Alexandre Joseph Count Colonna-Walewski

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Alexandre Florian Joseph, Duke Colonna-Walewski (May 4, 1810 - October 27, 1868) was a Polish and French politician and diplomat. He was the son of Napoleon I and his mistress Marie, Countess Walewski.

Contents 1 Life 2 Marriage and descendents 3 Works 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Life

Waleski was born at Walewice near Warsaw.

At fourteen he refused to enter the Russian army, escaping to London and thence to Paris, where the French government refused his extradition to the Russian authorities. Louis Philippe sent him to Poland in 1830, and he was then entrusted by the leaders of the Polish revolution with a mission to London.

After the fall of Warsaw he took out letters of naturalization in France and entered the French army, seeing some service in Algeria as Captain in the French Foreign Legion and the Chasseurs d'Afrique. In 1837 he resigned his commission and began to write for the stage and for the press. He is said to have collaborated with the elder Dumas in Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle, and a comedy of his, L'Ecole du monde, was produced at the Theâtre Français in 1840.

In that year his paper, Le Messager des chambres, was taken over by Thiers, who sent him on a mission to Egypt, and under the Guizot ministry he was sent to Buenos Aires to co-operate with the British minister Lord Howden (Sir J Caradoc). The accession of Louis Napoleon to the supreme power in France guaranteed his career. He was sent as envoy extraordinary to Florence, to Naples and then to London, where he announced the coup d'état to Palmerston.

In 1855 Walewski succeeded Drouyn de Lhuys as minister of foreign affairs, and acted as French plenipotentiary at the Congress of Paris next year. As foreign minister, Walewski was an advocate for the entente with Russia, but also an opponent of the Emperor's adventurous policy in Italy, which led to war with Austria in 1859. When he left the Foreign Office in 1860 it was to become minister of state, an office which he held until 1863. Senator from 1855 to 1865, he entered the Corps Législatif in 1865, and was installed, by the emperor's interest, as president of the Chamber. A revolt against his authority two years later sent him back to the Senate. He was created a duke in 1866, was a member of the Académie des beaux-arts, and awarded a grand cross of the Legion of Honour.

Alexandre Walewski died of a stroke at Strasbourg on the 27 October 1868 and was interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

[edit] Marriage and descendents

He married Catharine Caroline Montagu (1808 - 1833), daughter of George John Montagu, 6th Earl of Sandwich and Louisa Mary Anne Hariet Corry, on December 1, 1831. Then married Maria Anna di Ricci, daughter of Count Zanobi di Ricci and Isabelle Princess Poniatowski, on June 4, 1846 in Firenze. He was the father of a child by Rachel Felix in 1844.

He had seven children, two from his first marriage, four from his second and one illegitimate.:

• By Catharine Caroline Montagu
  • Louise Marie Colonna-Walewska.
  • comte George Eduard Auguste Colonna-Walewski.
  • Both children died at an early age.
• By Maria Anna di Ricci.
  • Isabelle Colonna-Walewski.
  • comte Charles Walewski.
  • Elise Colonna-Walewski.
  • Eugenie Colonna-Walewski.
• Walewski son Charles died (murdered 1916) unmarried.
• By Rachel Felix.
  • comte Alexandre Antoine Colonna-Walewski, (recognized 1844 and adopted by Walewski in 1860), who has numerous descendants living today.

[edit] Works

• Un mot sur la question d'Afrique, Paris 1837
• L'Alliance Anglaise, Paris 1838
• L'Ècole du Monde, ou la Coquette sans le savoir (comedy), Paris 1840

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Simon Konarski, Armorial de la noblesse polonaise titrée, Paris 1958
• Nouvelle Biographie Générale, Tome 46, Paris 1866

[edit] External links

• Genealogy entry
• Photograph