Blacas

Blacas is the name of two old French houses which successively owned the Lordship of Aups castle in Provence (whose name is still spelled in the ancient form Aulps in their surname).

The first Blacas, Pierre d'Aulps, is said to have participated in the First Crusade and to have stem of the House of Baux, whose arms are similar to those of Blacas, but with the tinctures reversed (this claimed filiation his still expressed by the two banners with the Baux arms in the coat of arms of the Dukes of Blacas). As early as the 12th century his grandson Blacacius de Blacas (died 1236), called "the great warrior," distinguished himself among the most valiant knights of the court of Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Provence. He married Laure of Castellane, and excelled as both a soldier and a troubadour. He left three sons, two named after him and one named Boniface. Blacasset succeeded his father as a troubadour while Boniface succeeded in Aulps and married Ayceline of Moustiers. From this union was born another Blacasset, who accompanied Charles I to Naples. His name was immortalized by Frédéric Mistral who attributed him the positioning of the chain that links up the two boulders at Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. Captured by infidels, Blacasset is supposed to have vowed that, if freed, he would stretch this chain between the boulders and from it suspend a sixteen-branched star, emblem of his family.

The first house of Blacas became extinct at the end of the 14th century, but its heiress, Philippa de Blacas, married around 1380 Rostang de Soleilhas (perhaps a relative in the male line) who then assumed the name and arms of Blacas. The present house of Blacas descends from them.

Lords of the town of Aups, the family fought with the town from 1346 to 1712. Aups won the contest in the end, becoming a direct legal dependent of the French king. The Blacas family possessed the castles of Vérignon and of Aups as well as many other domains in the current district around Aups. The most famous member of the family was Pierre-Louis de Blacas d'Aulps, Count and later 1st Duke of Blacas, Peer of France, a renowned antiquarian and minister to King Louis XVIII during the Bourbon Restoration and a fervent legitimist after 1830.

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