1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barthélemy, François, Marquis de

BARTHÉLEMY, FRANÇOIS, Marquis de (1747 or 1750–1830), French politician, was educated by his uncle the abbé Jean Jacques Barthélemy for a diplomatic career, and after serving as secretary of legation in Sweden, in Switzerland and in England, was appointed minister plenipotentiary in Switzerland, in which capacity he negotiated the treaties of Basel with Prussia and Spain (1795). Elected a member of the Directory in May 1797, through royalist influence, he was arrested at the coup d’état of the 18 Fructidor (17th of September 1797) and deported to French Guiana, but escaped and made his way to the United States and then to England. He returned to France after the 18 Brumaire, entered the senate in February 1800 and contributed to the establishment of the consulship for life and the empire. In 1814 he abandoned Napoleon, took part in the drawing up of the constitutional charter and was named peer of France. During the Hundred Days he lived in concealment, and after the second Restoration obtained the title marquis, and in 1819 introduced a motion in the chamber of peers tending to render the electoral law more aristocratic.

His Papiers have been published by J. Kaulek, 4 vols. (Paris, 1886–1888). See A. Sorel, L’Europe et la Révolution française, iv. (Paris, 1892); L. Sciout, Le Directoire (Paris, 1895).