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Charles Colbert, Marquis of Croissy (1625 – July 28, 1696) was a French statesman and diplomat.
Biography
Colbert was born in Reims. Like his elder brother Jean-Baptiste Colbert, he began his career in the office of the minister of war Le Tellier.[1]
In 1656 he bought a counsellorship at the parlement of Metz, and in 1658 was appointed intendant of Alsace and president of the newly created sovereign council of Alsace. In this position he had to re-organise the territory recently annexed to France. The steady support of his brother at court gained for him several diplomatic missions to Germany and Italy (1659–1661). In 1662 he became marquis de Croissy and président à mortier of the parlement of Metz.[1]
After various intendancies, at Soissons (1665), at Amiens (1666), and at Paris (1667), he turned to diplomacy for good. In 1668, he represented France at the conference of Aix-la-Chapelle; and in August of the same year was sent as ambassador to the Court of St. James in London, where he was to negotiate the definite Treaty of Dover with Charles II of England, (1630-1685). He arranged the interview at Dover on the English Channel between King Charles and his sister Henrietta of Orléans, gained the King's personal favor by finding a mistress for him, Louise de Kéroualle, maid of honour to Madame, and persuaded him to declare the Third Anglo-Dutch War against the Dutch Republic.[1]
The negotiation of the Treaty of Nijmwegen (1676–1678) still further increased his reputation as a diplomat and King Louis XIV, (1638-1715), made him secretary of state for foreign affairs for France after the disgrace of Arnauld de Pomponne, brought about by his brother in 1679. He at once assumed the entire direction of French royal diplomacy. Foreign ambassadors were no longer received and diplomatic instructions were no longer given by other secretaries of state. It was he, not de Louvois, who formed the idea of annexation during a time of peace, by means of the chambers of reunion. He had outlined this plan as early as 1658 with regard to Alsace. His policy at first was to retain the territory annexed by the chambers of reunion without declaring war, and for this purpose he signed treaties of alliance with the elector of Brandenburg (1681), and with Denmark (1683); but the troubles following upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) forced him to give up his scheme and to prepare for war with Germany (1688). The negotiations for peace had been begun again when he died at the Palace of Versailles, outside of Paris, on 28 July 1696. His clerk, Bergeret, was his assistant.[1]
Marriage and children
In 1664, he married Françoise Béraud, daughter of a rich banker, who brought with her the territory of Croissy, which would be turned into a Marquisate in July 1676. They had 7 children:
- Jean Baptiste Colbert, Marquis of Torcy (1665–1746), succeeded him as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
- Charles Joachim Colbert (1667–1738), Bishop of Montpellier.
- Marie-Françoise (1671–1724), married the Marquis of Bouzols.
- Louis-François Henri Colbert, Count of Croissy (1676–1747), military and diplomat.
- Charlotte Colbert (1678–1765), abbess of the Maubuisson Abbey.
- Marguerite Thérèse Colbert (1682–1769), married the Marquis de Reynal and later the Duke of Saint-Pierre.
- Olympe Sophie Colbert (1686–1705), did not marry.
References
- ^ a b c d One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Colbert de Croissy, Charles". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 659.
2 Annotations
First Reading
pepfie • Link
A working and up-to-date link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Char…
"In 1668 he represented France at the conference of Aix-la-Chapelle; and in August of the same year was sent as ambassador to London, where he was to negotiate the definite Treaty of Dover with Charles II."
Third Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
BOOK REVIEW: DEVIL-LAND by Dr. Clare Jackson, Senior Tutor of Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, offers a riveting insight into foreign diplomats’ perceptions of 17th-century England
Few 17th-century diplomats relished the prospect of London as their next posting. In 1652, England was nicknamed ‘Devil-Land’, or ‘Duyvel-Landt’, by a Dutch pamphleteer. Reversing familiar Latin puns, whereby the English (‘Angli’) were to be cherished as cherubic angels (‘angeli’), the English appeared as diabolically dreadful king-killers. (In January 1649, they had sent shockwaves throughout the Continental by putting their divinely ordained king, Charles, on trial for high treason and executing him in public. Three days after the regicide, the dazed Spanish Ambassador in London, Alonso de Cárdenas, reported to Philip IV “we are here in utter chaos, living without religion, king or law, subject entirely to the power of the sword.”)
In "Devil-Land: England under Siege 1588-1688," foreign diplomats are center stage, supplying detailed commentaries on the most turbulent century in English history.
Bookended by two invasion attempts, Devil-Land opens with Spain’s failed Armada in 1588 and concludes with William of Orange successfully landing at Torbay, Devon a century later, with 500 ships and 15,000 soldiers and prompting his Catholic uncle and father-in-law, James VII & II, to flee to Louis XIV’s France.
As Devil-Land reveals, diplomats’ observations supply incisive critiques of Stuart rule in England as foreign ambassadors continually calibrated the standing of their own country vis-à-vis that of other states through interactions at court, intelligence gathering and unofficial patronage.
At the same time, ambassadors’ assessments were inescapably subjective and distorted, since diplomats deployed a double vision, observing events in their host country less in terms of their domestic impact than as the basis for reports to be returned to their own country.
As Louis XIV reminded a new envoy to London in 1663, “there is nothing in the whole world that does not come under the cognisance and fall within the sphere of an ambassador.”
To foreign envoys residing in London, ‘Devil-Land’ was inherently unstable and infuriatingly unpredictable: its political infrastructure was weak, its inhabitants were dangerously capricious, and its intentions were impossible to fathom.
As one flummoxed Venetian envoy, Anzolo Correr, concluded in the 1630s, “there was no school in the world where one could learn how to negotiate with the English.”
When it comes to trading insults, ... has [anything] changed from 1638 when Louis XIV’s chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, “stated emphatically that, at present, England might be called the country where they talk of everything and conclude nothing.”
Excerpts taken from the book review of "Devil-Land: England under Siege, 1588-1688" (Allen Lane, 2021), by Clare Jackson
https://diplomatmagazine.com/devi…