
Louis de Crussol
Duke of Uzès
Louis Emmanuel de Crussol, 14th Duke of Uzès (15 September 1871 – 23 September 1943) was a French aristocrat and art collector. Louis was born in Paris on 15 September 1871. He was the second son of the Emmanuel de Crussol, 12th Duke of Uzès (1852–1881) and Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart. His elder brother was Jacques de Crussol, 13th Duke of Uzès. His sisters both married Dukes, Simone Louise Laure de Crussol (who married his wife's cousin, Honoré d'Albert, 10th Duke of Luynes), and Mathilde Renée de Crussol d'Uzès (who married François de Cossé Brissac, 11th Duke of Brissac). His father was elected to the legislature in 1871, sat on the right and voted against the creation of the Republic. His mother inherited the Château de Boursault and a large fortune from her great-grandmother, Madame Clicquot Ponsardin, the founder of the Veuve Clicquot, and his maternal grandparents were Louis de Rochechouart and Marie Clémentine de Chevigné. Upon the death of his elder brother in 1893, during a colonial expedition in Africa, he became the 14th Duke of Uzès. The title was the premier dukedom of France, and had been created in 1565. During World War II, the Duke and Duchess remained in Paris during the German occupation. Before his death in 1943, he spent part of the occupation in a German prison camp.

After the liberation of Paris, his widow received a citation from the United States government for Red Cross activities before she returned to her native homeland in 1947. On 10 January 1894, he married Marie Thérèse d'Albert de Luynes (1876–1941) in the Chapel of the Convent of the Sacred Heart. She was the only daughter of Princess Sophie Galitzine, and Paul d'Albert de Luynes, Duke of Chaulnes and Picquigny, who both died young. Her only sibling, Emmanuel d'Albert de Luynes, died shortly after his marriage to American heiress Theodora Mary Shonts in 1908. Before their divorce on 22 February 1938, they were the parents of three children.

The Scottish Guards (French: Gardes Écossaises) was a bodyguard unit founded in 1418 by the Valois Charles VII of France, to be personal bodyguards to the French monarchy. They were assimilated into the Maison du Roi and later formed the first company of the Garde du Corps du Roi (Royal Bodyguard). In 1450, King James II sent a company of 24 noble Scots under the command of Patrick de Spens, son of his custodian. This company took the name of archiers du corps or gardes de la manche. On 31 August 1490, this company, these of Patry Folcart, Thomas Haliday, and a part of the company of Robin Petitloch, became the first company of archiers de la garde du roi under the command of Guillaume Stuier (Stuart). At the beginning la compagnie écossaise des gardes du corps du roi included 100 gardes du corps (25 bodyguards and 75 archiers). Each bodyguard had four men-at-arms under his command, (a squire, an archer, a cranequinier and a servant), one of them acquired the name of premier homme d'armes du royaume de France. After 1295, and the agreements that would become known as the Auld Alliance, there is documentary evidence of French soldiery in Scotland or Scottish soldiery in France. From the outset of the Hundred Years War, there were Scottish companies officially fighting for Philip VI of France. At the Battle of Poitiers in 1356, the 1st Earl of Douglas and the future 3rd Earl of Douglas fought for John II of France; the future 3rd Earl was captured along with many Scottish knights, as was the
French king himself. In the 1360s, Scotsmen were to be found in the army of Bertrand du Guesclin. In the early 15th century France was split into Armagnac-Burgundian civil strife following Charles VI's descent into madness. Henry V of England saw his opportunity, allied himself with John the Fearless, and invaded France. The Dauphin despairingly sought allies, and found them amongst the Scots and the Castilians. In 1418, Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany, appointed his son, John Stewart, 2nd Earl of Buchan, Chamberlain of Scotland, to command the Scottish expeditionary force, the largest army that medieval Scotland had ever sent abroad. 7000-8000 men arrived at La Rochelle in October 1419 and made their way to Tours to greet the Dauphin. The first thing the future Charles VII did was to shower munificence upon the Scottish nobles. Buchan received Châtillon-sur-Indre, the Earl of Wigtoun received Dun-le-Roi, Sir John Stewart of Darnley received Concressault, and Aubigny, and Thomas Seton the castle of Langeais. The Scottish leaders were persuaded to return to Scotland to recruit more troops. The Scottish leadership returned in 1420 with another 4000-5000 reinforcements. While their leaders were at home the Dauphin assigned the Scottish contingent throughout his armies and garrisons and picked a number, roughly one hundred of the best warriors, to be his personal body guard. The Scotsmen fought with distinction throughout France with a notable win at the Battle of Baugé in 1421, where the Duke of Clarence was said to have been felled by Buchan's Mace. The Scots faced a calamity at the Battle of Verneuil in 1424, when they lost 6000 men. Although saddened by the loss of so many of his loyal Scotsmen, Charles VII continued to honour the survivors. The Scots had a further setback at the Battle of the Herrings in 1429. The Scottish Army in France fragmented into free companies (a headache for the French state), and also into Compagnies d'ordonnance within the French Army. The King kept about him his Garde Écossaise. The Scottish Guards had likely protected him during the murder of John the Fearless at the bridge of Montereau, and rescued him from a fire in Gascony in 1442. Scottish Guards fell at the Battle of Montlhéry defending their king, Louis XI of France, in 1465. The Garde Écossaise survived until the end of the Bourbon monarchy as the senior or Scottish Company of the Gardes du Corps (Body Guards). There were four companies of Body Guards and a detachment of them accompanied the French King wherever he went, posted guards on his sleeping place and even escorted his food from kitchen to table. During the reign of Francis I the garde were held up by blizzards near the Simplon Pass after a defeat at the Battle of Pavia in 1525. Some of the men reputedly settled there and their descendants became known as the "Lost Clan". From the 16th century onwards, recruitment of the unit was primarily from Frenchmen and the Scottish element gradually died out. The name was retained as were certain words of command which had originated in Scots. In 1632, the Earl of Enzie began to rebuild a Scottish regiment in France. There is sometimes confusion as to which unit actually held the title of Garde Écossaise, with several regiments in service often being conflated, especially those commanded by Sir John Hepburn, James Campbell, 1st Earl of Irvine (later commanded by Sir Robert Moray) and Colonel James Douglas. As an example some works recording Scots in action have simply applied the Garde Écossaise name, although referring to the Regiment de Douglas. By the reign of Louis XV, the Scottish Company numbered 21 officers and 330 men in a mounted unit which last saw active service when they escorted Louis at the Battle of Lauffeld on 1 July 1747. On this and other occasions the Scottish Company carried claymores with steel basket guards instead of the swords of the other French heavy cavalry. They were distinguished from the other companies of the Body Guards by wearing white bandoleers garnished with silver lace. The Scottish Company provided a special detachment of 24 Gardes de la Manche (literally 'Guards of the Sleeve') who stood in close attendance to the king during court ceremonies. The name indicated that they stood so close to the monarch as to be brushed by his sleeve. The Gardes de la Manche were distinguished by a heavily embroidered white and gold cassock which they wore over the blue and red and silver uniform of the Body Guard. All four companies of the Body Guard were formally disbanded in 1791, although the aristocratic personnel of the regiment had dispersed following the closure of Versailles as a royal palace in October 1789. They were re-established at the time of the First Bourbon Restoration under an ordinance dated 25 May 1814.

