Vidame de Chartres

By the later Middle Ages, the title was held by the owner of the chateau and estate of La Ferté-Vidame (documented by 985), Eure-et-Loir, some 40 kilometres from Chartres.

The title passed to François de Vendôme (c. 1522 – 22 December 1560),[6] who was a successful soldier who figures largely in accounts of the brilliant but decadent French court of the period.

The Vidame was put in the Bastille after the Amboise conspiracy of 1560, in which he seems to have not been involved, and died days after the death of Francis II of France, which would probably have led to his release.

The action takes place between October 1558 and November 1559 at the court of Henry II of France, and the account of the Vidame's character broadly agrees with that of Brantôme.

[9] When Vendôme died the title passed to Jean de Ferrières (1520–1586),[10] a leading Huguenot politician and military commander in the French Wars of Religion, who was forced to spend periods in exile in England.

He was eventually captured when fighting for the future Henri IV of France by the crown's Catholic forces, and died in captivity when he could not raise the ransom demanded.

His son Louis, the second and last duke and famous memoirist (1675–1755), used it as a courtesy title at court until his father's death; the contrast between the debonair fictional character and the very short teenager may have given rise to some amusement.

According to the second duke, his father (a younger son) had bought the estate at the request of King Louis XIII – and perhaps with his funds, to give him a seat befitting his new rank as a ducal peer of France.

In 1764 La Ferté-Vidame was bought by Jean-Joseph de Laborde (1724–1794), a very wealthy businessman, who became a fermier général, politician and banker to the king.