Alexandre de Laborde
Encyclopedia
Early years
Born in Paris, Laborde was the fourth son of the famous banker of Spanish extraction, Jean-Joseph de LabordeJean-Joseph de Laborde
- Biography:Laborde was born near Jaca in Aragon, into a modest béarnaise family. When he reached adolescence he joined his uncle, who was head of a maritime import-export company at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and took over as head of the business on the cousin's death...
, who was guillotined during the Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
. Young Laborde had been dispatched to Vienna by his father at the outbreak of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
; there he joined the Austrian army, in which he was named an officer, 10 December 1789, at the age of seventeen, by personal intervention of the Emperor Joseph II
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I...
. At first stationed at Olmuz (Moravia), he was named captain in a regiment of light cavalry in October 1791, and saw action against the Revolutionary French forces the following year along the frontiers of the Austrian Netherlands and Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
, where he distinguished himself by his generosity towards his compatriots who had been taken prisoner or wounded. In 1795 he took a long leave, first to join his widowed mother and sister in Switzerland, then, to see his brother in London. He reentered the Austrian army among Kinsky
Kinsky
The Kinsky family of the Counts and later Princes was one of the oldest and most illustrious families originating from Bohemia...
's hussars, and reached the rank of squadron leader.
Then he travelled through Germany, Holland and Italy before he was able to arrange to be de-listed from among the proscribed emigré
Émigré
Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....
s at the peace of Campoformio (1797), which enabled him to return to France. Under Talleyrand, who took him under his protection, he entered the French foreign office of the counter-revolution that the Consulat
French Consulate
The Consulate was the government of France between the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire in 1804...
represented.
Napoleonic career
In 1800 he was an attaché of Lucien BonaparteLucien Bonaparte
Lucien Bonaparte, Prince Français, 1st Prince of Canino and Musignano , born Luciano Buonaparte, was the third surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and his wife Letizia Ramolino....
's embassy in Madrid that concluded with the Treaty of Aranjuez
Treaty of Aranjuez (1801)
The Treaty of Aranjuez was signed on March 21, 1801 between France and Spain. The overall accord confirmed the terms presented in the Treaty of San Ildefonso. Moreover, Ferdinand, the Bourbon Duke of Parma, agreed to surrender the Duchy of Parma to France. Ferdinand's son Louis received the Grand...
in March 1801 and returned with him. At Méréville
Château de Méréville
The Château de Méréville is a chateau in Méréville in the valley of the Juine, France. It is the rival of the Désert de Retz as two of the most extensive Landscape Gardens provided with follies and picturesque features — parcs à fabriques — made in the late eighteenth century...
Lucien met Laborde's beautiful mistress Alexandrine Jacob de Bleschamp, fell completely in love with her and married her in June 1803, occasioning a long-lasting chill in Laborde's relations with Napoleon, whose dynastic aspirations did not include the daughter of an agent de change for sister-in-law and who suspected Laborde of complicity in the liaison. Laborde took advantage of some enforced leisure to assemble a team of artists and writers— among whom his friend Chateaubriand
François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian. He is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature.-Early life and exile:...
— to see through the press two massive works on Spain, the Itinéraire descriptif de l'Espagne (1809, five volumes and an atlas) and the Voyage pittoresque et historique en Espagne (1807–1818, four volumes in-folio); the Voyage pittoresque, realised with care and containing some nine hundred engravings, proved a serious drain on his finances. It appeared just at the moment the Peninsular Campaigns of 1808 interfered with markets; pressed with obligations to his family, whom he supported in considerable style, he decided to re-enter the Napoleonic administration and was appointed that year auditeur to the Conseil d'État, at that time a form of initial training for the upper levels of the Empire's bureaucracy scarcely suited to Laborde's prominence and expertise, but the emperor took him as a knowledgeable aide in Madrid, made his wife a dame d'honneur to Empress Joséphine, and then, satisfied with Laborde's role, made him a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
in 1809 and created him a comte de l'Empire on 9 January 1810.
Soon Laborde's Austrian experience and his perfect command of German suited him for a place as secretary of the delegation under Marshal Berthier
Louis Alexandre Berthier
Louis Alexandre Berthier, 1st Prince de Wagram, 1st Duc de Valangin, 1st Sovereign Prince de Neuchâtel , was a Marshal of France, Vice-Constable of France beginning in 1808, and Chief of Staff under Napoleon.-Early life:Alexandre was born at Versailles to Lieutenant-Colonel Jean Baptiste Berthier ,...
to ask for the hand of the archduchess Marie Louise
Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma
Marie Louise of Austria was the second wife of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French and later Duchess of Parma...
, charting a delicate couse between the reservations of the Austrian clergy as to the legitimacy of Napoleon's divorce and the French reservations about the great niece of Marie Antoinette. He received in recompence from the Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...
side two snuff-boxes garnished with diamonds and the cross of the Order of Saint Stephen
Order of Saint Stephen
The Order of Saint Stephen is a Tuscan dynastic-military order founded in 1561. The order was created by Cosimo I de' Medici, first Grand Duke of Tuscany. The last member of the Medici dynasty to be a leader of the order was Gian Gastone de Medici in 1737...
and took some leisure to make a long tour of Habsburg lands that formed materials for his Voyage pittoresque en Autriche, not published until 1821.
On his return to France, as Maître des requêtes
Maître des requêtes
Masters of Requests are high-level judicial officers of administrative law in France and other European countries that have existed in one form or another since the Middle Ages.-Old Regime France:...
he was put in charge of the commission to sttle the accounts of the Grande Armée then placed at the head of the service of bridges and highways of the département de la Seine
Seine (département)
Seine was a département of France encompassing Paris and its immediate suburbs. Its préfecture was Paris and its official number was 75. The Seine département was abolished in 1968 and its territory divided among four new départements....
