Charles de Morny

Charles de Morny

Tomb in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris

Charles Auguste Louis Joseph de Morny , since 1862 Duke of Morny (French duc de Morny ) (born September 15, 1811 , † March 10, 1865 ) was a French entrepreneur , politician and art collector . He was a half-brother of Emperor Napoléon III. and Mathilde de Morny's father, Marquise de Belbeuf, called "Missy" (see below).

Life

Morny was probably born in Saint-Maurice in the Swiss canton of Valais . His mother was Hortense de Beauharnais , the adopted daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte and since 1810 separated wife from his younger brother Louis Bonaparte , with whom she had already had three sons, including the future Emperor Napoleon III. His father was General Charles Joseph, Count of Flahaut , Hortense's lover. According to the birth register entry in Paris on October 21, 1811, Morny was the supposed legitimate son of Auguste Jean Hyacinthe Demorny , an alleged landowner from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic , who was actually an officer born in Santo Domingo and without any property.

At the military

Morny grew up largely in France with his paternal grandmother, graduated brilliantly, and became an officer candidate in the French army. He graduated from the staff officers' school the following year and became a lieutenant. The comte de Morny , as he was politely called, served in Algeria from 1834 to 1835 as an adjutant to General Camille Alphonse Trézel , whom he saved under the walls of Constantine .

As an entrepreneur

However, he did not stay with the army, but returned to Paris. In 1838 he bought a beet sugar factory near Clermont-Ferrand / Auvergne and published the text Sur la question des sucres , in which he advocated the levying of tariffs on imported cane sugar. In his business activities he was supported by Fanny Mosselman (1799-1867) daughter of the industrialist François-Dominique Mosselman and wife of the Belgian ambassador Charles Le Hon until there were only a few large companies in Paris in which he was not involved.

In politics

In 1842 Morny succeeded in becoming a member of Parliament for Clermont-Ferrand. At first it did not play a significant role in party politics, but was heard as soon as industrial and financial questions were raised. He supported the regime of King Ludwig Philip because any overturn would have disrupted his commercial interests, but at the same time sympathized with the legitimists who viewed the Count of Chambord as the legitimate King of France. His political opportunism is evident in his answer to the question of what he would do if the House of Representatives were swept : I would take the side of the broom.

The revolution of 1848 ruined it at times. After Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte , his older half-brother, was elected President (1849), he was accepted into the inner circle of power around him and supported him very efficiently in his coup d'état of December 2, 1851 . The next day he was appointed Minister of the Interior.

After six months, during which he had shown remarkable moderation in dealing with his political opponents, he resigned, allegedly because he disapproved of the confiscation of the property of the Louis Philippe family, but in fact because he resented Napoleon, influenced by rivals. that he insisted on belonging to the Bonapartes family and derived political and social claims from it. He resumed his entrepreneurial activities, and when he became President of the Corps législatif in 1854 , which he remained until his death, he used his office, without neglecting it, to further his business.

In 1856 Morny traveled as the emperor's special envoy to the coronation of Tsar Alexander II. He fulfilled his mission with lavish splendor and brought along a wife, Princess Sophie Trubetskoi , who noticeably strengthened his position through her high descent.

In 1862 Morny's career culminated with his elevation to the rank of duke. It is claimed that he aspired to the throne of Mexico and that Napoleon's diplomatic and military efforts in favor of Archduke Maximilian Morny's plans were to thwart his plans.

Despite occasional differences of opinion, his influence on his half-brother Napoleon remained great. Thanks to his liberal positions, which he maintained, he was able to serve the emperor's cause even with leaders of the opposition: the most dangerous of them, Émile Ollivier , was replaced due to Morny's efforts. But while he was laying the foundations of a “liberal empire”, he ruined his health through the stresses of politics and business, pleasure and debauchery, but also through his weakness for quacks. The Emperor and Empress visited him shortly before his death in Paris on March 10, 1865. He did not live to see the fall of the Empire in 1870.

His youngest daughter Mathilde de Morny, Marquise de Belbeuf (1862–1944), caused a sensation at the turn of the century through her lesbian relationship with the writer Colette .

Cultural activities

Morny was also active in cultural terms. He collected art and left a valuable collection of paintings. He has also written plays, including Sur la grande route , Les Bons conseils , La Manie des proverbes , M. Choufleuri restera chez lui le ... and Finesses du matin , which he published under the pseudonym M. de St Rémy . But none of them had any major success on stage.

The character of Mornys is also known from the play Le Duc de Mora ou Le Nabab by Alphonse Daudet , who was temporarily his secretary.

Awards

• 1852: Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor
• 1862: Duke of Morny

literature

• Hippolyte Castille : M. de Morny . Dentu, Paris 1859.
• Gerda Grothe: The Duke of Morny. The second man in the empire of Napoleon III. Propylaea Publishing House, Berlin 1966.
• Arthur de La Guéronnière : Etudes et portraits politiques contemporains . Plon, Paris 1856.
• Frédéric Loliée : The Duke of Morny and the Society of the Second Empire. According to the family documents and secret archives of the Ministry of the Interior (“Le Duc de Morny et la société du second empire”). Beckmann publishing house, Berlin 1913.
• Frédéric Lolilée (ed.): Une Ambassade en Russie 1856. Extrait des mémoires de Morny . Ollendorf, Paris 1892.

predecessor	Office	successor
Adolphe Billault	President of the French legislature November 12, 1854-10. March 1865	Alexandre Colonna, Comte Walewski