The Craon family was a French noble house, known to date back to the 11th century, originating in Craon in the Mayenne region of Anjou, northern France.
Devaux made several trips to Paris in the entourage of a new patron, Marie Françoise Catherine de Beauvau-Craon, marquise de Boufflers, who was the mistress of King-Duke Stanislas and had many other lovers, although Devaux was not one of them.
This did not stop her also collecting other lovers; nicknamed la Dame de Volupté ("the lady of delight"), she was also the mistress of the poet Jean François de Saint-Lambert, then of M. of Adhémar, of the intendant de Lorraine Antoine-Martin Chaumont de La Galaizière, of the lawyer and poet François-Antoine Devaux, of the abbé Porquet, and many others.
Pierre de Craon | Marie Françoise Catherine de Beauvau-Craon | Craon | Maurice II de Craon | Craon, Mayenne |
In his testament, Maurice II bequeathed her Craon and Châtelais in the case that her three brothers predeceased her.
Charles was born on 7 March 1793 at Sunninghill in Berkshire, while his parents, Marc Étienne Gabriel, Prince of Beauvau-Craon and Nathalie Henriette Victurnienne de Montemart, were in exile in England from the French revolution.
Saint-Lambert spent the winter quarter in Lunéville in 1745-46, and according to François-Antoine Devaux, he became at that time the lover of the Marquise de Boufflers.
He is the younger son of Philippe-Louis-Marc-Antoine de Noailles (1752–1819), and of the duchess Anne Louise Marie of Beauvau-Craon (1750–1834).
During the course of his career, he earned the titles Vicomte de Thouars, Prince de Talmond, Comte de Guînes et de Bénon, Baron de Sully, de Craon, de Montagu, de Mauléon et de l'Ile-Bouchard, Seigneur des Iles de Ré, de Rochefort et de Marans, and Premier Chambellan du Roi.
His good looks and ready wit brought him attention; but, though endowed with immense physical strength—Madame de Craon called him "Hercule sous la figure d'Adonis" — he lived so hard that he was glad to have the opportunity to do a cure at Spa when the Belgian minister in Paris, M. van Eyck, invited Chamfort to accompany him to Germany in 1761.