Louis Augustin d'Affry

Louis Augustin d'Affry as a general, detail from a painting

D'Affry on a contemporary picture by Roslin

Flag of the Regiment d'Affry in French service

Louis Auguste Augustin Comte d'Affry , Seigneur de Saint-Barthélémy et de Bretigny , Chevalier du Saint-Esprit (born February 28, 1713 in Versailles , † June 10, 1793 in Saint-Barthélemy ), was a Swiss military in French service in Age of Enlightenment . As maréchal de camp and lieutenant-général of the king, administrator of the Swiss troops in the French service, colonel and commander of the regiment of the Gardes suisses , military governor of Paris and ambassador of the old Confederation in France, d'Affry was one of the most successful Swiss in foreign service.

On his father's side, Louis Augustin came from the old Freiburg noble family of the Affry, who had provided numerous officers of the Swiss troops in French service since 1536. He was connected to the Bernese aristocracy through his mother, Marie von Diesbach- Steinbrugg . His father, François d'Affry , rose to lieutenant-général during the wars in Italy and, from 1715, he wore the Order of St. Louis , the highest order of military merit in France. He was killed in the battle of Guastalla in 1734 . Since his maternal uncle, Hans Friedrich von Diesbach-Steinbrugg, was the head of cabinet at the court of the German emperor, the emperor took over the sponsorship of Louis Augustin.

Louis Augustin joined the Swiss Guard as a cadet in 1725 and was promoted to Brigadier des armées du Roi (commander of the Swiss troops in the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745) in 1744 , and to Maréchal de camp in 1748 and was finally appointed Lieutenant-General in 1758. D'Affry was not only active militarily but also diplomatically. In 1755 he became an authorized minister and from 1759 to 1762 ambassador to the French king Louis XV. in the States General (Netherlands). After his return he became Colonel of the Royal Swiss Guard in Paris in 1767 and Administrator of the Old Confederation and the Three Leagues in Versailles in 1771 , representing the interests of the Swiss troops in French service and a kind of permanent envoy of the Confederation in France. While the king's brother was a minor, he assumed supreme command of all Swiss troops in France (1789–1792). He received numerous awards from the French king, including the Order of St. Ludwig in 1779 and, as the only Swiss, the Order of the Holy Spirit in 1784 . As an enlightened aristocrat , he had been a member of the Freemason Lodge Société Olympique since 1786 . In his Paris residences on the Rue des Saints-Pères and the Place Vendôme , d'Affry often received representatives of the Parisian salon world as well as contemporary freethinkers and philosophers. Voltaire and Madame de Pompadour also frequented him .

After the failed escape of Louis XVI. on 20./21. On June 6th, 1791, Louis Augustin d'Affry was appointed commander of the military division of Paris and the Île-de-France and took the oath on June 21st before the National Assembly . During the revolution, d'Affry attracted both friends and opponents of the revolution for his hesitant behavior, as he tried to keep the Swiss troops out of the entanglements and battles over the revolution in order to cause a scandal and an end to the traditional Swiss military service in France prevent. In particular, he resisted strong pressure from aristocratic circles to order a military coup against the National Assembly. Signed by old age and illness, Affry did not take part in the defense of the Tuileries by the Swiss Guard on August 10, 1792 (→ Tuileries storm ), but was also arrested. Despite the generally bad mood against the Swiss, d'Affry's house was defended by the National Guard against an angry crowd, so that he survived August 10th as one of the few prominent representatives of the Guard. After a trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal on September 2, he was acquitted because, on the one hand, he was considered an opponent of the Queen and, on the other hand, he could make credible that he was not involved in the events surrounding the Tuileries Tower and that he neither ordered nor prepared its defense. His role was controversial in Swiss historiography, but he was certainly not senile or unable to carry out his duties due to his age. At least he managed to lead the majority of the Swiss troops in Paris and France out of the chaotic conditions unmolested.

Since France dismissed all Swiss troops from his service as a result of August 10 , he took on the task of leading the approx. 50,000 Swiss troops home and left Paris on October 20, 1792. He then lived in the family castle in Saint-Barthélemy until his death .

Louis Augustin d'Affry was the father of Louis d'Affry , the first Landammann of Switzerland in 1803.

Web links

• Alain-Jacques Czouz-Tornare: Affry, Ludwig August Augustin von. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Website of Saint-Barthélémy Castle with information on Louis Augustin d'Affry (French)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Freemasons in the shadow of Catholicism Newspaper article on the website of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) of March 27, 2001 (accessed on September 9, 2019)