ORLEANS, GASTON (-JEAN-BAPTISTE), DUC D' (DUKE OF), ...

born April 25, 1608, Fontainebleau, Fr. died Feb. 2, 1660, Blois byname Gaston de France, or Monsieur prince who readily lent his prestige to several unsuccessful conspiracies and revolts against the ministerial governments during the reign of his brother, King Louis XIII (ruled 161043), and the minority of his nephew, Louis XIV (ruled 16431715). The third son of King Henry IV (ruled 15891610) and Marie de Mdicis, Gaston was at first known as the Duc d'Anjou. As the only surviving brother of Louis XIII, he was known as Monsieur from 1611. He first came into conflict with royal authority in 1626, when Marie de Mdicis and Louis XIII's powerful chief minister, the Cardinal de Richelieu, attempted to force him to marry Marie de Bourbon-Montpensier. Several nobles, including the Duchesse de Chevreuse and her lover, the Marquis de Chalais, encouraged him to resist the marriage and drew him into a plot to assassinate Richelieu. Richelieu discovered the conspiracy and had Chalais beheaded; but Anjou, as heir presumptive to the throne, escaped prosecution. He went through with the marriage (August 1626) and was created duc d'Orlans, the first duke of the third dynasty of Orlans; nine months later his wife died in childbirth. When Marie de Mdicis was exiled from Paris by Louis in February 1631 for demanding Richelieu's dismissal, Orlans declared his support for the Queen Mother and began raising troops; but he fled to the duchy of Lorraine in April. In January 1632 he secretly married Marguerite, sister of Charles IV, duc de Lorraine. A few days later Louis XIII's troops invaded Lorraine and forced Orlans to flee to the Spanish Netherlands. He re-entered France with a small army in July to join a revolt led by the powerful Duc de Montmorency, governor of Languedoc. On the suppression of the uprising, Orlans was pardoned; but after the execution of Montmorency in November, he again withdrew to the Spanish Netherlands. Richelieu allowed him to return to France in 1634. Orlans campaigned for Louis XIII against the Spaniards in Picardy in 1636, but the king continued to refuse to recognize his marriage to Marguerite. The birth of the dauphin Louis (later King Louis XIV) in 1638 quashed his hopes of succeeding to the throne. He was further humiliated by the exposure of his complicity in the Marquis de Cinq-Mars's plot against Richelieu (1642). In accord with the provisions of the will of Louis XIII, Orlans became lieutenant general of the kingdom on the accession of young Louis XIV. He helped the queen mother, Anne of Austria, to become sole regent; but she proceeded to appoint Richelieu's protg, Cardinal Jules Mazarin, as first minister. When the aristocratic uprising known as the Fronde broke out in 1648, Orlans at first supported Mazarin; in 1651, however, he joined the coalition of princes that forced Anne to dismiss the minister. Exiled by Louis XIV upon the recapture of Paris by government forces in 1652, Orlans was formally reconciled with the king four years later. His Mmoires were published in 1683.