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- BIOGRAPHY
Jean was born in 1475, the son of Aymar de Poitiers, seigneur de Saint-Vallier, marquis de Cotron and his second wife Jeanne de La Tour d'Auvergne. On 4 September 1489, aged fifteen, he married Jeanne de Battarnay, daughter of Ymbert de Batarnay, seigneur de Bouchage and Georgette de Montchenu. At seventeen Jean was given a lucrative post in the king's personal entourage. After the death of his father in 1510, he became Grand Sénéchal (or viceroy) of Provence and inherited his many titles. Jean was a handsome man, with clear blue eyes, blond beard and moustache, and well-shaped lips, as his pencil portrait by Clouet shows. Since he was a good soldier, and was well liked and charming, Jean was appointed captain of the King's Suite by Louis XII.
Jeanne died in May 1516, and on 8 July of that year Jean married Françoise de Chabannes. The marriage produced no issue.
In July 1523 Jean was implicated in a plot against King François I of France, led by Jean's liege-lord Charles de Bourbon-Montpensier, constable of France. The plot was fortuitously uncovered by his son-in-law Louis de Brézé, seigneur d'Anet, who realised too late that Jean was unwittingly involved in his liege-lord's conspiracy.
The main culprits, including the constable, had escaped, but the king ordered Jean's immediate arrest. He was arrested on 5 September 1523 and imprisoned first in Tarare and then in the castle of Loche. He was stripped of his lands and titles and sentenced to death. On 23 December 1524 he was transferred to the prison of the Conciergerie in Paris. After languishing in various cells for six months, on 17 February Jean was brought to his execution. Three of the king's courtiers came to the cell and stripped him of his chain and order of St.Michael. They then formally announced the withdrawal of all his honours and court privileges. He was permitted to make his last will and testament and, assisted by a local priest, to prepare for his end. Asked once again if he had any further information to give to the crown, Jean replied that he had told all he knew and gave permission to the priest to divulge his last confession. He was feverish and a hunger strike left him too weak to stand, let alone walk, to the place of execution. He was placed on a horse by an archer who held him upright by sitting behind him.
It was a bitterly cold day and the condemned man, bare-headed and with hands tied, wore a fox-fur cloak. With his confessor following behind on a mule, they came to the Place de Grève where the scaffold awaited. He was hauled onto the platform, his cloak removed, and forced to kneel with his head on the block and beg for God's mercy. Stripped to his doublet and shivering with cold and fear, Jean knelt with his head over the execution block for more than an hour waiting in anguish and confusion for the blow of the sword. The audience grew restless - they had come to see a spectacle after all and there was little else to amuse the Parisians at the time. It was said that Jean's hair turned snow white during that hour of waiting. Suddenly the king's courier galloped onto the scene, shouting to stop proceedings in the name of the king. Perversely, François had hesitated until the very last moment, leaving his victim semi-conscious by the time the royal reprieve arrived. Jean was arguably the least guilty of the conspirators and this François I surely knew. It was popular rumour that Jean had opposed the constable's treachery, and this the king would also have heard.
It seems that François I had never intended to execute Jean de Saint-Vallier. The pardon commuting his sentence to life imprisonment 'at the king's pleasure' had been signed by the king's hand at Blois the same day, and was read aloud to the crowd. It explained that the sovereign's clemency was due to the de Poitiers family's long history of service to the Crown and to the entreaties of his son-in-law, the Grand Sénéchal of Normandy, Louis de Brézé, who had uncovered the plot.
One month later, Jean was moved back to the fortress of Loche in the Loire where he was well treated and permitted to receive visitors. The instigators of the plot against François I - including Jean - were pardoned and released from prison, and their titles and properties were restored. A letter from the king in 1526 makes it clear that, not only was Jean's confiscated property restored to him, but he received more than what he had had before. The king's decree stated: 'Item: that the counties of Valentinois and Diois belonging to Jehan de Poitiers through his rightful inheritance from Aymar de Poitiers his predecessor should be returned to him along with their rights and privileges, and the fruits which have grown since these were confiscated, until the present day.' As the county of Valentinois had been raised to a duchy by King Louis XII, this might explain why Diane de Poitiers was referred to as Duchesse de Valentinois prior to 1548 when she received the title following her father's death.
About 26 September 1532 Jean married Françoise de Polignac. This marriage also produced no issue.
Jean died after 26 August 1539, and was buried in the family vault at Saint-Vallier. His principal heir was his son Guillaume. Should he die without issue, his properties were to go to Diane, his eldest daughter. Guillaume died in 1547, and Diane de Poitiers inherited the bulk of the estate, though some legal cases ensued between Diane and her sisters and also her father's widow.
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