Marc Pierre De Voyer, the Comte D'Argenson, was a French statesman. He was born in 1696 and died in 1764. After holding a number of subordinate offices he became minister for foreign affairs, and succeeded in bringing about the Congress of Breda, which was the prelude to that of Aix-la-Chapelle. He was present at the Battle of Fontenoy, and was exiled to his estate for some years through the machinations of Madame De Pompadour. His Considerations sur le Gouvernement de la France, was a very advanced study on the possibility of combining with a monarchic form of government democratic principles and local self-government. Les Essais, ou Loisirs d'un Ministre d'Etat, published in 1785, is a collection of characters and anecdotes in the style of Montaigne. Research Comte D'Argenson
Etienne Francois Choiseul, duke of Choiseul-Amboise, was a French statesman. He was born in 1719 and died in 1785. He entered the army in early life, and after distinguishing himself on various occasions in the Austrian war of Succession, returned to Paris, where his intimacy with Madame de Pompadour furnished the means of gratifying his ambition. After having been ambassador at Rome, and at Vienna, where he concluded with Maria Theresa the treaty of alliance against Prussia, he became in reality primeminister of France, and was very popular through a series of able diplomatic measures. He negotiated the famous Family Compact which reunited the various members of the Bourbon family, and restored Corsica to France. His fall was brought about in 1770 by a court intrigue, supported by Madame du Barry, the new favourite of the king. He was banished to his estates, but his advice in political matters was frequently taken by Louis XVI. Research Etienne Choiseul
Francois Joachim De Pierres De Bernis was a French cardinal and minister of Louis XV. He was born in 1715 and died in 1794. Madame de Pompadour presented him to Louis XV, who assigned him an apartment in the Tuileries, with a pension of 1500 livres. After winning credit in an embassy to Venice he rose rapidly to the position of minister of foreign affairs, and is possibly to be credited with the formation of the alliance between France and Austria which terminated the Seven Years' War.
The misfortunes of France being ascribed to him he was soon afterwards banished from court, but was made Archbishop of Alby in 1764, and in 1769 ambassador to Rome, where he remained until his death. When the aunts of Louis XVI. left France in 1791 they fled to him for refuge, and lived in his house. The revolution reduced him to a state of poverty, from which he was relieved by a pension from the Spanish court. His verse procured him a place in the French Academy. The correspondence of Bernis with Voltaire contains matter of interest. Research Francois Joachim De Pierres De Bernis
Pierre Joseph Bernard was a French poet, to whom Voltaire gave the name Gentil-Bernard. He was born in 1710 and died in 1775. He was for some time the pet poet of the salons and of Madame de Pompadour's 'petits soupers', reading there translations from Ovid's Art of Love and his own essays in erotic poetry. He was the librettist of Rameau's Castor and Pollux. Research Pierre Bernard
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Abbreviations
Research Comte D'Argenson
