In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

CHAPTER 3 A First Direction: The Robe When it was a question of choosing his life's direction, Charles Huault de Montmagny considered lawfirst;family pressure, both from his father's and his mother's side, carried him in this direction. However, there remained an alternative solution, the Church; there, again, earlier examples were not lacking, as we have seen. He hesitated between the two. We shall now retrace the story of his own life, beginning with his childhood and adolescence, the years from 1601 to 1622. Without a doubt, the salient fact is that his professional formation - Jesuit college, the faculty of law- turned him towards jurisprudence.But he had second thoughts, and, choosing to give himself some months of reflection, left for Italy. On his return he took the decision which established his future: to enter the Order ofMalta. At first sight, nothing would be simpler than an account of the life of a young Parisian, son of an influential magistrate. In reality it is not so easy, for a very commonplace reason: the sources are very thin. There remain no letters from him or from his family. Of the institutions he frequented, no register survives from the period;of the Italian trip, the journal (if he kept one) has not come down to us. Only a careful search through the Parisian notarial archives has enabled us to learn the essential outlines of this part of his life. We note, especially, the account of guardianship, closed in June 1622, that sketches the pattern of his activities between this date and November 1617.1 Here is the use oftime as it appears in this document: 1. from 25 November 1617 to 30July 1618: the college of La Fleche; 2. from 31July 1618 to 1May 1619: Paris; 3. from 2 May 1619 to 25 March 1620:University of Orleans; 4. from 26 March to 8 September 1620: Paris; 5. from 8 September 1620to 15August 1621: voyage to Italy; 6. from 15August 1621 to 11June 1622:Paris. 64 THE CHEVALIER DE MONTMAGNY He would have started his studies at the college ofLa Fleche in the summer or the autumn of 1610.2 From his birth in March 1601 to this time, he lived with his family and received the education appropriate to people of his condition. The dearth of sources forces us, for the study of the first part of his life, to adopt an indirect method; that is to say, to find what each of these stages might have meant through a series of cross-references: comparisons with other cases drawn from his social milieu,information on the life of students at La Fleche and Orleans, and on the experience of visitors to Italy at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The chronological order will be observed; we shall address, in turn, the years in Paris, the formation under the Jesuits, the interlude in Orleans, and the journey to Italy. 1. The earliest years (1601-1610) Before leaving for the west of France to begin his years of study with the Jesuits, Charles Huault had lived to the rhythm of the family microcosm, the characteristics of which we know already; suffice it here to recall the persons who surrounded him and to reflect briefly on certain aspects of his childhood. Until his death, Montmagny remained very much attached to his family, a sign no doubt that his early contacts had been good. His father's career was essentially Parisian; he had to go off to Poitou, as we have seen, but he does not appear to have stayed there long, and we do not know if he was given missions of the same kind to other regions. Sohe was present in the home during the years that preceded his son's departure for La Fleche. He could participate in some way in his early formation. However, it was the mother who had the responsibility - above allduring his infancy - for her child's physical health and socialization. Louis, his older brother, who was received as a barrister around 1605 and who reached the age oftwenty-five in 1610, was well placed to help and counsel his younger brother; he would become his tutor upon their mother's death in 1618. It was undoubtedly with Adrien, born two years and some months before him, that Charles was the most familiar; they went together to the college of La Fleche and the university in Orleans, and throughout their lives the contact remained unbroken...

Share