Claude II Leclerc de Pulligny

Parents. Son of Claude Leclerc de Pulligny (c. 1485, 1562) and Catherine de Trèves de Xirocourt (c. 1515, 1581).

Spouse. Claudon Galland de Pulligny (1st) · Claudon Mengin de Pulligny (2nd) (1552, 1582 · 1550, 1626).

Twice married, in both cases to women of the Pulligny seigneury: first to Claudon Galland de Pulligny (1552–1582), and after her death to Claudon Mengin de Pulligny (1550–1626). Both marriages reinforced the family's hereditary connection to the lordship of Pulligny and bound the house to the wider noble society of southern Lorraine.

Children. Father of Jean Le Clerc (1586–1633), painter to the Republic of Venice and to the Dukes of Lorraine, Knight of Saint Mark; of Alexandre Le Clerc de Pulligny (c. 1588, after 1659), Knight of Saint Mark, restored to hereditary nobility on 28 May 1623 and the most likely continuation of the direct ancestral line; and of Laurent Le Clerc de Pulligny (1595–1691), master goldsmith of Paris and Lyon, ancestor of a collateral craftsman branch. The direct bloodline of the modern House passes through Alexandre and his son Alexandre II Le Clerc (1652–1695), Minor Lord of Lorraine.

Claude II Leclerc de Pulligny was no minor nobleman. Born in 1532 to Claude Leclerc de Pulligny, valet de chambre to Duke Antoine and Auditeur of the Chamber of Accounts of Nancy, and to Catherine de Trèves de Xirocourt, he inherited a position at the very centre of the Lorraine ducal administration and entered ducal service in his own right.

He served as Argentier du Duc de Lorraine, the officer entrusted with the personal treasury of the sovereign, and as Treasurer to the company of the Count of Vaudémont, one of the most prestigious military households of the Duchy. He was also recorded as valet de chambre to Duke Charles III, placing him within the close personal circle of the reigning sovereign of Lorraine.

Contemporary records describe members of the Le Clerc de Pulligny family in this generation as creditors of the Dukes of Lorraine, an extraordinary indicator of standing. To lend to one's sovereign required not only exceptional wealth, but political weight, trusted status within the ducal administration, and membership of the small governing elite of the principality. Few noble houses of sixteenth-century Lorraine were rich enough, or sufficiently trusted, to advance capital to their rulers.

His life was transformed by the religious upheavals that swept the Holy Roman Empire and France during the second half of the sixteenth century. Lorraine, though an independent duchy between France and the Empire, remained a stronghold of Catholic reform under the House of Lorraine-Guise. Claude II nevertheless converted to the Protestant religion, a decision of immense personal and political consequence.

His conversion brought the confiscation of his nobility and the seizure of his property. Stripped of office and rank, he entered the household of Charlotte Catherine de La Trémoille, Princess of Tarente and a prominent Protestant noblewoman, as her secretary. The family's temporary loss of influence and privileges marks one of the defining crises in the history of the House of Le Clerc de Pulligny.

He eventually returned to Pulligny, where he was once again recorded as seigneur in part of the ancestral fief, and was buried in the parish church in 1598. Through his two marriages, first to Claudon Galland de Pulligny, and second to Claudon Mengin de Pulligny, both alliances reinforcing the family's ties to other established houses of the Pulligny seigneury, he was the father of two extraordinary sons, Jean and Alexandre Le Clerc, whose service in Venice and at the Lorraine court would secure the formal restoration of the family's hereditary nobility in 1623.

Claude II's career belongs to the zenith of the Le Clerc de Pulligny family's political and financial influence. As Argentier of the Duke and Treasurer to the company of the Count of Vaudémont, he occupied two of the most sensitive positions in the ducal administration, handling the personal treasury of the sovereign and the finances of one of the senior princes of the House of Lorraine.

The sixteenth century was the great age of religious conflict across western Europe. In France, the Wars of Religion (1562–1598) tore the kingdom apart; in the Empire, the Schmalkaldic and post-Augsburg struggles defined an entire generation. The Duchy of Lorraine, though formally independent, was tightly bound to the Catholic cause through the House of Guise and remained one of the most resolutely Catholic principalities of the region. To convert to Protestantism in such a setting was to risk everything, office, lands, status, and the inherited nobility of one's house.

Claude II made precisely that choice, and paid precisely that price. The confiscation of his nobility and the seizure of his property place his story among the most dramatic religious-political ruptures recorded in the Le Clerc family history.

Claude II represents the height of the Le Clerc de Pulligny family's administrative and financial power, and at the same time the most acute crisis in its history. With him the family stood at the centre of the Lorraine ducal court; through his conversion it briefly lost the very status its forefathers had spent generations acquiring.

His sons Jean and Alexandre, through military service to Venice, artistic distinction, court office and renewed loyalty to the Duke of Lorraine, rebuilt the family's standing and obtained the formal restoration of its hereditary nobility in 1623. The generation of Claude II, Jean and Alexandre therefore forms the great bridge between the medieval Lords of Pulligny and the later documented branches of the Le Clerc family.

Few profiles in the family's history combine such heights of office with so sharp a fall and so complete a recovery. Argentier of Lorraine, creditor of the Dukes, and Protestant Reformation figure, Claude II is one of the most historically significant members of the House of Le Clerc de Pulligny in the sixteenth century.