Louis Pierre Édouard, Baron Bignon (3 January 1771 in La Mailleraye-sur-Seine – 6 January 1841) was a French diplomat and historian.

Biography

Louis de Bignon was born at La Mailleraye-sur-Seine,

Seine-Maritime Seine-Maritime () is a department of France in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the northern coast of France, at the mouth of the Seine, and includes the cities of Rouen and Le Havre. Until 1955 it was named Seine-Inféri ...

, the son of a dyer. Although he had received a good education, he served throughout the early part of the

French Revolutionary Wars The French Revolutionary Wars (french: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted France against Britain, Austria, Prussia ...

without rising above the rank of private. In 1797, however, the attention of Talleyrand, then minister of foreign affairs was called to his exceptional abilities by General Huet, and he was attached to the diplomatic service. After serving in the legations in Switzerland and the

Cisalpine Republic The Cisalpine Republic ( it, Repubblica Cisalpina) was a sister republic of France in Northern Italy that existed from 1797 to 1799, with a second version until 1802. Creation After the Battle of Lodi in May 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte organiz ...

, he was appointed in 1799

attaché In diplomacy, an attaché is a person who is assigned ("to be attached") to the diplomatic or administrative staff of a higher placed person or another service or agency. Although a loanword from French, in English the word is not modified accord ...

to the French legation at Berlin, three years later he became '' chargé d'affaires''. As minister-plenipotentiary at

Cassel Cassel may refer to: People * Cassel (surname) Places ;France * Cassel, Nord, a town and commune in northern France ** Battle of Cassel (1071) ** Battle of Cassel (1328) ** Battle of Cassel (1677) ;Germany * Cassel, Germany, a city in Hesse re ...

, between the years 1804 and 1806, he took a prominent share in the formation of the

confederation of the Rhine The Confederated States of the Rhine, simply known as the Confederation of the Rhine, also known as Napoleonic Germany, was a confederation of German client states established at the behest of Napoleon some months after he defeated Austria an ...

; and after the battle of Jena he returned to

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

as the administrator of the public domains and finances. He filled a similar function in Austria after the

battle of Wagram The Battle of Wagram (; 5–6 July 1809) was a military engagement of the Napoleonic Wars that ended in a costly but decisive victory for Emperor Napoleon's French and allied army against the Austrian army under the command of Archduke Charles ...

. At the end of 1810, he became a French resident at

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

and was for a couple of years supreme in the affairs of the

grand duchy A grand duchy is a country or territory whose official head of state or ruler is a monarch bearing the title of grand duke or grand duchess. Relatively rare until the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the term was often used in the o ...

. The preparation of a constitution for Poland, on which he was engaged, was, however, interrupted by the events of 1812. Bignon, after a short imprisonment at the hands of the allies, returned to France in time to witness the downfall of

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

. During the Hundred Days he once more entered Napoleon's service, and, after the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...

, as minister of foreign affairs under the executive commission, it was he who signed the

Convention of St. Cloud The Convention of Saint-Cloud was a military convention signed on 3 July 1815 by which the French army under Marshal Davout surrendered Paris to the armies of Prince Blücher and the Duke of Wellington, ending the hostilities of the Hundred Days. T ...

of 3 July 1815, by which Paris was handed over to the allies. Bignon did not re-enter public life until 1817 when he was elected to the chamber of deputies, in which he sat until 1830, consistent in his opposition to the reactionary policy of successive governments. His great reputation and his diplomatic experience gave a special weight to the attacks which he published on the policy of the continental allies, two of his works attracting special attention, ''Du congrès de Troppau ou Examen des prétentions des monarchies absolues à l’égard de la monarchie constitutionnelle de Naples'' (Paris, 1821), and ''Les Cabinets et les peuples depuis 1815 jusqu’à la fin de 1822'' (Paris, 1822). The

July Revolution The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution (french: révolution de Juillet), Second French Revolution, or ("Three Glorious ays), was a second French Revolution after the first in 1789. It led to the overthrow of King ...

, which brought his party into power, only led to a very temporary resumption of office by Bignon. He was for a few weeks minister of foreign affairs in the first government of

Louis Philippe Louis Philippe (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, and the penultimate monarch of France. As Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres, he distinguished himself commanding troops during the Revolutionary War ...

, and again for a few weeks minister of public instruction. But the idea of making him responsible for the foreign policy of France could not be realized owing to the necessity under which Louis Philippe lay of courting the goodwill of the powers, whom Bignon had offended by his outspoken writings. Elected deputy in 1831 and member of the chamber of peers in 1839, he withdrew for the most part from politics to devote himself to his great work, the ''Histoire de France sous Napoleon'' (10 vols. 1829–1838, then 4 posthumous vols., 1847–1850). This history, while suffering the limitations of all contemporaneous narratives, contains much that does not exist elsewhere, and is one of the best-known sources for the later histories of Napoleon's reign. In his will, Napoleon had granted Bignon 100,000 francs and charged him "to write the history of French diplomacy from 1792 to 1815," although the money was never delivered

References

;Attribution * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bignon, Louis Pierre Edouard, Baron 1771 births 1841 deaths People from Seine-Maritime Barons of the First French Empire Politicians from Normandy Orléanists French Foreign Ministers Members of the Chamber of Representatives (France) Members of the Chamber of Deputies of the Bourbon Restoration Members of the 1st Chamber of Deputies of the July Monarchy Members of the 2nd Chamber of Deputies of the July Monarchy Members of the 3rd Chamber of Deputies of the July Monarchy Members of the Chamber of Peers of the July Monarchy 19th-century French historians 18th-century French diplomats 19th-century French diplomats French male writers Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur