Jean-Baptiste de Nompère de Champagny

Jean-Baptiste de Nompère de Champagny, 1st Duc de Cadore (4 August 1756 – 3 July 1834) was a French admiral and politician.

He was born in Roanne, Loire. Entering the French royal navy in 1774, he fought through the war in America and resigned in 1787. Elected député by the noblesse of Forex to the Estates-General in 1789, he went over to the Third Estate on the 21st of June and collaborated in the work of the National Constituent Assembly, especially occupying himself with the reorganization of the navy.

A political career seems to have attracted him little; he remained in private life from 1791 to 1799, when Napoleon named him member of the council of state. From July 1801 to August 1804 he was ambassador of France at Vienna, and directed with great intelligence the incessant negotiations between the two courts.

In August 1804 Napoleon made him minister of the interior, and in this position, which he held for three years, he proved an administrator of the first order. In addition to the ordinary charges of his office, he had to direct the recruitment of the army, organize the Industrial Exhibition of 1808, and to complete the public works undertaken in Paris and throughout France.

He was devoted to Napoleon, on whom he lavished adulation in his speeches. In August 1807 the Emperor chose him to succeed Talleyrand as minister for foreign affairs. He directed the annexation of the Papal States in April 1808, worked to secure the abdication of Charles IV of Spain in May 1808, negotiated the Peace of Vienna (1809) and the marriage of Napoleon.

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