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Pompone de Bellièvre
Pompone II de Bellièvre (1606 – 13 March 1657) was a French magistrate, ambassador and statesman, ending his career as First President of the Parlement of Paris, from 1653 to 1657. Early lifeBellièvre was the son, nephew, and grandson of eminent men. He was the son of Nicolas de Bellièvre (1583–1650) and Claude Brûlart de Sillery, who married in 1605. His father was Procureur général and also Président à mortier of the Parlement and one of the thirty Conseillers d'État of France. Both of his grandfathers, Pomponne de Bellièvre and Nicolas Brûlart de Sillery, served as Chancellor of France.[1][2] CareerBellièvre himself became the head of the magistracy of France, ambassador to England, and in his last years the first President of the Parlement of Paris. While Bellièvre was in England, Cardinal Mazarin gave him the hopeless task of making peace between King Charles I and the Long Parliament.[1] His brother, Pierre de Bellièvre, seigneur of Grignon, abbé of Saint-Vincent de Metz,[2] was French ambassador to Scotland during his own mission to England.[3] He received the title, Marquis de Grignon, in 1651.[citation needed] Bellièvre became one of the greatest benefactors of the Hôpital général de Paris, founded in 1656.[1] This was nearer to being a gigantic almshouse than to the modern concept of a hospital and set out to house the astonishing number of forty thousand Parisians, about a tenth of the city's population, the men at Bicêtre, and the women at La Salpêtrière. All of the poor were to be gathered together on clean premises, to be cared for, educated and given an occupation. The new institution benefited from huge donations from Fouquet, Mazarin and Bellièvre, but it did not turn out as hoped.[4] Personal life Bellièvre married Marie de Bullion, Lady of La Grange-au-Bois, daughter of Claude de Bullion and Angélique Faure (the niece of his grandfather, Nicolas Brûlart de Sillery). They had no surviving children.[2] From his father, he inherited the Château de Grignon in Thiverval-Grignon, in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France, which his paternal grandfather had bought from Diane de Poitiers in the 16th century. He also owned the Château de Berny. The biographer Louis Gabriel Michaud says of Bellièvre:
The Bellièvre fortune was extinguished in 1675, when his last brother and heir, Pierre de Bellièvre, had to abandon all of his property to his creditors, including Gaspard III de Fieubet, as he was unable to repay his debts.[citation needed] CharacterAccording to the panegyric spoken at Bellièvre's funeral, and later printed, he possessed "pure glory and innocent riches" and was incorruptible, not to be bought at any price. He showed "...charity for the wretched, a vehemence just and inflexible to the dishonest and wicked, with a sweetness noble and beneficent for all". He also had a pleasant and gracious address, with intellectual and charming conversation and an agreeable and intelligent silence.[1] Likeness A lifelike portrait of a 34-year-old Bellièvre by Anthony van Dyck, is in the collection of the Seattle Art Museum. Throughout much of its history, this work was believed to be by Bartholomeus van der Helst and the sitter remained unidentified, until scholars discovered otherwise. Bellièvre's attire was de rigueur in 17th century France.[6] Bellièvre's portrait (pictured above), painted by Charles Le Brun, was engraved by Robert Nanteuil in 1657 and is surrounded by the Latin inscription "POMPONIVS DE BELLIEVRE, SENATVS GALLIARVM PRINCEPS", with a plate size of 327 x 251 mm.[7] Of Nanteuil's work, this has been called "foremost among his masterpieces, and a chief masterpiece of art, being, in the judgment of more than one connoisseur, the most beautiful engraved portrait that exists."[1] Louis Thies wrote of it in March, 1858:
In his The Best Portraits in Engraving, Charles Sumner says of Nanteuil's Pomponivs De Bellievre:
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