Édouard Drouyn de Lhuys

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Edouard Drouyn de Lhuys (November 19, 1805 - March 1, 1881) was a French statesman and diplomat, born in Paris.

He was ambassador at The Hague and Madrid, and distinguished himself by his opposition to Guizot. Drouyn de Lhuys served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1848 to 1849 in the first government of Odilon Barrot. In Barrot's second government, he was replaced by Alexis de Tocqueville, and was appointed ambassador to London. He returned briefly as foreign minister for a few days in January 1851, and then returned permanently in the summer of 1852, becoming the first foreign minister of the Second Empire. He resigned his post in 1855, during the Crimean War, when the peace preliminaries he had agreed to in consultation with the British and Austrians at Vienna were rejected by Napoleon III. He returned to power 7 years later, in 1862, when foreign minister Édouard Thouvenel resigned over differences with Napoleon on Italian affairs. Drouyn was thus foreign minister in the lead-up to the Austro-Prussian War. In the aftermath of that war, which was seen as disastrous to French interests in Europe, Drouyn resigned. He withdrew into private life after the collapse at Sedan in 1870.

Preceded by Jules Bastide	Minister of Foreign Affairs 1848–1849	Succeeded by Alexis de Tocqueville
Preceded by Vicomte de La Hitte	Minister of Foreign Affairs 1851	Succeeded by Baron Brénier
Preceded by Marquis de Turgot	Minister of Foreign Affairs 1852–1855	Succeeded by Comte Walewski
Preceded by Édouard Thouvenel	Minister of Foreign Affairs 1862–1866	Succeeded by Marquis de La Valette

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.