WALEWSKI, ALEXANDRE FLORIAN JOSEPH COLONNA, COIITE (1810-1868)

This article appears in Volume V28, Page 270 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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WALEWSKI, ALEXANDRE FLORIAN JOSEPH COLONNA, COIITE (1810-1868) , French politician and diplomatist, was born at Walewice near Warsaw on the 4th of May 181o, the son of

Napoleon

NAPOLEON

I. and his mistress Marie, Countess Walewski. At fourteen Walewski refused to enter the Russian army, escaping to London and thence to Paris, where the French government refused his extradition to the Russian authorities. Louis Philippe sent him to Poland in 1830, and he was then entrusted by the leaders of the Polish revolution with a mission to London. After the fall of Warsaw he took out letters of naturalization in France and entered the French army, seeing some service in

Algeria

ALGERIA
ALGERIA (Algerie)

. In 1837 he resigned his commission and began to write for the stage and for the press. He is said to have collaborated with the elder Dumas in Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle, and a comedy of his, L'Ecole du monde, was produced at the Theatre Francais in 184o. In that year his

paper

PAPER
PAPER (Fr. papier, from Lat. papyrus)

, Le Messager des chambres, was taken over by

Thiers

THIERS

, who sent him on a mission to Egypt, and under the Guizot ministry he was sent to Buenos Aires to co-operate with the British minister Lord Howden (Sir J. Caradoc). The accession of Louis

Napoleon

NAPOLEON

to the supreme power in France guaranteed his career. He was sent as

envoy

ENVOY (Fr. envoye, " sent ")

extra-

ordinary

ORDINARY (med. Lat. ordinarius, Fr. ordinaire)

to Florence, to Naples and then to London, where he announced the coup d'etat to

Palmerston

(q.v.). In 1855 Walewski succeeded Drouyn de Lhuys as minister of foreign affairs, and acted as French plenipotentiary at the Congress of Paris next year. When he left the Foreign Office in 186o it was to become minister of state, an office which he held until 1863. Senator from 1855 to 1865, he entered the Corps Legislatif in 1865, and was installed, by the emperor's

interest

INTEREST

, as president of the Chamber. A revolt against his authority two years later sent him back to the Senate. He died at Strassburg on the 27th of October 1868. He had been created a duke in 1866, was amember of the

Academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

of Fine Arts and a grand cross of the Legion of Honour.

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