requests, Henri-Louis Habert, could not withdraw from the revolt members of Parliament. It continued even in February of the same year to deliberate in spite of prohibitions on the royal capacity. However, as soon as the events became more violent one, Henri-Louis without however disavowing his fellow-members, was held on the reserve. Benefitting from the disorders from the capital and the birth from his Jean-Louis son, it will remain in the countryside in its castle of the valley of Chevreuse, near to Port-Royal des Champs, where at the same time a painter of talent was, very famous : Philippe de Champaigne. Henri-Louis will seize the occasion to order with the painter, a painting representing his seven children, six sons and a girl. Regarded today as one of the most beautiful portraits of group of children, this oil on canvas finished in June 1649 per Philippe de Champaigne is preserved at the Saint-Denis Museum in Rheims. The artist will also realize, a score of years later in 1667, a portrait (lost) of the senior of the Masters of the requests in clothing of pageantry, then sixty four years old, known by the engraving of Nicolas Pitau being marked Phil.de Champaigne pingebat, N.Pitau sculpt. 1667.
Henri-Louis Habert admired art painting and was particularly sensitive to the talent of the great masters. He had in his hotel of Marais a splendid collection than 187 paintings, and in his castle of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis 177 paintings, among which 89 carried an attribution whose following names seems to designate a cabinet painting of great quality : three oil on canvas of Raphaël whose Virgin with the Palm tree, a portrait of woman of Léonard de Vinci, an old man holding a death's-head of Rembrandt, four paintings of Andréa del Sarto, six of Jacopo Bassano, three of Jan Sanders van Hemessen, four of Claude Vignon, four portraits of Corneille de Lyon, four others of Michel Corneille, a Virgin of Pierre de Cortone, two holy martyrdoms of Jean Cousin dit le Père, a woman of Jean Ducayer, a portrait of Tintoret, a Christ with the garden of the olive-trees of L'Albane, two religious subjects of Delamare, a Charity of Jean de Boulanger, two paintings of Brueghel, a portrait of woman of Jan van Eyck, a oil on canvas of Pérugin, a Christ of Martin Fréminet, a painting of Titien, eleven portraits of Jean Clouet, a prodigal son of Alexandre Véronèse, a Christ of Jacques Blanchard, the "Sacrifice du Vaudois" of the Parmesan, a soldier of Giorgione, a villager of Antonio Moro, a Adoration of kings of Jules Romain, and four paintings of Charles Beaubrun, of which portraits of La Grande Mademoiselle and Madame Ardier. Without forgetting for as much, those representing the members of his family which carried out Philippe de Champaigne, Claude Mellan, François de Troy, Nicolas de Plattemontagne, Paul Flocquet, Pierre Daret and Ferdinand Elle. Its participation during the agitation of the members of Parliament during the Fronde did not have to make waves too much, since on August 5, 1650, Louis XIV under the regency of Anne of Austria, his mother, orders the erection of the ground of Mênil-Habert in county, reward "of the great rendered services and the businesses discharged with dignity" by Henri-Louis and his predecessors Jean and Louis Habert.
It is probably at the time of this event that the interior decoration of the castle of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis was renewed. This work us preserve still today unit of works of joineries painted out of camaieu green and ochre (doors and shutters) whose safeguarding is remarkable, and on the first floor, called "the noble", a splendid chimney out of painted wooden and carved stage. It carries in the center of its coat a cartouche surmounted of a crown comtale framing a Roman numeral "MDCL" 1650. To also note on the jambs, two figures in grisaille in cartridges: Justice and Science. Let us recall that time of Henri-Louis Habert de Montmor, the walls of the castle all were decorated of paintings or many tapestries of Rouen, of Paris, of Lyon, of Flandres, Bergamo or Antwerp. The apartments were furnished with armchairs covered with brocatelle with Venice or velvet cramoisis, couches tended of brocart of silk and satin, but also of cabinets and guéridons of wood of ebony, marble tables or furnished with scales of tortoises, generally covered with carpet of Turkey or Perse. Here and there, with the marble busts to the effigies of the queen of Spain, with Henri IV, children and women, with Hercules or Aristote, mixed with the porcelains with China or Japan and other curiosities. It is this decoration, which the Marchioness of Sévigné could admire when it asked hospitality it the return of the abbey of Port-Royal des Champs, where it had gone to return visit in M.d' Andilly and to its uncle the knight of Sévigné which died there. It was on January 25, 1674, as the letter attests it which it addressed the following day to her daughter Madam de Grignan.
