Alexandre Le Clerc de Pulligny

Parents. Son of Claude II Leclerc de Pulligny (1532–1598) and his second wife Claudon Mengin de Pulligny (1550–1626).

Spouse. Madeleine Platel du Plateau (1598, 1625).

Children. Father of Nicolas Le Clerc (1624–1660), through whom the direct ancestral line continues, and grandfather of Alexandre II Le Clerc, Minor Lord of Lorraine, the bridge figure between the historic Pulligny family and the later Le Claire branches.

Alexandre Le Clerc de Pulligny was born at Nancy in 1585, son of Claude II Le Clerc de Pulligny and Claudon Mengin de Pulligny, and later resided at Érize-Saint-Dizier in Lorraine, where he is recorded as still living after 1659.

In the years following his father's disgrace during the Wars of Religion, Alexandre entered the service of Charlotte Catherine de La Trémoille, Princess of Taranto and wife of Henri de Bourbon-Condé, one of the most prominent Protestant noblewomen of the age. His position within the Bourbon-Condé household placed him at the centre of the highest princely court in France outside the royal family itself.

Like his elder brother Jean, he later entered the service of the Republic of Venice and was received into the Order of Saint Mark, a rare honour for a foreign nobleman and a mark of the trust placed in him by the Serenissima. Returning to Lorraine, he was attached to the ducal court as a musician, diplomat and valet de chambre, a position combining personal service to the sovereign with confidential business of state.

Together with his brother Jean Le Clerc, Alexandre received renewed hereditary nobility by letters patent of 28 May 1623, formally repairing the damage done to the family by their father's conversion to Protestantism and restoring the ancestral standing of the House.

Alexandre is the principal figure in the continuation of the Le Clerc de Pulligny lineage following the Wars of Religion. His descendants maintained the family's presence in Lorraine and ultimately gave rise to the later Le Clerc and Leclaire branches. Through his son Alexandre II Le Clerc (1652–1695), Minor Lord of Lorraine, the direct line passes into the eighteenth-century Leclaire family from which the modern House descends.

Alexandre's career exemplifies the seventeenth-century pattern by which talented sons of noble houses combined foreign military or court service with a return to office at home. His simultaneous standing as Knight of Saint Mark and valet de chambre of the Duke of Lorraine placed him within two of the most prestigious household structures of early modern Europe.

Together with Jean, Alexandre rebuilt the family's position after the confiscations suffered during the Reformation. The renewed hereditary nobility of 28 May 1623 is in significant part their work, and through Alexandre and his son Alexandre II the direct line of the House of Le Clerc de Pulligny passes intact into the second half of the seventeenth century and onward to the Leclaire branch.

Alexandre's name is preserved both in the records of the Venetian Order of Saint Mark and in the household books of the Dukes of Lorraine. Family tradition records that the later Le Claire and Leclaire line of Lorraine and Alsace, from which the modern House descends, issued from his branch.