Jean Baptiste Jaunay d. bef 1783

Elusive Jean
While it is known that Jean Baptiste Jaunay was a retainer for the Prince de Condé* surprisingly little else is known about this man. Much of the difficulty in the research seems to stem from the tyranny of distance. Trying to research ancien régime France from Australia with a poor grasp of French makes the task quite difficult!

We do know that the widow of Louis Brunet, Marie Louise nee Viard married Jean Baptiste Jaunay but just when this happened is not known, suffice to say that the couple were married according to the record at the time of the birth of their son, François Marie Jaunay, in September 1776 in the village of Chantilly while his father was an officier in the Condé household in the nearby château [pictured].

There is just one other reference to the man and that suggests that he was dead before January 1783—a succession trustee document:

Succession trustee 29 Jan 1783
Me Maltard Paris. Acte of nomination of Sr Jean Joseph Noël Le Roy burgess of Paris trustee of the succession of Jean Baptiste Jaunay Officer of the prince of Condé. [Reference: DC6 26 Curatelle Jaunay]

* Louis-Joseph (1736-1818), Grand maître de la maison du Roi was the prince for whom Jean and his family worked. The prince was the only son of the Duc de Bourbon and Charlotte of Hesse and assumed the Condé title on his father's death in 1740. In 1753 he married Charlotte-Godefride de Rohan-Soubise. Brought up for the army service, he served with distinction in the Seven Years' War. On the fall of the Bastille (1789), he was one of the first princes to emigrate. Establishing himself at Worms in 1791, he set about raising the ÈmigrÈ army of Condé which took part, but not very effectively, in the anti-revolutionary campaigns of 1792-96.
After the Franco-Austrian peace of 1797, Condé went to Russia, served with the Russians in 1799, then passed to Austria in 1800 and to England in 1801.
Returning to France in 1814, he died in Paris four years later.

End

Adapted and updated from: Graham Jaunay, Première Qualité. The story of the Jaunay family in the 19th century, Adelaide 1994