Jean Cottereau

For the guerrilla fighter, see Jean Chouan. For the French politician and secularist, see Jean Cotereau.

Jean Cottereau (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ kɔtʁo]; 1458 – February 8, 1530)[1] was the royal treasurer to Louis XII of France. In 1509, he purchased the old castle in Maintenon, and rebuilt it, transforming it into the Château de Maintenon. Later, it was remade into a fashionable country house for Madame de Maintenon, the second wife of Louis XIV.[2]

Clément Marot's verse epitaphs, "De Messire Jean Cotereau, chevalier, seigneur de Maintenon", are included in his Cimitière (nos. viii, ix, and x). In his Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe (published 1849/50), François-René de Chateaubriand wrote that "Marot, in his Cimetière, maintains that Cottereau was too honest a man for a financier. One of Cottereau's daughters brought the Maintenon domain into the d'Angennes family".[3] Specifically, Isabelle Cottereau, who married Jacques d'Angennes and was the mother of twelve children, including Charles d'Angennes, Claude d'Angennes and Nicolas d'Angennes.[4][5]

References

1. Andrew Sanger, The Loire Valley (Thomas Cook Publishing, 2002), p. 199.
2. Gibson, Charles (1906). Among French Inns: The Story of a Pilgrimage to Characteristic Spots of Rural France (PDF). pp. 279, 280. ISBN 9781357549053.
3. "The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Memoirs of François René de Vicomte de Chateaubriand volume 6 (of 6), by François René de Chateaubriand". www.gutenberg.org.
4. Le Roux, Nicolas (2000). La Faveur du Roi: Mignons et Courtisans au Temps des Derniers Valois. Champ Vallon.
5. The Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Volume 2, Issue 2 (1843), p. 723, stating that Jacques d'Angennes "married, 13th February, 1526, Isabeau, or Isabelle, Cotereau, or Cottereau, daughter of Jean, chevalier seigneur de Maintenon".