Guy Auguste de Rohan-Chabot known as the comte de Chabot (18 August 1683 - 13 September 1760), often referred to as Chevalier de Rohan, was a French nobleman most notable for an altercation with Voltaire.
Guy-Auguste was born on 18 August 1683. He was the son of Louis de Rohan-Chabot, Duc de Rohan, Prince de Leon and Marie Élisabeth du Bec-Crespin de Grimaldi, Marquise de Vardes.
Guy-Auguste is mostly remembered for an altercation with the young Voltaire in 1725, in which both men insulted each other. He then hired some thugs to assault Voltaire while he watched from his carriage. The aristocratic Rohan family obtained a lettre de cachet from French King Louis XV and used this warrant to force Voltaire first into imprisonment in the Bastille and then into exile in Great Britain.[1]
On 7 February 1729, Guy Auguste married Yvonne Sylvie du Breil de Rays (1712–1740). Before her death on 15 July 1740, he fathered a daughter and two sons:
After his wife's death he married Lady Mary Apolonia Scolastica Stafford-Howard (1721–1769) on 25 May 1744. She was the daughter of William Stafford-Howard, 2nd Earl of Stafford, de jure 3rd Baron Stafford.
He died on 13 September 1760 in Paris, France. His son, Louis Antoine, succeeded Guy Auguste's father as the Duke of Rohan as did his grandson, Alexandre, Duke of Rohan.
Through his son Charles Rosalie, he was a grandfather of Adélaïde Louise Guyonne de Rohan-Chabot (1761–1805), also known as Mademoiselle de Jarnac, who was the first wife of Boniface Louis André de Castellane (parents of Marshal of France Boniface de Castellane). After Adélaïde died in 1805, Boniface married her cousin, another of Guy Auguste's granddaughters, Alexandrine Charlotte de Rohan-Chabot, widow of Louis Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld, 6th Duke of La Rochefoucauld.[2]