François Barbé-Marbois: Difference between revisions

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Barbé-Marbois was elected a Foreign Honorary Member to both the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]]<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780-20101780–2010: Chapter B|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterB.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|accessdateaccess-date=17 May 2011}}</ref> and the [[American Philosophical Society]]<ref name=aps>{{ cite journal|title=The Early French Members of the American Philosophical Society |author=J. G. Rosengarten |journal= [[American Philosophical Society#Publications|Transactions of the American Philosophical Society]] |year=1907 |volume=46 |issue=185 |pagepages=8787–93 |location=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |jstor=983442}}</ref> in 1781. When the minister [[Chevalier de la Luzerne]] returned to France in 1783, Barbé-Marbois remained in America as chargé d'affaires in 1784. That year he married Elizabeth Moore (1765-18341765–1834), the daughter of [[William Moore (statesman)|William Moore]], former governor of [[Pennsylvania]].

At the close of 1789, he returned to France, and then placed his services at the disposal of the [[French Revolution]]ary government. In 1791 he was sent to [[Regensburg]] to help the [[Emmanuel Marie Louis, marquis de Noailles|Marquis de Noailles]], the French [[Ambassador (diplomacy)|ambassador]]. Suspected of [[treason]], he was arrested on his return but soon freed.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|pp=385–386}}

In 1795 he was elected to the [[Council of the Ancients]], where the general [[Moderate|moderation]] of his attitude, especially in his opposition to the [[French nobility|exclusion of nobles]] and the relations of ''[[émigré]]s'' from public life, brought him under suspicion of being a royalist, though he pronounced a [[eulogy]] on [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] for his [[French Revolutionary Wars: Campaigns of 1797|success in Italy]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=386}}

AtDuring the anti-[[House of Bourbon|Royalist]] ''[[coup d'état]]'' of the [[FrenchCoup of Directory#18 Fructidor|18th Fructidor]] (4 September) 1797), he was arrested and transported to [[French Guiana]]. Transferred to the island of [[Oléron]] in 1799, he was set free by [[Napoleon I of France|Napoleon Bonaparte]] after the [[18 Brumaire|18 Brumaire]] Coup]]. In 1801, under the [[French Consulate|Consulate]], he became councillor of state and director of the ''[[Trésor public]]'' (Treasury), and in 1802 a [[Senate of France|senator]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=386}}

In 1803 he negotiated the [[Louisiana Purchase]] treaty by which [[Louisiana]] was ceded to the United States, and was rewarded by the [[First Consul]] with a gift of 152,000 [[French franc|francs]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=386}}

:"...''united for the most beautiful of causes, it is long since we have been as free as we are now, in the presence of the foreigner in arms.''"{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=386}}

In June of that year, under the [[First Restoration]], Barbé-Marbois was made [[Peerage of France|Peer of France]] by [[King of France|King]] [[Louis XVIII of France|Louis XVIII]], and confirmed in his office as president of the ''Cour des Comptes''. Deprived of his positions by Napoleon during the [[Hundred Days]], he was appointed [[List of Justice Ministers of France|Minister of Justice]] under the [[Armand-Emmanuel du Plessis, duc de Richelieu|Duc de Richelieu]] (August 1815), tried unsuccessfully to gain the confidence of the [[Ultra-Royalist]]s, and withdrew at the end of nine months (10 May 1816).{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=386}}

In 1830, when the [[July Revolution]] brought [[Louis-Philippe of France|Louis Philippe]] and the [[July Monarchy|Orléans Monarchy]], Barbé-Marbois went, as president of the ''Cour des Comptes'', to compliment the new king, and was confirmed in his position. He held his office until April 1834.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=386}}

In 1829 he wrote the book ''Histoire de la Louisiane et la cession de cette colonie par la France aux Etats-Unis de l'Amérique septentrionale ; précédée d'un discours sur la constitution et le gouvernement des Etats-Unis'' ("History of Louisiana and of Its Cession to the United States of Northern America; Preceded by a Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States").

Written in 1780, while secretary to the French Legationlegation to the US Army: "D'Complot du Benedict Arnold & Sir Henri Clinton contre Eunas` States du America General George Washington", Oneone of the first accounts of Arnold's treason, was not published until 1816.

*{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Barbé-Marbois, François, Marquis de|volume=3|pages=385–386}}

*https://web.archive.org/web/20040813061110/http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/france/louis2.htm

*[https://archive.today/20121211134812/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-reldem?id=WasFi29.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=352&division=div1 Letter from George Washington]

*https://web.archive.org/web/20040816205311/http://www.antebellumcovers.com/catalog104.htm

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