CHRESTIENNE DE FRANCE (1606-1663) Duchess of SAVOIE, daughte - Lot 364

CHRESTIENNE DE FRANCE (1606-1663) Duchess of SAVOIE, daughter of Henri IV, she married Victor-Amédée I, Duke of Savoy, and became Regent on her husband's death. 23 L.S. including 6 with autograph postscript, 1639-1656, to Marquis Francesco Villa; 9 countersigned by Marquis de San Tommaso; 36pages in-fol., 18 addresses, most with wax seal or under paper bearing her arms; in Italian, the autograph postscripts in French (slight flaws at the edges of a few letters). Important correspondence from the Regent of Savoy to the cavalry general of her army. Most letters are written from Turin, some from Chambéry (October 1640), Carmagnola (September 1642), Rivoli (October 1644, October 1656), Front (June 1646), Valantino (August 1651), la Vigna (July 1653), Moncalieri (November 1656). They relate to Savoy's struggle, supported by France, against the Spanish armies backing the claims of Chrestienne's brothers-in-law, Prince Thomas de Carignan and Cardinal Maurice de Savoie. On April 20, 1639, she ordered Villa and the Cardinal de La Vallette to seek safety, rather than defend their places at all costs: "the safety of your persons is dearer to me than any place I might keep"... From Chambéry, on October 26, 1640, she gave the orders for her triumphal return to Turin (taken back from Prince Thomas). In September 1642, she expressed her delight at the success at Alessandria, and spoke of the cavalry company granted by Cardinal Mazarin to Marquis Bevilaqui. After the death of Vaucocourt, she had a council of war convened to punish assassinations (1642). After the loss of Tortona, the country had to be protected from enemy incursions (1645). In 1653, she reported on the complaints of artillery commissioner Parant, lamenting that "we have dispensed with everything to serve France" (1653); she spoke of the housing of French troops in Piedmont and in the town of Pignerol... She complained of disorder in the French army, which was to set up winter quarters in Milan (October 1654)... Etc.