Joachim de Dinteville ( –1607) was a French noble, lieutenant-general and favourite of Henri III and Henri IV. Born into a prominent Champenois family of the noblesse seconde, Dinteville became close with Anjou (the future Henri III), brother to Charles IX. In 1572 he was elevated to the position of Premier Gentilhomme de la Chambre by the duke, a key role in his household. He travelled with Anjou for the conduct of the siege of La Rochelle in 1573, and fought with him there. Upon Anjou's election as king of the Commonwealth, he travelled east with his lord, and served in his household for his brief tenure as king there. On Anjou's return to take the crown of France, Dinteville departed from his household, assuming responsibilities in Champagne, where he led the Second Estate of Troyes in opposing the attempt of Guise to affiliate the city with the national Catholic ligue. As Henri's brother Alençon moved closer to his plans of assuming the kingship of the rebellious Spanish Netherlands, Dinteville assisted the king in attempting to draw him, and thus France away from a potential confrontation with Spain. He assisted Henri's mother Catherine de Medici in her negotiations with Henri's cousin Navarre in 1579. In December of that year, Henri appointed Dinteville to replace the aged sieur de Barbizieulx as lieutenant-general of Champagne, making him second only to the governor Guise. Henri recognised Dinteville's valuable connections across the noblesse seconde of the province.
Having received reports of ligueur activity in Champagne, Dinteville quickly set to work in combatting potential rebelliousness, overseeing a grand council of the nobility of the region, in which they affirmed their loyalty to the king. During this period he was in tension with Guise, who desired to expand his authority, however the break between the two would not come until after the death of the king's brother in 1584. With Alençon's death, the Protestant Navarre became heir to the throne. Guise took the opportunity to re-found the Catholic ligue and began arming for a confrontation with the crown. On 21 March 1585, Guise occupied Châlons-sur-Marne, beating Dinteville to the city by only a few hours. The two held an interview, after which Dinteville reported to Henri that a 'rubicon had been crossed'. The following day he departed from Châlons, and Guise moved off to occupy Reims. Over the next few months much of the rest of Champagne fell to the ligue, until by June, Dinteville was left with only Troyes, and Langres. Soon thereafter Henri capitulated to the ligueur demands, excluding Navarre from the succession, and granting Guise many 'surety' towns, among them Châlons. Unable to tolerate the increasing ligueur domination of the country, Henri planned a counterstroke through an attempt to introduce troops into the capital. Dinteville assisted him in this plan, commanding a company of Swiss into Paris. The plan backfired, and Dinteville and Henri were forced to flee the city. In the wake of this, Guise's brother Cardinal Guise seized Troyes, and purged its royalist administration.
By December, further insults and slights had once again caused Henri to lose his patience, and he arranged for the assassination of the duke and his brother at Blois in December. Much of France reacted in fury, and defected from the crown. In Champagne, Dinteville attempted to hold the line against the ligue, he was able to secure Châlons for the crown and it became his base of operations for the coming years. While Reims hung in the balance for a month, it eventually sided with the ligueur Sainte-Union. In March he succeeded in reconquering Épernay for Henri. During 1589, he made several unsuccessful attempts to subdue Troyes, which served as the ligueur capital of Champagne. On 1 August, Henri III was assassinated, and Dinteville was among the first to recognise Navarre as Henri IV, the council of Châlons quickly doing likewise. He would achieve little progress against Troyes for several years, until Henri abjured and became Catholic in 1593, receiving the submission of Paris in 1594. Dinteville quickly found his position improving, and in April he received the submission of Troyes, Bar-sur-Aube and Chaumont, entering the former in triumph. After having served Henri for several more years, he died in 1607, and was greatly mourned by the king.
Early life and family Joachim de Dinteville was the son of Gaucher II de Dinteville, the captain of Bar-sur-Seine. Two of his paternal uncles were bailli of Troyes, a position also held by one of his grandfathers. The Dinteville family were one of the leading members of the Champenois noblesse seconde, and had a particular strength of influence around the city of Langres. This would play a large part in the resistance of the elite of Langres to the Catholic Ligue in the 1580s.
Dinteville secured himself a strong position in Paris for his residence in 1586, on the rue de Béthisy, the same street as many other grandees had occupied such as Admiral Coligny and Chancellor Bellièvre.
Reign of Charles IX
Favourite As early as 1572, Dinetville held the position of premier gentilhomme de la chambre for the duke of Anjou. Despite the theoretical uniqueness of this position, two other men held the office during that year, Louis de Berton-Crillon and Beauvais-Nangis.
