Charles Colbert, marquis de Croissy
Charles Colbert de Croissy (born August 5, 1629 in Reims , † July 28, 1696 in Versailles ) was a French diplomat and foreign minister under King Louis XIV of the Colbert family and the younger brother of Jean-Baptiste Colbert .
Life and work
Charles Colbert began his career in the administration of Secretary of War Michel Le Tellier . In 1656 Colbert acquired a council seat in the Parlement of Metz and in 1658 he was appointed Intendant of Alsace and President of the newly created Supreme Court of Alsace. In this position he was supposed to reorganize the territory which France had only recently acquired and to set up new administrative structures. Thanks to the support of his older brother at court, Charles Colbert was entrusted with various diplomatic missions to Germany and Italy from 1659 to 1661 . In 1662 the king made him marquis de Croissy , and Colbert received the most prestigious post of président à mortier at the Parlement of Metz.
After serving the king several times as provincial director (1665 Soissons , 1666 Amiens and 1667 Paris ), he finally switched to diplomacy. In 1668 he represented France in the negotiations for the Peace of Aachen as envoy extraordinary and shortly afterwards as ambassador in London in order to prepare a possible alliance with Charles II of England. To this end, he arranged the diplomatic meeting between the English king and his sister, the Duchess Henriette d'Orléans , which ultimately led to the Treaty of Dover and enabled a Franco-English offensive alliance against Holland . It was also Charles Colbert who introduced the French court lady Louise de Kérouaille to Charles II as his new mistress .
His negotiating skills during the negotiations for the Peace of Nijmegen from 1676 to 1679 increased his reputation with Louis XIV immensely, who then disgraced his Foreign Minister Simon Arnauld de Pomponne in 1679 and replaced him with Colbert de Croissy. Charles Colbert was considered extraordinarily talented and was instrumental in the formulation and implementation of the reunion policy . He had already conceived this in the late 1650s using the example of Alsace and, after his appointment as minister, proposed it to the king as a non-martial means of expansion and border straightening. To secure the French influence in Central Europe, Colbert de Croissy negotiated alliances with Brandenburg (1681) and Denmark (1683). As early as 1679 in Munich, he had led negotiations on the marriage of the French Crown Prince Louis to the Bavarian Elector Princess Maria Anna . During these negotiations he was appointed minister by the king.
The repeal of the Edict of Nantes (1685) made some of his Central European treaties null and void, as some Protestant states were now critical of France. Therefore, Colbert de Croissy began to prepare for a French war against the empire (1688). He was still preparing the Rijswijk peace negotiations before he died in 1696. His son Colbert de Torcy immediately succeeded him as Foreign Minister.
literature
- Gustave Louis Chaix d'Est-Ange: Dictionnaire des familles françaises anciennes ou notables à la fin du XIXe siècle. XI , Évreux , 1912, p. 174, digitized
Web links
- Information on Charles Colbert, marquis de Croissy in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France .
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Simon Arnaud, marquis de Pomponne |
Foreign Minister of France November 18, 1679–28. July 1696 |
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, marquis de Torcy |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Croissy, Charles Colbert, marquis de |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Colbert de Croissy, Charles |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French diplomat and foreign minister |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 5, 1629 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Reims |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 28, 1696 |
| Place of death | Versailles |