Of these contemporaries still let us announce the passage of Jean Hamon, doctor Jansenist, one of the Masters of Jean Racine who came there in 1663 to look after the bishop of Agen Claude Joly which remained at Mister de Montmor, without forgetting Jean de la Quintinie, celebrates agronomist in which Louis XIV entrusted the creation of a vegetable garden in Versailles. It is in June 1677, that the intendant of the gardens of the king attended a marriage celebrated in the commune of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis. Will we go until thinking that it brought its councils of good taste for the layout and the prospects for the park, made up then of floors with embroideries as in any garden "à la Française", and that one can admire thanks to the very beautiful watercolour drawn by François de la Pointe in 1691?
At this point in time bursts with the autumn 1652 one second Fronde, that of the princes and in which Condé, Turenne took part, and numbers great ladies, like the duchesses of Chevreuse, of Longueville and the Grande Mademoiselle. Henri-Louis-Habert then failed to be seriously compromised, because while the fraction of the Parliament faithful to the king had emigrated in Pontoise, it had remained in Paris with the party of the princes. To the return of the court, the Grande Mademoiselle, fearing to be stopped, and seeing herself closing the doors of Luxembourg by her father, Gaston of Orleans, brother of Louis XIII, was reduced to hide during forty eight hours to save her freedom. It is in this sanctuary of men of spirits that the duchess of Montpensier sought a shelter in the night of October 22, 1652, on the councils of her lady's companion the countess Anne de Frontenac, sister-in-law of Madam de Montmor.
The Grande Mademoiselle does itself of it to us the account in her Memories, adding that it was with fits with body without weapons lent by the Master of the requests which it could leave two days later Paris and to take refuge in the Pont-sur-Seine, at Madam de Bouthillier, widow of Claude Bouthillier superintendent of Finances under Louis XIII. She will remain only two days there before being invited by Mazarin to withdraw itself in her ground of Saint-Fargeau. She will be able to represent herself at the court only in 1657. This episode, ô! how much compromising for Henri-Louis Habert and his family, passed by unperceived chance.
The alleviated disorders, the hotel of Montmor found its calms and its peace and the erudite meetings took again of numbers. It is at this period, in May 1653 that Henri-Louis Habert accomodates in his residence Pierre Gassendi, the famous rival of Descartes. Already Montmor had proposed a few years earlier with Descartes for which it had an infinite regard, the whole use of its country house, the castle of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis, that this one refused. Thus Gassendi took pension in the hotel of Montmor and remained the host until his death on October 24 1655 of Henri-Louis Habert. It remained even with the castle of Mesnil, where it observed in particular in August 1654 an eclipse, which as Fontenelle tells it, frightened the Parisian ones as well as they hid almost all in their cellars.
After his death, one brought back castle of Mesnil to the hotel of Montmor, a case containing the manuscripts of Gassendi as well as many instruments of astronomy: proportional compasses, equinoctial dial, astronomical ring, compass, microscope, rules, squares and famous "Galileo's Telescope" that the large astronomer of Florence had offered to his death as a sign of friendship in Gassendi. It is with these quite rudimentary telescope that Galileo discovered four Jupiter satellites. Gassendi in its turn bequeathed to Henri-Louis Habert the Galileo's Telescope, it designated it as his executor, and asked him to publish its complete works. Montmor made them print in Lyon in 1658, in six folio volumes, under the title "Syntagma philisophicum", with a Latin foreword of four pages. It made bury his friend with Saint Nicolas des Champs in the chapel of the family Habert de Montmor, at Guillaume Budé, great-uncle of Henri-Louis.
One could have believed that the erudite meetings of M.de Montmor would have stopped with the death of Gassendi. It of it was nothing, on the contrary, they increased in a number and by the quality of those which took part in it. Each Saturday, Henri-Louis Habert received all people curious about the natural things, medicine, mathematics, the liberal arts and mechanics. Thus was born in 1657, the Montmorienne Academy, embryo of the Academy of Science which will become official in 1666. All erudite Europe will group thus in the hotel of the street Sainte-Avoye: the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, Italian Campanella, the German astronomer Képler, the écrivan Flemish Dupuy, Guy Patin, professor with the royal College and senior of the Faculty of Medicine, Ismaël Boulliau, philosopher and astronomer, Rohaut, Master of mathematics, François Bernier, doctor of Grand Mogol, Christian Huygens, mathematician, physicist and astronomer, the doctors Claude Tardy, Jean Hamon and Charles de L'Orme, the scientist Samuel de Sorbières, Pierre-Daniel Huet, scholar and mathematician, Maigon de Neuré and so much of others whose names forgotten a little today then were extremely known and estimated erudite world. It was at Henri-Louis Habert that the Emmerez surgeon and professor Jean-Baptiste Denis, doctors of Louis XIV, made their first experiments of blood transfusion in 1667. This experiment was made on a manservant of Madam de Sévigné, friend and close to the family Habert de Montmor, in the presence of Mr. the count de Frontenac and of Mr. the abbot of Bourdelot. It was a question of making pass the blood of a calf in the veins of an unhappy demented person, named Saint-Amans, 45 years old. This last then felt a sharp heat in all the body, a great pain on the level of the kidneys, its veins swelled and it was necessary to detach the uvula to him for not which it chokes. Mr. de la Poterie tells us this experiment in two letters addressed to Samuel de Sorbière.
