Alexandre Marie Léonor de Saint-Mauris de Montbarrey

Alexandre Marie Léonor de Saint-Mauris de Montbarrey
Portrait of Prince de Montbarrey, by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun.
Born	20 Avril 1732 Besançon
Died	5 May 1796(1796-05-05) (aged 64)

Alexandre Marie Eleonor of Saint-Mauris, count of Montbarrey, then prince of Montbarrey and of the Holy Roman Empire (1774), grandee of Spain of first class (1780), knight of the Holy Spirit, lieutenant general (1780), born in Besançon on 20 April 1732. He belonged to a family from Franche-Comté (Dole), ennobled in 1537 by letter of the Emperor Charles V in the person of Jean of Saint-Mauris, doctor of Law, professor at the University of Dole and counselor at the parliament of Dole, and finally chief of the State Council of the Netherlands under Charles V and Philip II. The prince of Montbarrey was very proud about the origin of the nobility of his family and imbued with his titles of prince and grandee of Spain newly acquired (he paid 100,000 pounds for his title of prince of the Holy Roman Empire granted by the Emperor Joseph II), had been making a fake genealogy linking his family to the family of Saint-Moris-Salins, another family of old nobility from the same county.

The prince of Saint-Mauris-Montbarrey was the only son of lieutenant-general Claude Francois Elenonor of Saint-Mauris, count of Montbarrey (1694–1751) and Mary Therese Eleanor du Maine du Bourg (1711–1732). After an early and distinguished military career, the prince of Montbarrey came to the court of the king Louis XVI where he was protected by his parent Madame of Maurepas, wife of the marquis of Maurepas, prime minister of Louis XVI. Through her husband, Madame of Maurepas managed to appoint Montbarrey as director of war (position created especially for him without specific assignment) and deputy of the count of Saint-Germain, secretary of State for war. At the resignation of the count of Saint Germain, thanks to the influence of Madame of Maurepas, Montbarrey was appointed in 1778 as Secretary of State for war.

The prince of Montbarrey was an opportunistic and incompetent minister, without morality who involved more energy in his interests and lust with many mistresses than to conduct his department. In 1780, during the war with America, he had to leave his department following criticism of Necker on the misuse of military funds and the scandal raised by the revelation of a traffic of military appointments held by his mistress miss Renard. After his forced resignation, he moved with his wife and his daughter, the princess of Nassau-Saarbrücken to the Arsenal near the Bastille, in a luxurious building given by the king with a considerable pension. At the Revolution the furniture, library, gallery of paintings and art objects that decorated the residence of the prince of Montbarrey were seized as property of emigrants and sold to Lord Chattam (eldest son of British Prime Minister William Pitt) who took them to England.

During the storming of the Bastille, the prince of Montbarrey and his wife escaped the massacre by the crowd. At the beginning of the Revolution, he took refuge in his castle of Ruffey near Besançon. In 1791 he emigrated with his wife in Switzerland in Neuchâtel and in the villages of Cressier and Landeron (when they cross the border they had been robbed of all the money and jewelry they had with them). In January 1795 he moved to Constance where he died on 5 May 1796 in poverty. Upon his death, his widow returned from emigration and lived in Dole in Franche-Comté until his death in 1819.