GUILLAUME DE

See also:

• GUILLAUME DE NOGARET (d. 1313)

NOGARET (d. 1313)  , councillor and keeper of the seal to Philip IV. of France, was born between 126o and 1270 . His father was a citizen of Toulouse, and was, so it was claimed, condemned as a heretic during the Albigensian crusade . The family held a- small ancestral property of servile origin at Nogaret, near Saint Felix de Caramon, from which it took its name . In 1291 Guillaume was professor of jurisprudence at the university of Montpellier, and in 1296 he became a member of the Curia Regis at Paris . His name is mainly connected with the quarrel of Philip IV. with Pope Boniface VIII . In 1300 he was sent with an embassy to Boniface, of which he has left a picturesque but highly coloured account . His real ascendancy over the king dates from February 1303, when he persuaded Philip to consent to the bold plan of seizing Boniface and bringing him forcibly from Italy to a council in France which should depose him . On the 7th of March he received, with three others, a secret commission from the royal chancery to " go to certain places . . . and make such treaties with such persons as seemed good to them." On the 12th of March a solemn royal assemblywas held in the Louvre, at which Guillaume de Nogaret read a long series of accusations against Boniface and demanded the calling of a general council to try him . Soon afterwards he went to Italy . By the aid of a Florentine spy, Nogaret gathered a band of adventurers and of enemies of the Gaetani (Boniface's family) in the Apennines . The great Colonna house, at bitter feud with the Gaetani, was his strongest ally, and Sciarr4 Colonna accompanied Nogaret to Anagni, Boniface's birthplace .

On the 7th of

September, with their band of some sixteen hundred men, Nogaret and Colonna surprised the little town . Boniface was taken prisoner . Sciarra wished to kill him, but Nogaret's policy was to take him to France and compel him to summon a general council . The tide soon turned, however . On the 9th a concerted rising of the townsmen in Boniface's favour put Nogaret and his allies to flight, and the pope was free . His death at Rome on the 11th of October saved Nogaret . The election of the timid Benedict XI. was the beginning of that triumph of France which lasted through the Avignon captivity . Early in 1304 Nogaret went to Languedoc to report to Philip IV., and was rewarded by gifts of land and money . Then be was sent back with an embassy to Benedict XI. to demand absolution for all concerned in the struggle with Boniface VIII . Benedict refused to meet Nogaret, and excepted him from the general absolution which he granted on the 13th of May 1304, and on the 7th of June issued against him and his associates at Anagni the bull Flagitiosum scelus . Nogaret replied by apologies for his conduct based upon attacks upon the memory of Boniface, and when Benedict died on the 7th of July 1304 he pointed to his death as a witness to the justice of his cause . French influence was successful in getting a Frenchman, Bertrand de Got (Clement V.) elected as Benedict's successor .

The

threat of proceedings against the memory of Boniface was renewed to force Clement to absolve Nogaret, and Clement had given way on this point when the further question of an inquiry into the condition of the Templars was brought forward by Philip as a preliminary to their arrest and the seizure of their property in October 1307 . Nogaret was active in getting the renegade members of the order to give evidence against their fellows, and the whole proceedings against them bear traces of his unscrupulous and merciless pen . Clement's weak and ineffective resistance to this still further delayed the agreement between him and Philip . Nogaret had become keeper of the seal this year in succession to Pierre de Belleperche . His talents as an advocatus diaboli were given still further employment in the trial of Guichard, bishop of Troyes, charged with various crimes, including witchcraft and incontinence, which was begun in 1308 and lasted till 1313 . The trial was a hint to Clement as to what might happen if the oft repeated threat of a trial of Boniface were fulfilled . Absolution was obtained from Clement on the 27th of April 1311 . Guillaume de Nogaret was to go on the next crusade and visit certain places of pilgrimage in France and Spain as a penance, but never did so . He died in 1313 " with his tongue horribly thrust out," according to the chronicler Jean Desnouelles . He retained the seals till his death and was occupied with the king's affairs concerning Flanders as late as the end of March 1313 . See E . Renan in Histoire litteraire de la France, xxvii .

233; R . Holzmann, Wilhelm von Nogaret (

Freiburg, 1898) . For the sources consult Dom Bouquet, Recueil de historiens des Gaules et de la France, vols. xx.-xxiii.; Annales regis Edwardi primi in Rishanger (" Rolls " series), pp . 483-491, which gives the fullest account of the affair at Anagni . NOGENT-LE-ROTROU, a town of northern France, formerly capital of the district of Perche and now capital of an arrondissement in the department of Eure-et-Loir on the Huisne, 38 m . W.S.W. of Chartres by rail . Pop . (1906) 6884 . In the early part of the 17th century the overlordship was acquired by the duke of Sully, financial minister of Henry IV . In the courtyard of the hospital, originally founded at the end of the 12th century, there is a small building containing the tomb of Sully and his wife . On the hill overlooking the town stands the chateau of the counts of Perche, of which the donjon dating from the first half of the rth century is the oldest portion . To Rotrou I., founder of the chateau, the town owes the second part of its name .

Nogent preserves three

Gothic churches and the remains of the old priory of St Denis, and there are statues of General St Poi, killed at Sevastopol, and of the poet Remy Belleau (16th century), a native of the town . The town has a sub-prefecture, a tribunal of first instance, a communal college and institution for deaf mutes . NOGENT-SUR-MARNE, a town of northern France, in the department of Seine, on a hill on the right bank of the Marne, 6 m . E. of Paris by rail . Pop . (1906) 11,463 . The Eastern railway here crosses the Marne valley by a viaduct 875 yds. in length . Nogent has a Gothic church, with a tower of the Romanesque period, in front of which there is a monument to Watteau, who died here in 1721 . Chemical products are manufactured . The fine situation of the town gained it the name of Beaute, and Charles V. built a chateau here (demolished in the 18th century) which was presented by Charles VII. to Agnes Sorel with the title of Dame de Beaute . An island in the Marne to the south of the town is still known as the Ile de Beaute . NOGENT-SUR-SEINE, a town of north-central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Aube, on the left bank of the Seine, 35 M .

N.W. of Troyes on the Paris-

Belfort line . Pop . (1906) 3791 . The river at this point forms an island, which supports a stone bridge of the 17th century . The chief building is the church of St Laurent (1421-1554) . A lateral portal in the flamboyant style and the Renaissance tower at the west end are of great beauty . The town is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a tribunal of first instance . There is trade in grain, flour, fodder, wood and cattle . Nogen-sur-Seine was in 1814 the scene of fighting between the French and Austrians .