Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Antoine-François, Comte d'Andreossi

ANDREOSSI, Antoine-François, Comte d', a very distinguished French officer, was born at Castelnaudary in Languedoc, 6th March 1761, and died at Montauban, September 1828. He was of Italian extraction, and his grandfather, François Andreossi, had taken part with Riquet in the construction of the Languedoc canal in 1669. At the age of twenty he became a lieutenant of artillery, and he early joined the republican party. He accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt as a chef de brigade, serving with great distinction, and was selected as one of Napoleon's companions on his unexpected return to Europe. Andreossi filled with honour many important offices of command during subsequent campaigns, and was appointed ambassador to London after the treaty of Amiens. When Napoleon assumed the title of Emperor, Andreossi was advanced to be inspector-general of artillery, and made a couint of the empire. He was sent as ambassador to Austria, where he remained till the rupture with France in 1809; and when the fatal battle of Wagram prostrated Austria, he held the post of governor of Vienna as long as that capital was occupied by the French. He was afterwards sent by Napoleon as ambassador to Constantinople, where he conciliated the friendship of both Franks and Mahometans. In 1814 he was recalled by Louis XVIII., who sent him, however, the cross of St Louis. Andreossi now retired into private life, till the escape of his former master from Elba once again called him forth. After the battle of Waterloo he finally quitted the scene of political life, relieving the tedium of retirement by writing several scientific memoirs. He was a man of solid and extensive acquirements. While in Egypt he had contributed to the Institute of Cairo memoirs on the Valley of Lake Natron, and on Lake Menzaleh. Subsequently he published an account of the Campaign on the Main and the Rednitz; a memoir on the Flow of the Black Sea into the Mediterranean; a history of the Canal du Midi, known previously as the Canal de Languedoc, the chief share in the construction of which he claimed for his ancestor; and a memoir on the Constantinople Water-works System.