Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes

Biography

The book "Les femmes bibliophiles; catalogue of a collection of books bound by famous binders for royal and distinguished ladies from Marguerite de Valois to the Empress Eugénie" contains the following heraldic and biographical information in the discussion of a book that she owned.

... the most famous of the Lady book collectors of France at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Comtesse de Verrue.... Argent, a cross between four lozenges sable (Verrue) ; the second. Quarterly 1 and 4, Or, a lion rampant gules, armed, langued, and crowned azure (Luynes) ; 2 and 3, Gules, nine mascles or (Rohan).... Jeanne Baptiste d' Albert de Luynes, Comtesse de Verrue, was born in 1670. She was the daughter of Charles de Luynes, and of his second wife, Anne de Rohan. When only thirteen she was married to Joseph Ignace Mainfroy- Jerome de Scagha, Comte de Verrue, and by him introduced at the Court of Savoy. Scandal, whether true or false, linked her name with that of Victor Amadeus, and the young wife hastily quitted Turin and settled in Paris, where she built a magnificent mansion. Her husband was killed at Hochstett in 1704. Left a widow comparatively young, she indulged to the full her passion for collecting ; books, pictures, tapestries, furni- ture, coins, jewels, engravings, gems, snuff-boxes, were all collected with lavish expenditure. The Due de Luynes once said of her : " My aunt was always buying, and never baulked her fancy." Her Library was an especially fine one, enclosed in ebony bookcases, all care- fully selected and bound by the leading Binders of the day. "Without care for the present, without fear for the future, doing good, pursuing the beautiful, protecting the arts, with a tender heart and open hand, the Countess passed through life calm, happy, beloved, and admired." She died on the 18th of November 1736, and even on her death-bed showed no signs of fear, but smiling, composed her own epitaph —

Agit, dans une paix profonde,
Cette dame de volupte,
Qui, pour plus grande siirete,
Fit son paradis dans ce monde.

She has no known connection to her brother's mistress.