(1812), in which capacity he made a number of progressive suggestions for practical improvements— public baths, stone sidewalks, fire stations— that came to fruition later.
Laborde conceived the project of compiling a complete inventory of the archaeological heritage of France and obtained from the Minister of the Interior, the comte de Montalivet, permission to circulate a request for collaboration among the prefects of départements: the initiative was fruitless in the face of official apathy, both during the Empire and under the Restoration, but it served as a precedent for the appointment in 1834 of Prosper Merimée
Prosper Mérimée
Prosper Mérimée was a French dramatist, historian, archaeologist, and short story writer. He is perhaps best known for his novella Carmen, which became the basis of Bizet's opera Carmen.-Life:...
as inspector-general of historical monuments.
Laborde was called to the Institut de France
Institut de France
The Institut de France is a French learned society, grouping five académies, the most famous of which is the Académie française.The institute, located in Paris, manages approximately 1,000 foundations, as well as museums and chateaux open for visit. It also awards prizes and subsidies, which...
on 29 January 1813, being made an officer of the Légion d'honneur the same year. His luxurious publication seriously undermined his finances, but he remained a figure of high society of the Empire, an intimate of Queen Hortense
Hortense de Beauharnais
Hortense Eugénie Cécile Bonaparte , Queen Consort of Holland, was the stepdaughter of Emperor Napoleon I, being the daughter of his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais. She later became the wife of the former's brother, Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, and the mother of Napoleon III, Emperor of...
and perhaps the ghostwriter of romances that appeared under her name, such as Le Bon Chevalier, En soupirant j'ai vu naître l'aurore, or Partant pour la Syrie
Partant pour la Syrie
"Partant pour la Syrie" is a French song, the music of which was written by Hortense de Beauharnais and the text by Alexandre de Laborde in or about 1807.- Background :...
, an all but official hymn under the Second Empire.
He was the mayor of Méréville from 1805 to 1814.
The Restauration and Louis-Philippe
As adjudant-major of the garde nationale in 1814, in command of the Tuileries, he had the mission of reaching the Russian encampment, the night of 31 March 1814, to arrange the surrender of the Garde Nationale. During the Hundred DaysHundred Days
The Hundred Days, sometimes known as the Hundred Days of Napoleon or Napoleon's Hundred Days for specificity, marked the period between Emperor Napoleon I of France's return from exile on Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815...
he did not rally to Napoleon but passed the time in England. Louis XVIII
Louis XVIII of France
Louis XVIII , known as "the Unavoidable", was King of France and of Navarre from 1814 to 1824, omitting the Hundred Days in 1815...
appointed him colonel d'état-major and chevalier of the Order of Saint-Louis. At this time he reassumed the title of marquis de Laborde carried by his eldest son and his descendants.
He was named to the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres 21 March 1816, in the reorganization of the Institut de France. From 1818 to 1824, he served in the National Assembly, where he opposed the reinstallation of Ferdinand VII to the throne of Spain at the time of Trocadero
Battle of Trocadero
The Battle of Trocadero, fought on 31 August 1823, was the only significant battle in the French invasion of Spain when French forces defeated the Spanish liberal forces and restored the absolute rule of King Ferdinand VII.-Prelude:...
(1823), with the eventual result that he found the leisure for a four-year tour of Italy, Greece, Turkey, Palestine and Egypt in the company of his son Léon de Laborde. He served as Député and as Préfet of the Seine (1830), and as a supporter of Louis-Philippe in the Revolution of 1830
July Revolution
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution or in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X of France, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown...
as a general Garde nationale
National Guard (France)
The National Guard was the name given at the time of the French Revolution to the militias formed in each city, in imitation of the National Guard created in Paris. It was a military force separate from the regular army...
and aide-de-camp of the king, who sent him to Spain as ambassador.
From 1831 to 1837 he served as Deputy for the Seine, in 1837 as Deputy for Seine-et-Oise. He died at Paris in 1842.
Major works
A mere list of Laborde's publications is an indication of the range of his interests, above all the works that diffused in Europe a realistic view of picturesque Spain, suffused with the interpretations of RomanticismRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
. His topographic itinerary Itinéraire descriptif de l’Espagne proved unexpectedly useful in Napoleon's invasion of Spain.
- Description d’un pavé en mosaïque découvert dans l’ancienne ville d’Italica (1802)
- Description des nouveaux jardins de la France et de ses anciens châteaux (1803–1815)
- Lettres sur les sons harmoniques de la harpe (1806)
- Voyage historique et pittoresque en Espagne (4 volumes, 1807)
- Discours sur la vie e la campagne (1808)
- Itinéraire descriptif de l’Espagne (5 vol., 1808; second edition in 1809)
- Voyage pittoresque en Autriche (3 volumes, 1809)
- Des aristocraties représentatives (1814)
- De la représentation véritable de la communauté (1815)
- Les monuments de la France, classés chronologiquement (1816–1826)
- Projets d’embellissement de Paris (1816)
- Quarante-huit heures de garde aux Tuileries, pendant les journées des 19 et 20 mars 1815. Par un grenadier de la Garde Nationale (1816)
- Plan d’éducation pour les enfants pauvres (1819)
- Aperçu de la situation financière de l’Espagne (1823)
- Précis historique de la guerre entre la France et l’Autriche en 1809 (1823)
- Collection de vases grecs expliquée (2 volumes, 1824–1828)
- Au roi et aux chambres, sur la question d’Alger (1830)
- Paris municipe ou tableau de l’administration de la ville de Paris (1833)
- VersaillesVersaillesVersailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
, ancien et moderne (1830–1840)