Commonwealth In the wake of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the Protestant dominated city of La Rochelle, flooded with refugees, entered rebellion against the crown. Charles dispatched his brother Anjou to subdue the city. With Anjou came the cream of the French nobility. Among those in his household who joined him for the conduct of the siege was Dinteville. Having participated in the siege, Dinteville joined his lord when word came that he had been elected king of the Commonwealth in travelling to his new kingdom. Anjou would not stay as king in the Commonwealth for long, and when news of Charles' death reached him he and his entourage, among them Dinteville, fled the country to assume the kingship of France.
Reign of Henri III He would continue his association with the prince upon his assumption of the crown in 1575. Dinteville remained in his confidence after he took the name Henri III, and was among those the king sent personal correspondence to. Dinteville was of an older generation than many of the other men in Henri's confidence. Though not as close as some of Henri's other favourites he was still considered as a fidèle du roi.
First ligue In the wake of the Peace of Monsieur, a Catholic ligue movement began to bloom nationally in opposition to the generous terms, originating in Péronne and spreading out from Picardie. The duke of Guise saw advantage in the movement, and pushed for the towns of his governate to swear to uphold its terms. In March 1577 the three estates of the city convened, under the watchful eye of Guise, who was visiting the city in the hope of influencing it towards adoption. Dinteville led the nobility for the city, and argued that the oath that was requested of them was at best superfluous, and at worst a subversion of the loyalty that truly belonged to Henri. The other two estates similarly rejected adoption of the ligueur terms, and even the compromise 'association' proposed by the ligueurs only garnered signatures from a scattering of Troyes' elite. Much of the urban elite was suspicious the ligue represented a covert way to bring about outside noble control over their city, and that it would be used to extract money from them.
The king's brother Alençon was ambitious, and desired to establish himself as king in the Netherlands. Henri and Catherine opposed a plan that put the kingdom on a collision course with Spain, who maintained their rights as overlords to the region. To this end Dinteville was dispatched with 50 men to track down Alençon in the Netherlands and inform him that the king and his mother were making progress on negotiating a marriage between him and Elizabeth, queen of England. It was hoped the prospect of assuming authority over England would be sufficient to distract him. Dinteville was further instructed to tell the errant prince that he was loved and respected, and that in the wake of Protestant rebellions in France, it was best that he remain close for the stability of the realm.
With civil war again at risk in 1579, Dinteville was involved in negotiations between Catherine de Medici for the crown, and Navarre, cousin to the king and political leader of the Protestants. These negotiations bore fruit in the Treaty of Nérac.
Lieutenant-general
Champagne was the chief stronghold of the House of Guise in France, with the duke of Guise in place as governor, having succeeded his father, with his influence came the influence of the ligue in Champagne. This troubled Henri, who turned to Dinteville due to his strong connections with the secondary nobility of Champagne. Alongside these links, he also had connections with the leading Protestants of Champagne. On 20 December 1579 Henri appointed him to the position of lieutenant-general of Champagne and Brie, and tasked him with keeping a watch on the duke and ligue. If Guise made moves to expand his authority, turning Champagne into a personal fief, Dinteville was to oppose him. By his appointment, he succeeded the aged the sieur de Barbezieulx who had served as lieutenant general since 1572. At this time he no longer held any position in Henri's household.
Dinteville sent many letters to Henri reporting on the noble feuds that were rife inside the governate of Champagne. In 1580 Dinteville intercepted a copy of the articles for a ligue that had formed in Champagne and, aware that such organisations had been outlawed by the Treaty of Bergerac, sent it onwards to the royal court. He received a sarcastic reply from the royal secretary Brûlart who noted that this ligue was destined to fail, as it made no mention of the king among its grievances. Henri for his part was scandalised by the ligue. He summoned the nobility of the province to meet with him in Chaumont on 2 February of that year. In attendance were 114 nobles, an almost complete who's who of the noblesse seconde of Champagne. Dinteville made his appeal to the assembled figures not on the grounds that he was a royal appointee, and thus must be obeyed, but that as a noble of Champagne he was their natural leader. He reinforced for the nobles the responsibilities of their position as a border province to ensure the kingdoms security. The assembly was a great success and ended with a collective declaration of loyalty to Henri.
By now the civil wars had caused much destruction in communities across Champagne, and ligueurs were not necessarily religious. Dinteville upon interviewing a member of a ligue founded by the governor of Montigny-le-Roi discovered that the main purpose of the organisation was to protect its members against bands of marauding disbanded troops that preyed on the countryside and nobles, holding them for ransom. There were several ligues of this character across Champagne, such was the problem of wandering bands of soldiers.
Death of Alençon Though Guise and Dinteville had been to this point in opposition to each other, it did not extend over the regular bounds of jockeying for power that was expected between the king's appointee and a powerful magnate. The two leaders of Champagne for the moment shared many goals, a strong frontier and the removal of the plight of banditry from Champagne. Their relationship would be fundamentally shifted by the death of the king's brother Alençon in mid 1584, and the resulting threat to Guise of a Protestant succession to the crown.