The Monroes in France : a long story

The French Branch of the Monroes descends from a mythical figure who lived in the 17th century in Scotland and Ireland.

 

Family tradition (recorded in a manuscript of Charles Dieudonné Monroe written in 1727) tells us that he was a relative of the Chiefs of the Clan Munro.

 

An ardent Cavalier, he committed himself to the struggle against Cromwell in order to defend the Stuart dynasty. The military reverses suffered by the Royalists led in about 1650 to his banishment and the loss of his properties and name.

 

Exiled to Ireland, he returned to his parent General O’Neil Roe and took his name.

 

This Scottish nobleman was called Ulysses Monroe.

 

Many of his descendants still bear the name “Monroe dit Roe”.

 

Ulysses and his wife Mary Brady brought up Edmond and Charles Roe after the early death of their father Owen only son of Ulysses. Because of the links between the Monroes and the Stuart royal family, Charles Roe, who was about twelve, was entrusted to James II (James VII of Scotland) during  his exile in Saint-Germain en Laye at the court of his cousin Louis XIV. The arrival of Charles in France took place around 1686. After the Treaty of Ryswick which weakened the King of France, Charles served Duke Leopold of Lorraine, probably because of the link between the Stuart and Guise families. He settled at Mirecourt where he married Marguerite Lecusson with whom he had ten children. His brother Edmond who had been in the Tower of London and had escaped, met Charles as an officer in Leopold’s guard, but had no issue.

 

Therefore it is in Lorraine, which was allied to Austria, that the first descendants of Ulysses  established their line under the name of Roe then Roe Monroe.

 

The three first generations had numerous progeny, but with a limited outcome since one century later only three lines bearing the name have descendants living today.

 

Amongst the prominent figures of the family in the 18th century, we should mention one of the daughters of Charles, Marguerite, who took Holy Orders as a nun of the Order of St Clare and became abbess of her convent. Two grandsons of Charles, François-Joseph and Antoine-Eugène, won fame in Austria, notably during the Seven Years war which opposed Prussia to France and Austria. One was known as von Roe and the other as von Monroe. The latter belonged to the noble guard which accompanied Marie-Antoinette, sister of Leopold Emperor of Austria, when she came to France to marry the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI. Both brothers finished their careers with the rank of Major General. They had no male descendants.

 

In the following generation, we should also remember the names of Claude Roe Monroe, an officer in the French Hussars; and also his young sister Marie-Anne who during the French revolution saved her father and her elder brothers from the guillotine by a courageous intervention at the Comité de Salut Public in Lyon where her family then lived.

 

During the 19th century the Monroes of France, already established in fine estates in the Lyon area, settled also in Savoie, in Dauphiné, and in the Midi. Thanks to a lasting peace the family’s military traditions gave way to the practice of law. Charles-Henri-Dieudonné, grandson of the grandson of the first French Charles, was distinguished as first President of the appeal court of Chambéry. The family of his wife Laure Gavinet was from Avignon. They established themselves in this region under the name of Girardon - the family of the famous sculptor. We may recall here that an ancestor of Anthony Chamier, member of CMA Council, came from this Avignon area and that the name is still remembered there. This family had to leave France because they were Protestants. Conflicting but parallel fates!

 

Also in the middle of the 19th century, two brothers Charles-François-Donald and Louis-Eugène still bore the name of Monroe. The elder fathered the numerous de Drouas family and the younger settled at the Chateau de Chervé in the département of the Loire, and by his marriage with the beautiful Valentine Turin –perhaps a descendant of the Savoie dynasty – had nine children. Three of  them took holy Orders. One was a Carmelite at Rome, another a Fille de la Charite and a third – Francois - a Jesuit missionary in Alaska for forty years. One of the daughters, Isabelle, by her marriage with Joseph Richard, a silk manufacturer in Lyon, had numerous descendants. One of his sons, my grandfather, revived the the family’s military tradition. He distinguished himself during the First World War at the end of which he was General commanding the 15th Army Corps; he then commanded the 15th Military Region. René, the youngest of the Monroes of Chervé, settled in Argentina before coming back to his beautiful house, Le Bretail. The eldest of the nine, Louis-Augustin, is the ancestor of the Gourd and Reding families.

 

The First and Second World Wars followed by the war in Indochina took a heavy toll on the Monroes : six of them fell, including Donald who was killed during the German blitz upon London in 1944. He was a reporter with the British Eighth Army.

 

The Monroes of France have always kept a strong link with their Scottish “cousins” (see below “The Franco-Scottish relationship within CMA”).

 

 

 

 

 

The Franco-Scottish relationship within CMA

 

The Monroes of France have always kept a strong link with their “cousins” in Scotland.

 

Many of them were welcome in their former homeland, at Auchenbowie with Alexander Monro or at Foulis with the late Chief Patrick Munro of Foulis.

 

In 1986, at the time of a gathering of the French Monroes, Hector, the  present Chief, and his wife Sarah, were present in Drôme, at Grâne and Nodon.

 

In 1987, about twenty French members were at Foulis.

 

Ten years later, Hector, accompanied by Anthony Chamier, attended the meeting at Le Bretail, a prelude to the participation of about forty French members in the 1997 Gathering.

 

In 2006 the Clan Monroe France (CMF), which had been created in 1998 under the aegis of the  Clan Munro (Association), met with two hundred members present at Château de Lacoste in Périgord, the home of Edouard and Marie-Christine de Bastard, to prepare a very peaceful “landing” in Scotland at Foulis on 28th and 29th July 2007.

 

The Auld Alliance is alive and well !

 

The members of the CMF Council in 2007 are :

Donald Monroe   Président – 9 rue Charles V - 75004 Paris

Hervé Monroe   Vice-président – 67 rue George Clémenceau 69110 Ste Foy les Lyon

Guy Monroe   Vice-président – Morestin – 42120 Perreux

Véronique Dubault    Secrétaire – 19 rue Jean-Philippe Rameau 91440 Bures sur Yvette

Marc  Estrangin     Trésorier - Rue du Fossé -26400 Grâne

Tanguy Cuzon du Rest - Lan Kermane – 56470 St-Philibert

Brigitte Favre de Thierrens – 33 avenue René Coty – 75014 Paris

Thibault du Foussat – 10 rue Durieu de Maisonneuve – 33000 Bordeaux

Emmanuel Gourd – 15 bis chemin des Hautes Bruyères – 69130 Ecully

Pierre Heegaard – Stalden 20 – 1700 Fribourg Suisse.  

Yves Richard – 2 rue Cuvier – 69006 Lyon

Donald Monroe 

Les Huards                                          31st October 2006