Éléonore François Elie Moustier, marquis de Moustier

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Éléonore François Élie Moustier, comte de Moustier , from 1801 Marquis de Moustier (born March 13, 1751 in Paris , † January 28, 1817 in Bailly ), was a French diplomat.

Life

Moustier came from a noble family from Franche-Comté . His father, the cavalry officer Louis Philippe Xavier Moustier, Marquis de Moustier, distinguished himself in the Seven Years' War . Éléonore Moustier was also trained as an officer in Besançon after attending a Jesuit college in Heidelberg . In 1767 he joined the Royal Navarre Cavalry Regiment as a sub-lieutenant . In 1769 he entered the diplomatic service and followed his brother-in-law, the Marquis de Clermont d'Amboise, who had been appointed French ambassador to Portugal, to Lisbon. After his transfer he followed him to Naples in 1775. In 1778 he was raised to the rank of mestre de camp of a dragoon regiment and appointed envoy of the French king to the Trier prince archbishop. After the Peace of Paris he was appointed to the legation in London in 1783.

In 1787 he was appointed ambassador of France to the United States, which during his stay adopted a new constitution and was ruled for the first time by a central federal government from 1789. Moustier endeavored to keep the new President George Washington close to France; The two nations had been linked by a trade treaty and an alliance treaty since the time of the American War of Independence . After the inauguration of Washington Moustier hosted such an opulent ball in which he let a company of cotillion dancers perform, dressed in the flags of the two nations. However, Moustier was extremely unpopular with the American people. He is said to have abhorred American cuisine and therefore brought his own food with him when he was invited; quite a few Americans saw themselves offended by his haughty demeanor and arrogance. The decisive factor for Moustier's mission in the United States, however, was the fact that he apparently had an inadmissible love affair with his sister-in-law, Mme de Bréhan, whom he had brought with him to New York, which led to countless rumors and ultimately became a political issue. In February 1789, Foreign Secretary Thomas Jefferson saw himself compelled to suggest that Moustier be recalled to Paris. The French foreign minister, the Comte de Montmorin , could not identify any serious misconduct in the affair, but put Moustier on leave until further notice. In October 1789, Moustier left the United States and returned to France, where the revolution had meanwhile begun.

In 1790 Moustier was appointed ministre plénipotentiaire to the embassy in Berlin. In September 1791 King Louis XVI carried him . the post of foreign minister, since he was considered a reliable monarchist, but revolutionary circles, but apparently also the circle around Jacques Necker and Madame de Staël, opposed his appointment, and so Moustier finally refused the king's request with regard to the political Situation and was instead appointed Ambassador to the Sublime Porte . But he soon left this post and returned to Prussia. In the following years he lived alternately in England and Prussia and tried there on behalf of numerous exiled French nobles to move the European monarchies to fight the revolution. So he could during the captivity of Louis XVI. convince the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II in 1792 to recognize the comte de Provence as French regent and thus as a negotiating partner. In 1795, the Comte appointed him general commissioner for the rebellious areas in western France, which were briefly under royalist control again, but Moustier had to flee France again with the final suppression of the Vendée uprising . From 1801 to 1806 he lived again in Berlin as the secret envoy of the comte de Provence, until the advance of Napoleonic troops forced him to flee to England again. In the entourage of the Comte, soon as Louis XVIII. crowned king, he returned to France in 1814. On December 30th of the year he was raised to the rank of Maréchal de Camp , retrospectively to January 1st, 1794 , then appointed lieutenant general on the 2nd . He spent the last three years of his life in a country house in Bailly near Versailles, where he died in 1817.

His grandson Lionel de Moustier (1817–1869) was French Foreign Minister under Napoleon III from 1866 to 1868 .

Works

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ All biographical information, unless otherwise stated, according to: Jean Chrétien Ferdinand Hoefer (ed.): Nouvelle biographie générale depuis les temps les plus recules jusqu'à nos jours . Volume XXXVI, Paris 1861, Col. 803-805.
  2. ↑ Currently as Ambassador to the United States, see: Alexander DeConde: Entangling Alliance: Politics & Diplomacy under George Washington. Duke University Press, Durham, NC 1958. pp. 164-169.
  3. ^ Frédéric Masson: Le département des affaires étrangères pendant la révolution, 1787–1804 . E. Plon, Paris 1877, p. 120.
personal data
SURNAME Moustier, Éléonore François Elie Moustier, marquis de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Moustier, Éléonore François Elie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1751
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris , France
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1817
Place of death Bailly , United States