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Choiseul, EF Comte

Étienne-François, comte de Stainville, duc de Choiseul (28 June 1719 – 8 May 1785) was a French military officer, diplomat and statesman. Between 1758 and 1761, and 1766 and 1770, he was Foreign Minister of France and had a strong influence on France's global strategy throughout the period. He is closely associated with France's defeat in the Seven Years War and subsequent efforts to rebuild French prestige.

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Biography[edit]

Rise[edit]

The eldest son of François Joseph de Choiseul, marquis de Stainville (1700–1770),[1] Étienne François was born in Nancy in the Duchy of Lorraine where his father was one of the leading advisors to the Duke of Lorraine who ruled an independent French-speaking state with close cultural and political links with France.[citation needed] At birth, he bore the title of comte de Stainville.[1] In 1737 Stephen Henry, Duke of Lorraine (the future Holy Roman Emperor Francis I) was pressured into giving up Lorraine and becoming ruler of Tuscany in Italy. Realising that continued loyalty to the House of Lorraine would limit his opportunities, Étienne François transferred his allegiance to France.[2]

After gaining experience during the Austro-Turkish War,[2] the comte de Stainville entered the French army, and during the War of the Austrian Succession served inBohemia (1741) and in Italy (1744), where he distinguished himself at the Battle of Coni.[1] He was also present at the Battle of Dettingen in Germany and carried news of the French defeat there to Paris.[3] He had been appalled by what he had witnessed of the French forces at Dettingen, particularly what he later described as their "indifference and ignorance", and his experiences motivated his later reforms of the French military.[4]

From 1745 to 1748, he was with the army in the Low Countries, and was present at the sieges of Mons, Charleroi and Maastricht.[1] He attained the rank of lieutenant-general and, in 1750, married Louise Honorine Crozat, daughter of Louis François Crozat, marquis du Châtel (d. 1750), who brought her husband her share of the large fortune of her grandfather Antoine Crozat and proved a most devoted wife.[1]

Choiseul gained the favour of Madame de Pompadour by procuring for her letters which King Louis XV had written to his cousin's wife, Charlotte-Rosalie de Romanet, comtesse de Choiseul-Baupré, with whom the king had formerly had an intrigue;[1] and after a short time as bailli of the Vosges he was given the appointment of ambassador to Rome in 1753, where he was entrusted with the negotiations concerning the disturbances called forth by the papal bull Unigenitus. He acquitted himself skillfully in this task, and, in 1757, his patroness obtained his transfer to Vienna, where he was instructed to cement the new alliance between France and Austria. He was one of the principal authors of the Second Treaty of Versailles, signed in May 1757, which pledged the two states to a combined war in Germany against Prussia.[1]

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Assessment

Choiseul possessed both ability and diligence, and though lacking in tenacity, he showed foresight and liberality in his direction of affairs.[citation needed] In appearance he was a short, ill-featured man, with a ruddy countenance and a sturdy frame. His Mémoires were written during his exile in Chanteloup, and are merely detached notes upon different questions.[1]

English writer Horace Walpole, in his Memoirs, gives a vivid description of the duke's character, accuses him of having caused the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), as a revenge on tsarina Catherine II, and says of his foreign policy: "he would project and determine the ruin of a country, but could not meditate a little mischief or a narrow benefit. ... He dissipated the nation's wealth and his own; but did not repair the latter by plunder of the former". In reference to Choiseul's private life, Walpole asserts that "gallantry without delicacy was his constant pursuit".[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tienne_Fran%C3%A7ois,_duc_de_Choiseul