ALEXANDRE

See also:

• MARIE

MARIE

See also:

• ALEXANDRE MARIE AGUADO

AGUADO  , marquis de Las Marismas del Guadalquivir, viscount de Monte Ricco (1784-1842), Spanish banker, was born of Jewish parentage at Seville, on the 29th of June 1784 . He began life as a soldier, fighting with distinction in the Spanish war of independence on the side of Joseph Bonaparte . After the battle of Baylen (1808) he entered the French army, in which he rose to be colonel and aide-de-camp to Marshal Soult . He was exiled in 1815, and immediately started business as a commission-agent in Paris, where, chiefly through his family connexions in Havana and Mexico, he acquired in a few years enough wealth to enable him to undertake banking . The Spanish government gave him full powers to negotiate the loans of 1823, 1828, 183o and 1831; and Ferdinand VII. rewarded him with the title of marquis, the decorations of several orders and valuable mining concessions in Spain . Aguado also negotiated the Greek loan of 1834 . In 1828, having become possessed of large estates in France, including the chateau Margaux, famous for its wine, he was naturalized as a French citizen . He died at Gijon in Spain on the 14th of April 1842, leaving a fortune 'computed at 60,000,000 francs, and a splendid collection of pictures which at his death was bought by the French government .