1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Haussonville, Joseph Othenin Bernard de Cléron, Comte d'
HAUSSONVILLE, JOSEPH OTHENIN BERNARD DE CLÉRON, Comte d’ (1809–1884), French politician and historian, was born in Paris on the 27th of May 1809. His grandfather had been “grand louvetier” of France; his father Charles Louis Bernard de Cléron, comte d’Haussonville (1770–1846), was chamberlain at the court of Napoleon, a count of the French empire, and under the Restoration a peer of France and an opponent of the Villéle ministry. Comte Joseph had filled a series of diplomatic appointments at Brussels, Turin and Naples before he entered the chamber of deputies in 1842 for Provins. Under the Second Empire he published a liberal anti-imperial paper at Brussels, Le Bulletin français, and in 1863 he actively supported the candidature of Prévost Paradol. He was elected to the French Academy in 1869, in recognition of his historical writings, Histoire de la politique extérieure du gouvernement français de 1830 à 1848 (2 vols., 1850); Histoire de la réunion de la Lorraine à la France (4 vols., 1854–1859); L’Église romaine et le premier empire 1800–1814 (5 vols., 1864–1879). In 1870 he published a pamphlet directed against the Prussian treatment of France, La France et la Prusse devant l’Europe, the sale of which was prohibited in Belgium at the request of King William of Prussia. He was the president of an association formed to provide new homes in Algeria for the inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine who elected to retain their French nationality. In 1878 he was made a life-senator, in which capacity he allied himself with the Right Centre in defence of the religious associations against the anti-clericals. He died in Paris on the 28th of May 1884.
His wife Louise (1818–1882), a daughter of Duc Victor de Broglie, published in 1858 a novel Robert Emmet, followed by Marguerite de Valois reine de Navarre (1870), La Jeunesse de Lord Byron (1872), and Les Dernières Années de Lord Byron (1874).
His son, Gabriel Paul Othenin de Cléron, comte d’Haussonville, was born at Gurcy de Châtel (Seine-et-Marne) on the 21st of September 1843, and married in 1865 Mlle Pauline d’Harcourt. He represented Seine-et-Marne in the National Assembly (1871) and voted with the Right Centre. Though he was not elected to the chamber of deputies he became the right-hand man of his maternal uncle, the duc de Broglie, in the attempted coup of the 16th of May. His Établissements pénitentiaires en France et aux colonies (1875) was crowned by the Academy, of which he was admitted a member in 1888. In 1891 the resignation of Henri Édouard Bocher from the administration of the Orleans estates led to the appointment of M d’Haussonville as accredited representative of the comte de Paris in France. He at once set to work to strengthen the Orleanist party by recruiting from the smaller nobility the officials of the local monarchical committees. He established new Orleanist organs, and sent out lecturers with instructions to emphasize the modern and democratic principles of the comte de Paris; but the prospects of the party were dashed in 1894 by the death of the comte de Paris. In 1904 he was admitted to the Academy of Moral and Political Science. The comte d’Haussonville published:—C. A. Sainte-Beuve, sa vie et ses œuvres (1875), Études biographiques et littéraires, 2 series (1879 and 1888), Le Salon de Mme Necker (1882, 2 vols.), Madame de La Fayette (1891), Madame Ackermann (1892), Le Comte de Paris, souvenirs personnels (1895), La Duchesse de Bourgogne et l’alliance savoyarde (1898–1903), Salaire et misères de femme (1900), and, with G. Hanotaux, Souvenirs sur Madame de Maintenon (3 vols., 1902–1904).