Agénor de Gramont (1819-1880)

Biography

Wire of Antoine IX, 9th duke of Gramont (1789 - 1855) and of the duchess born Ida d' Orsay, Agénor de Gramont had to take the way of the exile, with his/her parents, at the time of the Révolution of July. They remained in England until in 1833, then returned to Paris.

In its youth, Agénor de Gramont was the lover of the actress Rachel, of Païva and of Marie Duplessis, Dame with the camellias celebrates it: this last connection inspired the novel and the play of Alexandre Dumas wire, Agénor de Gramont becoming the character of Armand Duval. One of his/her uncles intervened to put an end to the scandal caused by this connection and Agénor was initially dispatched with London, then with Vienna, where it fell in love with Finnish, Hilda Arnold, of which it perhaps had a natural girl.

It integrated the Polytechnic school in 1837, but left the army as of 1840. At the end of 1848, it married Scottish, Emma Mac Kinnon. They had four children:

Corisande (1850-1935, countess of Brigode);
Agénor, duke of Guiche then duke of Gramont (1851-1925);
Armand, duke of Lesparre (1854-1931);
Alfred, count de Gramont (1856-1915).

Napoleon III, eager to join the former aristocratic families, named it, on December 22nd 1851, ambassador plenipotentiary at the court of Hesse-Cassel. The Saint-Germain suburb blamed it to have accepted this nomination, for which one made take the responsibility to his wife. “scornful with the men, exquisite with the women, he was an achieved ambassador, full with courtesy, majesty and culture. He did not support any competition on the article ladies, and had all those which he wanted. ” (E. of Clermont-Thunder, COp cit. , p. 24)

As of on March 5th 1852, one appointed it minister of France at the court of Wurtemberg, before naming it with Turin, on January 3rd 1853, near the king of Piedmont-Sardinia and its Prime Minister, Cavour. August 16th 1857, it was named ambassador close the the Holy See near the Pope Pie IX, with which it tied relationships of trust, even of friendship. It gave so complete satisfaction in this station that in 1861, it obtained the prestigious embassy of Vienna, where it gains the confidence of the emperor François-Joseph while his wife becomes a close friend of the empress Elisabeth.

In 1870, at the time of the resignation of Napoleon Daru of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Emile Ollivier planned to take again the wallet, but Napoleon III preferred that it is devoted to the interior policy; Ollivier sought “ then a diplomat who would hold the place as long as our period of obliteration would last, and which would return it to me at the convenient period ”. May 14th, 1870, Gramont was recalled to Paris to be appointed Foreign Minister: it is the culminating point of its career at the same time as the cause of its political and personal loss. Partisan convinced of an alliance with the Austria and the Italy, it ignores the rise of the Prussia. When the Spain to plan to carry on its throne the prince Léopold de Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, resulting from a side branch of the royal house of Prussia, it made with the foreign chancelleries statements of a rare violence, which were at the origin of the climbing which was to lead to the declaration of war in Prussia the July 18th 1870. In this business, Gramont treated directly with the Emperor, putting Emile Ollivier in front of the accomplished fact.

With the defeat, humiliation, the collapse of the Second Empire, Gramont became a true goat-emissary. Disillusioned, it will note in a letter of August 16th, 1871 quoted by its biographer Constantin de Grunwald: “ For me, I acknowledge that of all the losses, cruelest is that which I did by losing my faith in my country and the regard which I had for the French character. Having lived twenty years abroad, I did not believe in so many ignorance, vanity, weakness and lies. This poor country seems to me rotted to the marrow of the bones. ”

After having spent some time to England, it bought a hotel Rue Perugia (XVIe district) where it was withdrawn, while his wife continued to frequently receive. It published in 1872 a plea pro domo : France and Prussia before the war . He died in 1880.

Works

France and Prussia before the war (1872)
History and genealogy of the house of Gramont (1874)
Passed and present, study of modern history (1875) (under the pseudonym of Memor)
new Germany. 1863-1867 (1879)
Jean-Etienne-Eugene de Jacob of Cottière, member of the Company of the men of letters of France (1885) (under the pseudonym of Memor)
Memories, 1848-1850 , published by the duke of Lesparre (1901)

References

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