Paul d'Estournelles de Constant

Paul-Henri-Benjamin Balluet d'Estournelles, Baron de Constant de Rebecque (22 November 1852 – 15 May 1924), was a French diplomat and politician, advocate of international arbitration and winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize for Peace.

He was born at La Flèche (Sarthe) in the Loire valley to an old family which traced its genealogy back to the Crusades; the renowned Revolution-era writer and politician Benjamin Constant was his great-uncle. After studying law and Oriental languages at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, Estournelles de Constant embarked on a diplomatic career in 1876.

Among Estournelles de Constant's early diplomatic posts were Montenegro, the Ottoman Empire, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Tunisia; in 1882 he returned to Paris to serve as assistant director of the Levant bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1890 he was posted to London as the French chargé d'affaires, where he played a role in averting war with Britain over colonial disputes. Frustrated by the limitations of diplomatic service, he ran for parliament in 1895, securing a seat in the Chamber of Deputies. In 1904 Estournelles de Constant ran for and won a seat in the Senate, where he served until the end of his career in 1924.

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