Blanche de Rosemai, ill. Manon Iessel
Nouvelle Bibliothèque de Suzette, 1955
Active
1916-1948
Armie,
Mlle Marie Tassin, born in Cherbourg, rue des Bastions 9, is
the daughter of Henri Charles Armand (b. Alger 1853-d. Paris
1921) Saint-Cyrien, Commandeur Légion Honneur Général
commandant 9th Brigade Infanterie (1921), and Henriette Lucie
Hélène de Cabrol de Mouté (b.1858-d.1938).
They married in Jouy-en-Josas (Yvelines) on the 3rd of January
1887.
Her eldest brother, André Philippe Charles Alfred, was
born in Lille in October 1887. In 1911, aged 24, he was clerc
de notaire (i.e. assistant to a solicitor) in Bar-Le-Duc.
As early as 1921 he became known as Baron Tassin de Friedenau.
On her father's side, Mlle Tassin belongs to a Protestant family
of high ranking civil servants and army officers. Her paternal
grandfather, Charles-Aimé graduated in Law from the University
of Paris, in 1857, defending a thesis in Latin (Jus Romanum)
and French (Droit Français) on Roman and French Law.
He went on to become Directeur général des
affaires civiles et financières, in Algeria, the
second most important person in the Country. Armie's uncle was
Géneral Charles Millet (1843-1914), who married Isabelle,
Armand's younger sister. Millet had a marginal role in the Dreyfus
affair when, in 1897, in his capacity as Director of Infantry
he had a meeting with Major Esterhazy (Dreyfus' accuser) of
whom he wrote:
«du coté de la conduite régulière
en apparence que tenait, il s'abandonnait secrètement
à toutes les violences que lui dictaient des passions
aussi effrénées que coupables»
proposing to bring proceedings against Esterhazy for indiscipline
and general dishonourable debauched behavior.
The family had its roots in Orléans and is divided into
numerous branches. Since the beginning of times a Tassin has
always been in the service of a King in one capacity or another.
One Tassin de Breuil was the taylor of Jean le Bon (best remembered
as the king who was vanquished at the Battle of Poitiers and
taken captive to England).
Through her mother, Armie was well connected to the landed gentry
and the business aristocracy of the Second Empire. Henriette's
father was Alfred Joseph Baron de Cabrol de Mouté Chevalier
de la Légion d'Honneur, Attaché à l'Ambassade
de France London (1854); Attaché au cabinet du Ministre
des Affaires Etrangères (1857); Mayor de Jouy-en-Josas
(1868-May 1879). In 1880 he bought the Domaine de Vilvert at
Jouy on which he built what became known as Le Château
de Vilvert. The domaine remained the property of the Cabrols
until 1949.
Armie's maternal grandmother, Louise Mallet was, on one side
the grandaughter of Christophe Philippe Oberkampf, inventor
and manufacturers of printed cotton (la toile de Jouy), on the
other, the grandaughter of Guillaume Mallet of the Banque Mallet
(founded 1713) who in 1800 became Regent of La Banque de France.
Armie's parents lived in Amiéns, Caen (1905), Bar-le-Duc
(1911) and then in Rouen (1911 onwards). They employed three
live-in servants: a cook, a lady's maid and a footman. They
holidayed in San Sebastian where Armie learned castillan.
General Tassin was put in the Reserve in 1915 and died in 1921
in Neuilly s/Seine following a routine operation. Mme Tassin
died in Rouen on the 21st of June 1938 and was buried in Paris
cimetière Montparnasse. The funeral service took place
in the protestant Temple Saint-Eloi. As it is the custom in
France she was known as la Générale Tassin after
her husband military grade.
The Tassins were royalistes and légitimistes,
partisans of the Bourbons as legitime kings of France (as opposed
to the Orléans). Par manque of a French king in
residence they had taken up the cause of the legistimist pretenders
to the throne of France, the Spanish Bourbons, who during part
of Armie lifetime were embodied in the person of Alphonse XIII,
king of Spain.
Her fascination with the King started when just seventeen, as
plain Marie Tassin she was a runner-up in a competition of piropos
(compliments) for the newlywed Alphonse and Ena de Battenberg
in May 1906, organized by Je sais tout which were presented
bound in volume to the couple.
In the following years, Armie in her own right, her mother and
her brother contributed to the many charity activities of the
Spanish royal family.
ABC reported in 1914 Marie Tassin's donation of one peseta for
Pedagogium the foundation for poor Spanish children patronized
by the Infanta Doña Paz; in 1927 the Tassins donations
for the funding of the University of Madrid, patronized by Queen
Victoria wife of Alphonse "Mlle. Marie Tassin de Tassin,
300 francos; madame la genérale Tassin , cien francos;
M. le barón de Tassin de Fudonau (sic), 200 francos".
By the Twenties Armie had become the acknowledged agiographer
of King Alphonse XIII and the Spanish royal family whom she
met numerous times.
Around this time, Marie acquired, maybe for services to the
Spanish royal family, the appellative de Tassin, whilst her
brother became baron de Friedenau.
Since 1905 Armie had been going to Paris to pay her respects
to Alphonse at the Gare du Nord every time he left or arrived
in Paris.
On one occasion, while waiting for the king, Armie was mistaken
for an anarchist, arrested and jailed. As ever faithful, she
was there, on the 21 of March 1931 "Pero aquí
está la señorita Maria Luisa Tassin erguida y
protocolaria y como ensimismada, como ausente, creyendo a caso
vivir una página de los Chuanes o de la Vendée"
reported ABC. Three weeks later the King fled Spain at the advent
of the Second Spanish Republic.
Alphonse XIII went to live in Rome and then in Paris where Armie
became part of his court in exile. On the death of the incumbent,
Alfonso Carlos de Bourbon, Duke of San Jaime in 1936, he was
acknowledged by the French "légitimistes"
as King of France and Navarre.
After the death of Alphonse in 1941 Tassin continued to support
the royal cause through his heir, Don Jaime de Bourbón,
Duke of Segovia and Anjou. She was still part of his followers
in Paris as late as 1955.
In 1957, nearly seventy, M.lle de Tassin became president of
the short lived Association Générale des Légitimistes
de France. After much bickering the Association dissolved:
for some legitimistes, Don Jaime was not a winning card: he
was deaf-mute therefore unsuitalbe to some of the responsabilities
of a chef d'état, secondly he was divorced and
remarried in a civil ceremony to a commoner, a singer.
Tassin never married. She lived the life of a rentière
on the income of her mother's fortune and the occasional
inheritance from her wealthy family.
Beside writing she was, like her grandmother Mallet, very active
in charity work.
Philippe Montillet quotes her in his book Les Princes ainés
de la Maison de Bourbon 1883-1941. She died in Paris XIII,
in November 1958, having spent her entire life in the pursuit
of the impossible dream of restoring the French Monarchy.
Author
of:
Un descendant de Louis XIV, Sa Majesté le Roi Alphonse
XIII, Rouen, imp. Gabriel Dervois, 1926
Reina María Cristina, madre de un gran rey by
Marie Tassin de Tassin (Armie), 1935
Deux grandes figures d'exilés: Alphonse XIII et le
Cardinal Ségura, Librairie du Régionalisme,
Rouen, Maugard, 1939
and poetry:
Treize Chansons d'une Autre Age, Airs et Paroles d'Armie,
Lecerf, Rouen, 1928
Poèmes de guerre, 1914-15-16, Dervois, Rouen,
1916