The scientists were not the only allowed ones to cross the doors of the hotel of Montmor, which accomodated also the men of letters. Madam de Sévigné, came there regularly and Molière, little after the prohibition of its part, Tartuffe, created on May 12, 1664, and prohibited representation in public by the king as of the following day, obtained from Henri-Louis Habert the favour to make of them the reading in its show in front of her friends and the members of the Montmorienne Academy: Jean Chapelain, Gilles Ménage, the abbot of Marolles...
During these years, Henri-Louis Habert had to overcome quite painful dramas. Between 1656 and 1658, it lost two children Catherine-Marie and François-Joseph. In 1661, it is his wife Henriette-Marie de Buade de Frontenac, which falls seriously sick, as us announces it Madam de Sévigné, into one as of the its letters. The meetings with the Montmorienne Academy will then be suspended during three months, Henri-Louis have just learned at the same time, the death of his sister the Marshal's wife d' Estrées, Anne Habert in October 1661. But the wound more testing, for the Master of the requests remained to be come. Us have seen that the couple had many children, including one great number of them will die in low age, as it was frequent during this century. His/her two daughters as one said it at the time "established magnifiquement", Anne-Louise will marry in 1665, Nicolas Jehannot de Bartillat, governor of the city and citadel of Rocroy (in the presence of the king, of the queen, the queen-mother, the duke of Orleans and of Chancellier Pierre Séguier, Colbert and Le Tellier will be the witnesses), and Claude-Madeleine was promised in Bernard de Rieu, Master of hotel of the king. Of these three sons, Louis one of the twins, probably made the most brilliant career, while being named in 1682, bishop of Perpignan. The Jean-Louis, youngest and the last of the line of Habert were named in 1688, general intendant of Galères in Marseilles, then in 1690, honorary adviser of the Parliament of Aix-en-Provence. Remain, the fore-mentioned elder son like his Henri-Louis father, who will be to advise with the Parliament in 1658 and Master of the requests in 1667.
This last, then thirty years old, made in 1669 an enormous fraudulent bankruptcy of 600.000 Livres, after having been ruined in music and jewels. His wife, Anne Morin, "were made separate from with him" and it was locked up in Saint-Lazare, a kind of prison, until the end of its days in 1686. The test was terrible for Mr. de Montmor. Chapelain says to us that it fell into a melancholy mortal, reached physically and intellectually. It was obliged to resign its load of Master of the requests, it was the loss of fortune and the dishonour of the family. He which had received so many personalities, him which had taken part in so many work, him which had so much helped the scientists, the well-read men and the artists, was locked up during ten years in the most complete insulation before dying out on January 21, 1679, in its hotel which brought so much to Sciences and whose influence was so beneficial for the French language. It was buried the 23 following in the funerary chapel of Habert de Montmor in the church of Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs in Paris, thus finding his wife, the faithful partner of all her life, disappeared three years earlier.
The title of Mister de Montmor returned then to its only applicant, Jean-Louis Habert whom one then called Mister of Fargis. Was that whose Madam de Sévigné, known as "that it had played and eaten of tartelettes with his children" and "that it one of the prettiest society men, most honest, was the most polished, magnet to like, give pleasure and in a manner which is particular for him", well the same man who showed himself a few years later so of torture and inhuman with the unhappy galériens of Marseilles? Born on November 8, 1648, it began its career like advising at the Parliament of Paris in 1675. After nine years spent within the noblesse de robe, it chooses with trente-six years to engage in the military functions and to serve the king in the marine.