The Seigneurie (Seigneurie), later the vicomté and the Duchy of Uzès (Duché) was a French feudal territory around the city of Uzès in Languedoc. The lordship of Uzès is documented for the first time around 1088; at that time Elzéart d'Uzès was lord of Uzès. After Robert d'Uzès had participated in the victorious battle of Cassel in the army of the French King Philip VI in 1328, his reign was elevated to the status of a viscountcy by King in 1329. The male line of the House of Uzès died out in 1475 with Jéhan d'Uzès. The viceroyalty passed to the House of Crussol through the marriage of his daughter Simone d'Uzès with Jacques de Crussol. in 1565, the vicegerency was elevated to the duchy under Antoine de Crussol, in 1572 he also became a pair of France. The viscountcy of Uzes was erected by Charles IX as a duchy, by letters patent dated Mont-de-Marsan, in May 1565 comprising the memberships and dependencies of the baronies, lands and seigneuries of Aimargues, Saint-Geniès (Saint-Geniès-de-Malgoirès). He has the arms of the Uzes and the Crussols, Bellegarde, Broussan, Remoulins, Saint-Bonnet, Vers, Collias, Pouzilhac, Belvézet, Masmolène, Pougnadoresse,
Montaren, Saint-Quentin-la-Poterie, Arpaillargues and Castillon. The duchy of Uzès becomes duchy-peerage of Uzès by new letters dated Amboise, in February 1572. Thus, by the seniority of his duchy-peerage, the Duke of Uzes was, before the Revolution, the first peer of the kingdom, and walked, in ceremonies, immediately after the princes of the blood. At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, Duke François Emmanuel de Crussol fled abroad, where he joined Prince Condé and became a field marshal in his royalist army (Armée des émigrés), opposing the revolution and the rule of Napoleon. His duchy was dissolved in 1790, the title of pair was abolished. As part of the restoration, with the charter of 1814, the titles of nobility for Marie François Emmanuel de Crussol were restored, in 1831 the hereditary nature of the titles was abolished, as a result of which he was to remain the last duke and pair of Uzès. As part of the February Revolution of 1848, all titles of nobility were finally abolished in France. The heirs of the last Duke of Uzès from the house of Crussol have since called themselves "de Crussol d'Uzès" and continue to count themselves as (titular) dukes.
Awards: Collar, sash and star of the Order of Saint Michael (Ordre de Saint-Michel).
