COIITE

ALEXANDRE

See also:

• FLORIAN, JEAN PIERRE CLARIS DE (1755-1794)
• FLORIAN, SAINT

FLORIAN

See also:

• JOSEPH
• JOSEPH, COMTE DE (1785-1870)
• JOSEPH, FATHER (FRANCOIS LECLERC DU TREMBLAY) (1577-1638)

JOSEPH

See also:

• COLONNA
• COLONNA, GIOVANNI PAOLO (circa 1637—1695)
• COLONNA, VITTORIA (1490-1547)

COLONNA

See also:

• COIITE ALEXANDRE FLORIAN JOSEPH COLONNA WALEWSKI (1810-1868)

WALEWSKI (1810-1868)  , French politician and diplomatist, was born at Walewice near Warsaw on the 4th of May 181o, the son of Napoleon I. and his mistress Marie, Countess Walewski . At fourteen Walewski 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 . 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 Theatre Francais in 184o . 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 extra-ordinary to Florence, to Naples and then to London, where he announced the coup d'etat to Palmerston (q.v.) . In 1855 Walewski succeeded Drouyn de Lhuys as minister of foreign affairs, and acted as French plenipotentiary at the Congress of Paris next year . When he left the Foreign Office in 186o it was to become minister of state, an office which he held until 1863 .

Senator from 1855 to 1865, he entered the

Corps Legislatif 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 died at Strassburg on the 27th of October 1868 . He had been created a duke in 1866, was amember of the Academy of Fine Arts and a grand cross of the Legion of Honour .