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GENEALOGY OF THE FLOTTE FAMILY: 1044-1904
BY J. ROMAN
The chivalrous families, that is to say those which do not have notaries, lawyers, financiers, tradesmen, and whose members have not embraced any career other than arms or the church, became rare in the Alps. Most of them died out in poverty, had fled before the 16th century, or disappeared in the 15th century in the middle of the wars against the English, or in the sixteenth in the turmoil of the wars of religion.
In 1789, there was still in the Alps a single family dating authentically and without interruption in the eleventh century, that of de Flotte, Counts of La Roche-des Arnauds.
They were illustrious, since the Counts of Provence were their cousins. They had possessed many fiefs . They gave to the Church bishops, abbots, priors, canons, several men and women religious; to the State of sword bailiffs, governors of towns or bailiwicks, a viguier at Marseilles, a Knight of Saint Michael, and a large number of Knights of Malta, including several commanders; to the Army, admirals, colonels, captains. The land of La Roche, which the Flottes possessed without interruption from 1044 to 1791, was elevated into a County in their favor; by the Barony of Montmaur, they were the fourth hereditary barons and grandfathers of the Dauphine. They united, in a word, all the illustration that could reach a provincial family who was always removed from the court.
But there are also some shadows to this picture. The strong race of the Flottes was battling, plundering and insubordinate; they were more than once in open revolt against the civil or ecclesiastical authorities. Human nature is composed in roughly equal proportions of good and bad elements; it is a truth that clearly stands out in the history of all long-lived families, and of the Flottes in particular.
Where did the Flotte family come from? A tradition makes it from Crest, in the Drôme, which for a long time was named Crest-des-Arnauds or Crest-Arnaud. This tradition does not rest on anything absolutely sure, but here is what gives it a certain likelihood. The Poitiers, counts of Valentinois, who were also sovereigns of the Diois and consequently of Crest, also possessed the high domain of La Roche-des-Arnauds, principal seigniory of the Flottes, located in the center of Gapent but far from the other possessions of Poitiers. It is therefore permissible to suppose that Arnaud de Crest, surnommé Flotte, and vassal of the Counts of Die, to whom the Poitiers succeeded, would have come in the 11th century to settle in La Roche en Gapençais and would have done homage to his former lord for the fief he had just acquired. This is probably a hypothesis, but it is defensible.
The oldest members of the Flotte family were almost all named Arnaud, the people called them Arnauds familiarly, that's why the main lands that belonged to them, La Roche and La Beaume, were called La Roche-des Arnauds, Beaume-des Arnauds, and all of their fiefs bore the name of Terra Arnaudorum.
There are few families whose genealogy is based on a series of titles that is as well followed and authentic. Hardly can there be a little doubt for the first generations, before the year 1100, when naturally documents are very sparse. Before 1100, when we find Arnaud Flotte, we do not know if it is a single character or several successive generations of Flottes. From the twelfth century, on the contrary, not only have I been able to follow filiation and all degrees with absolute certainty, but I have been able to link the Osasica and Jarjayes families who are younger branches that adopted a different surname.