Thus it will be named in September 1684, intendant of the port of Le Havre, before providing four years later the functions of general intendant of the galères of the royal armies in Marseilles. It will be there hard and cruel, exerting its functions in pitiless ways. It is during this period, little time after being named Master of the requests (nov.1699) which it married Gabrielle, January 16, 1700 in the chapel of the hotel de La Reynie, the girl of the famous general intendant of police force Nicolas de La Reynie. In connection with marriage, let us announce that Jean-Louis Habert, was the craftsman of the marriage of Mr. de Grignan with Francoise-Marguerite, the girl of the marchioness of Sévigné.
Until the end of the year 1709, the couple led to Marseilles a sumptuous life, living in a palate richly furnished and decorated with tapestries with the Gobelins. At this point in time Jean-Louis left Marseilles to go to Toulon, where it was named on January 1, 1710, intendant of the Naval armies : -"Louis... à notre amé féal conseiller en nos Conseils, Me des Requestes ordinaires de notre hôtel, le Sr de Montmor salut. Estant nécessaire de commettre un Intendant de notre armée navale à la place du Sr de Beauharnais que nous avons destiné pour l'inspection général des classes de matelots du royaume, nous avons estimé ne pouvoir faire un meilleur ni plus digne choix que de vous pour rempli cette charge estant plainement satisfait des services que vous avez rendus depuis 26 ans en qualité d'Intendant de justice, police et finances. Scavoir quatre ans pour la marine du Port du Havre et 22 ans pour les galères à Marseille".
Far from Mesnil, it seriously neglected the administration of its vast fields which fell into the hands from the managers. Old of sixty eight years, it will resign of its functions April 30, 1716, little before its wife Gabrielle de La Reynie, obtains that against him the separation of their goods is marked, continuation "with disorder of businesses of this one, which did not pay anything without constraint, which had piece of furniture with rent, fits with body with hiring and which had even placed a few times in furnished hotel". 18 August 1718, become impotent, suffering drop, Châtelet of Paris emits a new sentence against Jean-Louis Habert de Montmor, issuing it prohibited its person and of her goods, and names Jean-Louis François du Rieu du Fargis, curator of his uncle, without direct heirs. Next 20 October, its offices of which it was provided are sold for 110.000 Livres, just as the furniture of the castle of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis for nearly 80.000 Livres. Thus one brought back on four carts of Mesnil to Paris, not less than sixty thirteen cases containing mainly the paintings. When Jean-Louis Habert returns his last sigh, 6 December 1720, 72 years old, street Sainte-Avoye in Paris, disappears with him the name from a great family which during two centuries occupied a place that one can describe as considerable.
What did it occur then of the seigniory and the castle of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis and the Hotel of Montmor? This last returned to Marie-Francoise Le Bel the widow of Joachim Jehannot de Bartillat, Master of camps of cavalry, daughter-in-law of Anne-Louise Habert, sister of Jean-Louis. She will live it with her children until her death in 1748 when the hotel was sold with the biddings by the succession to pay its debts, and the building was bought on May 5, 1751 per Leon Charron, receiver general "des Domaines". The castle and the seigniory of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis returned in heritage to Jean-Louis François du Rieu du Fargis, which obtained by letters patent in June 1728 the erection of its field in county under name "county of Fargis". It is known that at this period the state of the castle threatened ruins if no emergency work were undertook. Is this the reason which brought the count of Fargis, December 5, 1737 to sell it to Charles-François de Selle, to advise of the king?
Of all the splendour of this family, there remain to us today two paintings "the children Habert de Montmor" with the Saint-Denis Museum in Rheims and "the family Habert de Montmor" with the Museum of the Sully-sur-Loire, without forgetting of course the castle of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis who keeps these founders two splendid firebacks struck with the family weapons and a collection of engravings representing the members of the family and that carried out Claude Mellan, Pierre Daret and Nicolas de Plattemontagne. Not far from the castle, at 500 meters approximately, is located the abbey Notre-Dame de la Roche, which was a long time under the order of Habert and in which is miraculeusement preserved a painting extremely damaged at the effigy of Pierre Habert, bishop of Cahors represented under the features of Saint-Blaise. With the bottom of the painting the armorial bearings of Habert appear.
In the town of Perpignan we can always admire the elegant tomb of its bishop Louis Habert, with the Museum Déchelette de Roanne are preserved two funerary medallions representing Christophe Habert and his wife Péronne Santers, with theSaint-Etienne Cathedral of Cahors a very beautiful portrait of Pierre Habert and finally in Paris in Le Marais, the majestic hotel of Montmor from which the restoration lately came to be completed.
Copyright - © Olivier FAUVEAU - 2001