Viscounty of Turenne
The Viscounty of Turenne was a viscounty in France between the 10th century and 1738, when it was sold to the Crown. Its seat was the Château de Turenne in the lower Limousin.
Origins
The earliest attestation of what would become the viscounty of Turenne is found in Odo of Cluny's biography of Gerald of Aurillac. One of Gerald's opponents was Godfrey, described as count of Turenne. He was descended from the, which county was annexed to the county of Toulouse in 852. As Odo was writing about half a century after the events he recounts, his terminology may be anachronistic.
The first explicit referred to as viscount of Turenne is Bernard. A document from the abbey of Tulle dated 947 or 948, shows him to have been an illegitimate son of the Ademar I, also called viscount. In 984, the widowed viscountess Deda made a donation to Tulle in the name of her late husband and son, Bernard and Ademar II, both called viscounts. The succession to Turenne was disputed between Bernard's sons-in-law: Ramnulf Cabridel, the and husband of Aina, and Archambaud I, the and husband of Sulpicia.
Territory and size
The viscounts gradually expanded their holdings between the Vézère and the Dordogne rivers, acquiring a number of parishes from the counties of Limousin, Quercy and Périgord. The viscounty was partitioned in 1251 and part of it sold in 1350, but it reached its greatest extent in 1442. In 1645, its territory was roughly 30 Traditional [French units of measurement|leagues] long and 12–13 leagues wide. In the follow decades it was gradually broken up and sold off. When acquired by the Crown in 1738, it measured approximately seven by eight leagues and encompassed seven towns and 1,200 villages or hamlets. Its population was 18,500 households.
Rights
The viscounts acquired many privileges from the kings of France and of England. They owed no monetary dues nor military contributions to the Crown. They had the right to administer justice, to collect tolls, mint coint, issue safe conducts and to convoke their estates. They held these prerogatives down to 1738. Their subjects, on the other hand, had only the right to assemble as the estates when convoked and so assembled to vote on taxes and their apportionment. In the final century and a half of the viscounty's existence, when the viscount did not reside in Turenne, the total tax burden rose from 3,500 livres to 100,000.
Sale
When Charles [Godefroy de La Tour d'Auvergne|Charles Godefroy, duc de Bouillon], acquired the viscounty of Turenne as part of his inheritance in 1730, he also took on six million francs in debt. On 8 May 1738, he sold the viscounty to King Louis XV for 4.2 million francs. The negotiations for the sale were conducted by Charles Godefroy's tutor, Claude Linotte, and the minister of finances, Philibert Orry. When Orry offered Linotte a bribe of 40,000 livres, Linottoe reported it to Charles Godefroy, who matched it by granting Linotte a life annuity of 2,000 livres and, by a contract signed on 22 April 1738, an annuity of 1,000 livres to Linotte, his wife and their heirs. This annuity obligation, the, still exists and is included in the French budget.