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Adrien-Louis de Bonnières, duc de Guînes


Adrien-Louis de Bonnières, comte later duc de Guînes (14 April 1735, Lille — 21 December 1806, Paris) was an of the Ancien Régime, who served as a French Army general and diplomat; he was also a favourite of Queen Marie-Antoinette.

Commissioned into the Grenadiers à Cheval de la Garde Impériale, he saw active service during the Seven Years' War commanding the . Appointed in 1762 Brigadier-General de Bonnières was promoted Maréchal de camp in 1770.

After his father's death in 1763, he was accorded the courtesy title of comte de Guînes and embarked upon a diplomatic career, both buoyed and hampered by a dry wit. "It was a most lively animated gazette," the who was smitten and let it be known after a visit to the Prince of Conti in 1766, where de Guînes was present: "his whole reputation hangs on a manner of spying out all the little ridiculous trifles and of an ill-grace, which he relates in few words with an amusing manner". A protégé of Choiseul and Noailles, and a friend of Frederick II of Prussia whom he had met in 1766, the Count was despatched as ambassador to Berlin in 1768, but soon fell out of favour with some Prussian courtiers to such an extent that he was recalled in November 1769.

As a consolation, upon Queen Marie-Antoinette's instigation, he was appointed Ambassador to the Court of St James's the following year, and remained in that post, with periodic visits to Versailles, until 1776. His reputation in London was very good, in stark contrast to his predecessors Châtelet, Guerchy and Durand de Linois. Although his affair with Lady Elizabeth Craven became well known this was mostly overlooked in view of her acclaimed beauty and charm. It was said of him that when the noon gun was fired, and someone in his entourage asked what that was, the Count quipped "I think they've sighted the sun"! He gained a wider notoriety with the awkward "Guînes affair" requiring him to press charges, 20 April 1771, against his private secretary, , whom he asserted used his name in speculating with and thereby misappropriating French government funds. Tort, on being arrested, claimed that he had acted upon de Guînes' directions and for his account. In Paris, on 6 June 1771 Armand, duc d'Aiguillon (Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs), took Tort's side ill-advisedly, whereas the Queen defended her friend de Guînes, and the affair was taken up by the antagonistic parties of Choiseul and Aiguillon. De Guînes was eventually proven not guilty, by a narrow margin, in a specially convened Council of State commanded by King Louis XVI. The trial's aftermath rankled; it was among the reasons for the dismissal of Aiguillon, having incurred the Queen's and others' lasting displeasure.


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