Catherine of Mayenne (original) (raw)

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Catherine de Mayenne
Other names Catherine de Mayenne-Lorraine-Guise
Born 1585 (1585)
Died 8 March 1618(1618-03-08) (aged 32–33)Hôtel de Nevers, Paris, France
Nationality French
Noble family House of Lorraine
Spouse(s) Charles Gonzaga ​(m. 1599)​
Issue see below
Father Charles, Duke of Mayenne
Mother Henriette of Savoy-Villars
Occupation Aristocrat

Catherine de Mayenne (1585 – 8 March 1618), or Catherine de Mayenne-Lorraine-Guise, was a French aristocrat.

Catherine de Mayenne was born in 1585, as the daughter of Charles, Duke of Mayenne (1554–1611), younger brother of Henry of Guise, and his wife, Henriette of Savoy-Villars (1541–1611), whom he had married in 1576.

On 1 February 1599, at the age of 14, She married Charles de Gonzague, future Duke of Mantua and Montferrat, in Soissons, and actively assisted her husband in his administration. In 1604 she was courted insistently by Henry IV of France. She and her husband chose to leave the French court. She gave her husband six children, three boys and three girls.[1]

Catherine created many convents, monasteries, abbeys, churches, schools and hospitals. In Charleville she founded a college of the Society of Jesus, where youth were educated in piety and letters. She also founded a Capuchin convent and a hospital in that city. She founded two Carmelite monasteries, a monastery of the Holy Sepulcher, a Franciscan convent, a Capuchin church, and a large priory of the Christian Militia that served as a hospital.[1]

In 1615 Catherine was chosen from among the princesses of France to accompany Elizabeth of France, sister of King Louis XIII of France, to the borders of France and Spain, and there to receive Infanta Anna of Spain.[2]After catching a chill, she died at her Hôtel de Nevers in Paris in 1618 at the age of 33.[1]Her biography by Père Hilarion de Coste says that "One would not know enough to praise the wise, chaste and virtuous Caterine, except to confess that she surpasses all praise."[2]

  1. ^ a b c Société d'Histoire des Ardennes 2016, p. 26.
  2. ^ a b Coste 1647.