Mattheus Lestevenon
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Mattheus Lestevenon (1715 - 1797, The Hague) was a city-secretary and schepen in Amsterdam, then Dutch ambassador to France. Lestevenon played an important role in the year 1748 and in the negotiations for the Treaty of Paris. Pietro Locatelli dedicated six violin sonatas to him.
[edit] Life
Lestevenon was born into a powerful regent family. His father was an administrator of the Dutch East India Company, heer of Strijen and four-times mayor of Amsterdam (between 1722 and 1736). In 1729, he got a job as city-secretary. In all probability, someone else did the work and Lestevenon's earnings funded his studies.
After an inheritance from a late aunt, Lestevenon bought a palace at Lange Voorhout on the Hague, with 16 servants. Mattheus Lestevenon married Lady Catharina Windsor in London in 1742 and went on honeymoon to Italy. His wife died of smallpox on the return trip. Mattheus again inherited "considerable wealth and goods" ("considerabel veel gelt en goet") on the death of his father. Lestevenon was appointed schepen of Amsterdam in 1745. He moved to the attractive building at Keizersgracht 444-446. Because he was not appointed as a successor to his father, he was frustrated.
After the Pachtersoproer (1748), the Doelisten invited prince William IV requested to remove the inter-related regenten clique and to change the appointment of mayors. Of the forty mayors chosen between 1696-1748, only two (or, as some maintain, even just one) were not relations of earlier mayors. Finally Lestevenon left the council of his own accord. The stadholder changed his opinion and more than half the men on the council got their seats back. Mattheus Lestevenon was appointed ambassador to the court to Versailles not long after that.
His two children Maria Jacqueline and Willem Anne were born in 1749 in Brussels and in 1750 in Paris respectively. In 1755 he married his second wife, Maria Wilhelmina, baroness of der Duyn. Lestevenon next married Susanna Faulquier. He sold his house on Keizersgracht to Thomas Hope. The building at Singel 292, that he had inherited from his grandfather Dirk Trip, he sold to Joachim Rendorp.
Little is known on his activities as ambassador. Mostly it involved meetings with La Vauguyon on finishing the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780-1784). Mattheus Lestevenon passed away in 1797 in the Hague. His son meanwhile played an important role as a Patriot.
[edit] Bibliography
- Elias, J.E. (1903-1905, herdruk 1963) De vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795, 2 delen.
- Het dagboek van J. Bicker Raye, bewerkt door F.M. Bijerinck & M.G. de Boer, (1935).
- Ligtelijn, M. (2006) Regentencoterieën 1650-1750. In: De Gouden Bocht van Amsterdam, p. 187. Edited and composed by Milko den Leeuw en Martin Pruijs.
