Charles-Joseph Bresson

Charles-Joseph Bresson

Charles-Joseph, comte Bresson (born March 27, 1798 in Épinal ( Vosges ), † November 2, 1847 in Naples ) was a French diplomat and politician . He was a confidante of the "citizen king" Louis-Philippe I.

Life

Charles-Joseph Bresson, whose father François-Léopold Bresson was head of division in the Foreign Ministry under Napoleon , came from a family in Lorraine. He began his diplomatic career during the Restoration . Promoted from Minister of the Navy Hyde de Neuville to French Chargé d'Affaires in the young Free State of Colombia , he ran the plans of an anti-republican party there that desired a French prince to be king. Only the consideration of the French Bourbons towards the Spanish suppressed the negotiations that had already been initiated.

For European politics, Bresson's activity was only used after the July Revolution of 1830 and initially in Switzerland , whose agenda he had to announce in an extraordinary broadcast of the accession of Louis-Philip I to the throne. On his return he became first secretary at the French embassy in London led by Talleyrand and was commissioned at the beginning of November 1830 to present the resolutions of the London conference with the British embassy secretary Cartwright to the provisional Belgian government . He was particularly effective in settling the Belgian-Dutch dispute. He also successfully established the connection between the new King of the Belgians, Leopold I , and Princess Louise of Orléans , the eldest daughter of Louis-Philippe I. As a result, he became very popular with the French king and was said to be Countess Le's lover at the time Hon , the wife of the Belgian ambassador in Paris.

After Bresson had so brilliantly demonstrated his diplomatic talent, he went to Berlin in 1833 as chargé d'affaires with the title of Ministre plénipotentiaire . Even in this difficult position he proved himself. The complete reversal of diplomatic relations between France and Prussia , the friendly rapprochement between two courts, whose relations towards the end of 1832 had been extremely tense, were brought about by him. On November 10, 1834, he was appointed French Foreign Minister in the short-lived Maret Ministry, which lasted only a few days , but did not even arrive in Paris before its overthrow. So he stayed in Berlin and successfully negotiated the marriage of the Duke of Orléans with Princess Helene of Mecklenburg-Schwerin , which sealed the new alliance between France and Prussia. On the occasion of the duke's wedding, Louis-Philippe I raised Bresson to Count and Peer of France in May 1837 . Also in 1839 Bresson was mentioned when the new ministry was formed.

Called to Paris in 1841 to give his verdict on the project to fortify Paris, Bresson made a memorable parliamentary speech in favor of its necessity, although he did not hide the anti-popular motives for this. From Paris he went to Madrid in 1844 as the French envoy and in October 1846 brought about the double wedding of the Spanish Queen Isabella II with Francisco de Asís de Borbón and of Isabella's sister Luisa Fernanda with the Duke of Montpensier . In the difficult marriage negotiations that were necessary, the French interests were strongly opposed to those of England and Bresson had sometimes had to thwart the dishonest maneuvers of the British ambassador to Spain, Henry Bulwer-Lytton .

After his recall in 1847, Bresson went to London for a few weeks, ostensibly to personally convince himself whether his intended appointment as French ambassador to the British cabinet ran into obstacles. He is said to have found a very friendly reception with Lord Palmerston and based on this the desire to receive the desired diplomatic post.

In the summer of 1847, however, Bresson's appointment as envoy in Naples took place. Conditions here were unfavorable, for the French squadron he expected to find there had already sailed and an English fleet was in port. At first the king wanted to receive him in Portici, but at his urgent request granted him an audience in the residence itself, which was outwardly very splendid. Later he was upset and upset, but on October 31, 1847 he was still at a party with the Spanish ambassador, and on the evening of November 1 he went to the theater. That same night at five o'clock in the morning his wife heard an unusual noise in his bedroom and hurried over to find him lying on the floor covered in blood. He had cut his neck with a razor. The motives for this act are given very differently. Bresson's mental disorder, the failure of ambitious plans or domestic grief are said to have caused suicide. Bresson left a son from his first marriage, a widow and a son from his second marriage, François-Paul-Ferdinand-Philippe Bresson, Duke of Santa Isabel (* 1844, † 1863).

literature

• Bresson, Charles . In: Heinrich August Pierer (ed.): Universal-Lexikon der Gegenwart und Past , 4th edition, Vol. 3 (1857), p. 291.