Rohan, an ancient Breton family of princely rank, descended in the male line from the dukes of Brittany, the name taken from the village of Rohan in the department of Morbihan. Its motto was characteristic of its pride: 'Roy ne puys, Duc ne daygne, Rohan suys.' The family still flourishes in the line of Rohan-Guéménée-Rochefort, naturalised with princely rank in Austria. The line of Rohan-Soubise became extinct in 1787, that of Rohan-Gié in 1638. The founder of the family was Alain I., fourth son of the Vicomte Eudon de Porhoët, who became Vicomte de Rohan in 1128. Under Charles IX. in 1570 the domain of Guéménée was formed into a principality for Louis Rohan VI., whose son Louis de Rohan-Guéménée was made in 1588 by Henry III. Duc de Moutbazon. Both the latter and his son Hercule (died 1654) bore arms against the League. The famous beauty, wit, and political intriguer, the Duchesse de Chevreuse (died 1679), was a daughter of Hercule. Louis, Prince de Rohan-Guéménée (born 1635), lost the favour of Louis XIV. by his dissolute life, and died on the scaffold in 1674 for treasonable dealings with the Dutch.
LOUIS RENÉ EDOUARD, PRINCE DE ROHAN-GUÉMÉNÉE, born 25th September 1735, embraced the clerical life in spite of dissolute morals and an extravagant love of luxury, and at an early age became coadjutor to his uncle the Bishop of Strasbourg. In 1772 he was sent as a special minister to Vienna. His habits were displeasing to Maria Theresa, and he ruined himself at the French court by slanderous gossip about Marie Antoinette. He was recalled in 1774, and, although with grudging, made grand-almoner in 1777. Next year came a cardinal's hat, through the influence of Stanislaus Poniatowski, king of Poland; and a year later the succession to the bishopric of Strasbourg, held by three members of his family before him. His eagerness to recover his footing at court made him an easy victim to the schemes of Cagliostro and the adventuress Lamotte, and their clumsy forgeries and personations were enough to make him purchase the famous Diamond Necklace for the queen. As soon as the plot was discovered the cardinal was sent to the Bastille, but was acquitted by the Parlement of Paris, 31st May 1786. He found himself for the moment a hero of the mob, was elected to the States-general in 1789, but refused to take the new oath to the constitution in January 1791, and retired to Ettenheim in the German part of his diocese, where he died, 17th February 1803.
See DIAMOND NECKLACE, and books enumerated thereat; also the far from trustworthy Mémoires inédites du Comte de Lamotte-Valois (edited by Louis Lacour, 1858), and G. C. D'est Ange, Marie Antoinette et le
Procès du Collier (1889); the Mémoires of Rohan's secretary, the Abbé Georgel, as well as the books by Beugnot and Madame Campan.
With Victor Louis Mériadec, Prince de Rohan-Guéménée, Duc de Montbazon and Bonillon, who died in 1846, ended the direct main line. He was succeeded by his two nephews, scions of a younger branch of the line Guéménée, that of Rohan-Rochefort, who had been adopted in 1833 by his brother Jules Armand Louis (died 1836).
The line Rohan-Gié, which sprang from that of Guéménée, was founded by Pierre de Rohan de Gié (1453-1513), marshal and tutor of Francis I. His son fell at Pavia in 1525; his grandson, René I., at Metz in 1552. The latter was married to Isabella d'Albret, great-aunt of King Henri IV., whence the Calvinism of the family. René II. (1550-86) married in 1575 the celebrated poetess, Catherine de Parthenay, heiress of the house of Soubise.—Their son Henri, Duc de Rohan-Gié, Prince of Leon, was born 21st August 1579 at the castle of Blain in Brittany, and at sixteen came to the court of Henry IV., with whom he was ever an especial favourite. He was made in 1603 Duc de Rohan and a peer of France, and in 1605 he married the daughter of Sully. After the king's murder—a fatal blow to his hopes—he became one of the chief leaders of the Huguenot party in France, and, when all endeavours to bring about a peaceable settlement had come to nothing, took up the sword, fortified the places in Guienne, held Montauban against the king, and at last forced him in the peace of 1622 into a confirmation of the Edict of Nantes. Thereafter he took his share in all the tortuous intrigues of the time, fighting now for his king, now against him, ever holding up the religious cause, alike in times of open warfare and hollow peace. After the surrender of La Rochelle (1628) a price was set on his head, and he made his way to Venice, but soon after was called on by Richelieu to serve his king in the Valtelline, out of which he speedily cleared both the Imperialists and the Spaniards. He next carried his sword to Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, but received a wound at Rheinfelden on the 28th February 1638, of which he died at Königsfeld on the 13th April. But his name survives best in his admirable Mémoires, three books of which (1644) embrace the civil wars, the fourth (not published till 1758) the Valtelline campaign. They may be found in Michaud and Poujoulat's collection.
See the works by Fauvelet du Toc (Paris, 1667), Schybergson (ib. 1880), H. De La Garde (ib. 1884); Bühring, Venedig, Gustav Adolf, und Rohan (Halle, 1885); Langel, Henri de Rohan, son rôle politique et militaire sous Louis XIII. (Paris, 1889); and the Edinburgh Review for April 1890.
His daughter, Marguerite de Rohan, brought the great possessions of the house in 1645 to her husband, Henri de Chabot, Marquis de Saint-Aulaye, who thereupon assumed the name of Rohan. From this line have sprung Charles Louis Josselin de Rohan-Chabot, Duc de Rohan, Prince de Léon (born 1819), and his son, Alain, Prince de Léon (born 1844).
See SOUBISE; also De la Chenaye-Desbois, Genealogie des Hauses Rohan (Prague, 1872).