Eugène François d'Arnauld

Eugène François d'Arnauld
Born	11 August 1774 Vitrolles, Hautes-Alpes, France
Died	1 August 1854 Paris, France
Nationality	French
Occupation	Politician

Eugène François Auguste d'Arnauld, baron de Vitrolles (11 August 1774 – 1 August 1854) was a French aristocrat and politician, supporter of Charles X, opponent of Louis XVIII's policies.

Biography

Eugène François d'Arnauld was born in Vitrolles, Hautes-Alpes, the only son of Paul-Auguste d'Arnauld (1737–1791) and Françoise-Joséphine de la Balme de Pina. He was baptized the next day. A cousin of Admiral de Suffren, he was brought up by his uncle, Abbot de Pina, grand vicar of Puy, who got him into the boarding school of Monistrol, near this town, under the effective rule of a then-famous teacher, Abbot Proyart. There he took fencing lessons from a sergeant of the Royal-marine, Bernadotte, the future king of Sweden, who in 1801 had his former student removed from the emigrant list under the Consulate.

A man of the Old Regime, opposed to the Revolution of 1789, he was traveling with his uncle to Switzerland, near Lausanne, at its inception, to join the rest of the family who had seen fit to travel there for a short stay in anticipation of the events that seemed to herald the meeting of the Estates General. He did not return to France and emigrated in 1791. Enlisted in the army of the Prince of Condé, he was recalled in 1792 to Aix for family interests upon the death of his father. He distinguished himself against French armies particularly at Bertzheim in 1793, and left Condé's army in 1794. Without resources, through the intermediary of former constituent Mounier, an emigrant like himself, he was introduced to the Duchess of Bouillon in Erfurt and married her adopted daughter, Marie-Thérésia-Wilhelmine-Joséphine-Antoinette de Folleville (1773–1839), on February 1795. The couple had three children. After a brief stay in Germany, where he met Goethe, Rivarol, Klopstock and studied philosophy, he went to England. He secretly returned to France in 1799 and hid near Roermond, where his wife was expecting him.

The Emperor appointed him, without consulting him, mayor of Vitrolles, general councilor of the High Alps and inspector of the imperial sheepfolds, and created him baron of the empire on June 15, 1812. Loyal to his former masters, attached to the Duke de Dalberg and Talleyrand, he joined the latter's views in 1814, went to the allies, implored Tsar Alexander I in defense of the Bourbons' cause, and succeeded in causing the breakup of the Congress of Châtillon, the emperor's last hope. After a meeting in Nancy with the Count d'Artois, he preceded him to Paris and was appointed by this prince as provisional secretary of state on April 16, 1814. He played an important role during the first restoration, taking the order of May 12, 1814, concerning the reorganization of the French army corps. But the arrival of Louis XVIII diminished his influence and he had to settle for the title of secretary to the king's councils.

When Napoleon returned from Elba, he boldly advised the king to put himself at the head of the western departments, but the advice to leave for Ghent prevailed, and he was instructed to go and relieve the south. Returning to Toulouse, he concentrated all powers in his hands, organized battalions of royal volunteers, but, betrayed by the revolt of an artillery battalion, was arrested and imprisoned at the Château de Vincennes, then in the prison of the Abbey. An order from Fouché restored his freedom after Waterloo, and on his return from Ghent he was placed by the Duke of Angoulême at the head of the loyalist movement in Toulouse. The Duke's departure for Paris ended his authority.

Elected, on August 22, 1815, deputy of the great Basses-Alpes constituency to the Chamber of Deputies in the National Assembly, with 77 votes (119 voting, 179 registered), he was appointed, a month later, on September 19, Minister of State and member of the Privy Council. Sitting in the Chamber among the ultras, he opposed the dissolution of September 5, 1816, and became one of the most active and skillful agents of the Count d'Artois' personal policy. He wrote the confidential memorial to the Allied Powers of August 1816 and, in 1818, the famous secret note in which this prince called for foreign cabinets to intervene in France to overthrow the government of the Duke of Richelieu, supposedly seeking another revolution, and to place power in the hands of the ultras. In this way he wanted to influence the course of the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, and on this occasion he lost the title of Minister of State, which the king did not return to him on January 7, 1824.

Appointed minister plenipotentiary to the grand duke of Florence in December 1827, he almost entered Martignac's ministry, advised the Duke de Polignac's call to affairs, was appointed field marshal on January 7, 1828, and Peer of France on January 7, 1830. They had not informed him of the ordinances, the withdrawal of which he obtained on July 29, too late to prevent the success of the July Revolution. The fall of the House of Bourbon senior branch retired to private life.

Compromised for a moment in the insurrection attempt of the Duchess of Berry in the Vendée, in opposition to the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe, he was arrested during the sacking of the archdiocese, and released almost immediately. He spent the rest of his life away from politics, busy with the writing of his memoirs, and an active correspondence with friends he had in all parts, particularly La Mennais, and owed as much to the benevolence of his character as to the high distinction of manners he had maintained since the Old Regime.

He died of illness on August 1, 1854, in Paris.

Private life

His son Oswald d'Arnaud married Augustine Marie Alexandrine Elisabeth d'Arbaud de Jouques, daughter of Joseph Charles André d'Arbaud de Jouques (1769–1849).

Works

• De l’Économie publique réduite à un principe (1801)
• Le ministère dans le gouvernement représentatif (1814)
• Mémoires et relations politiques (1814-30) (Charpentier, 1884)
• Souvenirs autobiographiques d'un émigré (1924)
• Mémoires de Vitrolles (F. Paillart, 1952, Volume 2).

References

• Forgues, Eugène (1886). Correspondance Inédite entre Lamennais et le Baron de Vitrolles. Paris: G. Charpentier.
• Joubert, Louis (1883). "Les Mémoires de M. de Vitrolles," Le Correspondant, Vol. CXXXIII, pp. 651–66.
• Lanzac de Laborie, Léon de (1925). "La Jeunesse du Baron de Vitrolles d'après une Récente Publication," Le Correspondant, Vol. CCXCVIII, pp. 431–40.
• Royer, Louis (1937). La Duchesse de Dino et le Baron de Vitrolles, Lettres Inédites (1817-1829). Grenoble: Impr. de Allier Père et Fils.

External links

• Works by Eugène François d'Arnauld at Gallica