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The House of Polignac

The Polignacs are a French noble family from the Velay, in today's Haute-Loire, named after the volcanic rock and fortress of Polignac near Le Puy-en-Velay [1][2]. The family became dukes under Louis XVI in 1780, and one of its members, Count Pierre de Polignac, married the heiress of Monaco in 1920 and became the father of Prince Rainier III [1][3]. This page draws on the French Wikipedia article on the family, the history published by the fortress's association, the Principality of Monaco's legal database and the Singer-Polignac Foundation.

Two houses of Polignac

Wikipedia distinguishes two houses of Polignac [1]:

• The first house descended from the viscounts of the Velay and of Brioude, entrusted with the viscounty by the counts of Auvergne from the late ninth century. It died out in 1385 [1].
• The second house, originally the family of Chalencon, attested from 1179, took up the name after Guillaume de Chalencon married Valpurge de Polignac, the last of the first house, in 1349 [1]. This is the family that bears the name today.

The fortress and the "kings of the mountains"

The fortress association writes that the first mentions of the fortress date from the 930s, that the site was probably first a public fortress protecting Le Puy, and that it came into the family's possession only from the late eleventh century [2]. In the following centuries the viscounts of Polignac fought the bishops of Le Puy, who held the office of count of the Velay, and sat as first barons in the Estates of the Velay [2].

During the Hundred Years' War, Viscount Randon Armand X built the keep between 1385 and 1421 [2]. Viscount Armand XIII was briefly imprisoned in 1467 for supporting the League of the Public Weal against Louis XI [2]. On 18 July 1533 King Francis I was received at the fortress and, according to the association, gave the Polignacs the nickname "kings of the mountains" [2].

Dukes of Polignac

In 1780 Louis XVI made Armand Jules François (1746–1817) duke of Polignac [1][2]. Wikipedia dates the hereditary ducal brevet to 20 September 1780 [1]. Wikipedia records his marriage in 1767 to Gabrielle de Polastron (1749–1793), who became duchess of Polignac [1].

At the Revolution the Polignacs went into exile and the fortress was confiscated; it was sold in 1794 and used as a stone quarry [2]. The family returned to France in 1815, and Duke Armand XXIII bought back the fortress in 1820 [2]. It was placed on the first list of historic monuments in 1840 [2].

Wikipedia states that the family received the title of Roman prince by a papal brief of 1820, with authorisation to bear it in France in 1822, and that a Bavarian diploma of 1838 confirmed it [1]. The younger son of the first duke, Jules de Polignac (1780–1847), later third duke, was president of the Council of Ministers under Charles X in 1829–30 [1].

Polignac and Monaco

On 18 March 1920 a marriage contract was signed between Princess Charlotte Grimaldi, Duchess of Valentinois, whom the ordinance of Prince Albert I calls his "beloved adoptive granddaughter", and Count Pierre de Polignac [3]. By a sovereign ordinance of 20 March 1920, "Mr Pierre Grimaldi", as the ordinance calls him after a ruling of 18 March, took the title of Duke of Valentinois [3]. Wikipedia states that one branch of the Polignac family thus came to the throne of Monaco in 1949, under the name Grimaldi, with Pierre and Charlotte's son Rainier III [1].

Patrons of music

On 15 May 1893, according to Wikipedia, Prince Edmond de Polignac (1834–1901), a composer, married Winnaretta Singer (1865–1943), daughter of the American sewing-machine industrialist Isaac Merritt Singer [1][4]. The Singer-Polignac Foundation records that between her first concert in her studio in 1888 and her departure from Paris in 1939, she received many figures from music, art and literature, including Gabriel Fauré, Colette and Nadia Boulanger, and that she founded the foundation in 1928 to support the arts, letters and sciences [4].

The family today

Wikipedia names Charles-Armand (born 1946) as the 8th duke of Polignac [1]. The Le Puy-en-Velay tourist office says that the duke of Polignac still stays at the family's château of Lavoûte-Polignac, but does not name him [5].

Note on sources. On 1 November 2026 GOTHA found no house website, public register or national press source that names the present duke and gives his date of birth. His identity and dates above rest on Wikipedia alone. The fortress is owned by the Forteresse de Polignac foundation, created in 1998; it opened to the public in 2004 and has been managed by an association since 2012 [2].

Key dates

Licence: contains material adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). This article is released under the same licence. Other sources are summarised or briefly quoted.