MATHURIN Ist, chevalier, seigneur des Rues, de Chenillé, de Lorière, de Marigné, du Plessis-Gaudin, du Bois, de La Cour-du-Bois, châtelain de Maigné et Chigné, seigneur des Mortiers, de Dissé, de La Courtaillé et du Plessis-Courtimont, etc.(died in 1596)
Son of Robert de Rougé and Louise de Lorière. Governor of Le Mans, he was particularly active during the Wars of Religion. He became a lieutenant of the Hundred Gentlemen of the King’s Household, ordinary gentleman of His Majesty’s Chamber (24 December 1562), chevalier de Saint-Michel (February 1586), and deputy representative of the nobility of Anjou in Blois at the General States in 1576. He fought with the Marechal Duke of Aumont in 1589.

JACQUES, Marquis du PLESSIS-BELLIERE and Faÿ-les-Nemours, etc. (1602-1654)
French general, son of René Ier de Rougé and of Marguerite de La Court, he fought in the Thirty Years War. Marshall in 1646, he became governor of Rethel and of Armentières. Jaques de Rougé took part in the Battle of Rethel in 1650, and became governor of La Bassee, then of Dieppe, before becoming commander in chief of the Army of Catalogne in 1653 and Lieutenant-General. The Sun-King retained him for his next promotion of knights of the Saint-Esprit and planned to make him Field-Marshall of France. In 1654, he was killed in a cavalry charge in Torre d’Anunziata near Castellamare in Naples. Many pictures of Jaques de Rougé can be seen in the Chateau of Versailles. Cardinal Mazarin reacted thus on the announcement of his death: ‘I am in despair at the death of Plessis-Bellière’. The King, Louis XIV, conferred the Honneurs du Louvres on the Marquis, which were usually reserved for Dukes and Peers of France. His widow refused them.

She wrote the following lines, inscribed in the Church of Fay-les-Nemours:

‘The heart of my husband rests in this urn.
However mine sighs incessantly,
agitatedby pain and overwhelmed with misfortune,
and will follow him to the grave
everyday from now onwards.
The most sensitive part of my soul
is enclosed in this vase
where death imprints its colours.

Suzanne, MARQUISE du PLESSIS-BELLIERE and of Fay-les-Nemours (1599-1705),
La Marquise du Plessis-Belliere, Suzanne de Bruc de Montplaisir was the wife of Jaques de Rougé du Plessis-Bellière. She was known for her keen spirit and left a considerable mark upon her time. She was friendly with the superintendent Nicolas Fouquet, Finance minister of the Roi Soleil. She was very close to the great artists of the time and had an extensive personal art collection. She was also, with Madame de Lafayette and Mademoiselle de Scudéry, part of the first literary circles. In 1661, she tried to save Fouquet from disgrace, and sheltered him in the Hotel de Rougé in Nantes. But the superintendent was arrested by the Captain d'Artagnan, and the Marquise du Plessis-Bellière was also arrested: she was interned by order of the King Louis XIV in the Chateau de Montbrison. Her state of health permitted her early release, and she was allowed to rejoin her children in the hotel de Charenton, near Paris. She spent her last years there, surrounded by the great poets and artists. The Marquise de Sevigné was also one of her closest friends. Suzanne de Rougé, Marquise de Plessis-Bellière, had a passionate life, which inspired many adventure novels, among which the character of Elise in Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas, or historical novels adapted for the screen, like Angelique, Marquise des Anges.