Pierre Marc Gaston de Lévis, Duke of Lévis

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Pierre Marc Gaston de Lévis, Duke of Lévis
Gaston Pierre Marc de Levis (1764-1830), Grand bailli de Senlis.jpg
Portrait of the Duke of Lévis by Charles Toussaint Labadye
Deputy to the Estates General
for Bailiwick of Senlis
In office
5 May 1789 – 27 June 1789
Deputy to the National Constituent Assembly
for Bailiwick of Senlis
In office
27 June 1789 – 30 September 1791
Member of the Chamber of Peers
Hereditary peerage
In office
4 June 1814 – 15 February 1830 (except for the Hundred Days)
Preceded by Peerage created
Succeeded by Gaston-François-Christophe de Lévis
Member of the French Academy
Seat 6
In office
21 March 1816 – 15 February 1830
Preceded by Pierre Louis Roederer
Succeeded by Philippe Paul, comte de Ségur
Personal details
Born Pierre-Marc-Gaston de Lévis
(1764-03-07)7 March 1764
Paris, France
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Paris, France
Political party Nobility
(1789–1830)
Spouse(s) Pauline Charpentier d'Ennery (m. 1784)
Children 2, including Gaston-François-Christophe de Lévis
Alma mater School of Applied Artillery
Military service
Allegiance
  •  Kingdom of France
Service/branch  France Army

Pierre-Marc-Gaston de Lévis, 2nd Duke of Lévis (7 March 1764 – 15 February 1830) was a French politician, aphorist, députyy to the National Constituent Assembly and peer of France. His father was the first duke of Lévis, marshal Francis de Gaston. In 1816 he was elected to seat 6 of the Académie française. During the French Revolution, he escaped to England. Two of his three sisters and his mother were sent to the guillotine during the French Revolution.

He is credited with the quotation "Boredom is an illness for which work is the remedy". The quotation often attributed to Voltaire, "Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers" is a version of one maxim by Lévis: "Il est encore plus facile de juger de l'esprit d'un homme par ses questions que par ses réponses." (It is easier to judge the mind of a man by his questions rather than his answers) from Maximes et réflexions sur différents sujets de morale et de politique (1808): Maxim xviii.[1] His 1808 book is also the source of the expression "noblesse oblige" (nobility obliges; privilege entails responsibility).[2][3][4]

Biography

Origins and family

Pierre-Marc-Gaston de Lévis comes from the branch of the Lords of Ajac, a younger branch of the House of Lévis, a French noble family originating from the village of Lévis in the Hurepoix region, whose origins date back to the 11th century.

The eldest child of the couple formed in 1762 by François Gaston de Lévis, first Duke of Lévis, marshal of France (1719–1787), and Gabrielle Augustine Michel de Tharon (1744–1794), he had three sisters: Gabrielle-Augustine-Françoise de Lévis (1762–1848) married in 1780 with Cristoforo Dominico de Spinola, ambassador in Paris of the Republic of Genoa, Marie-Gabrielle-Artois de Lévis (1765–1794), married in 1783 with Charles Félix René de Vintimille du Luc, Henriette-Françoise de Lévis, married in 1785 with Charles-Raymond-Ismidon de Béranger, count of Béranger, baron of Sassenage, marquis of Pont-en-Royans. The two younger girls were guillotined with their mother on July 10, 1794.

Under the Ancien Régime

Gaston de Lévis entered the Royal Artillery School of Douai at the age of 13 and was appointed second lieutenant in 1779. At the age of 16 he was promoted to captain of the life guards of the Count of Provence, Monsieur, the brother of the king, the future Louis XVIII. He was stationed in Saumur and Strasbourg.

In 1782, he was promoted to captain in the Carabinier corps.

With Louis Doulcet de Pontécoulant a fellow student at the Artillery School, he then went on a long six-month training mission in Prussia (July 1784–January 1785). He also discovered Russia and Poland.

In 1788, he was appointed colonel attached to Marshal Turenne's regiment.

Deputy to the Estates-General of 1789

In January 1789, Gaston de Lévis was appointed Grand Bailiff of the Bailiwick of Senlis. This preeminent position facilitated, in March 1789, his election to the only seat reserved for the nobility to represent the Bailiwick of Senlis at the Estates-General. He was not yet 25 years old.

He sat in the States-General with his cousins Marc-Antoine de Lévis and harles-Philibert-Marie-Gaston de Lévis-Mirepoix, both of whom were guillotined during the Terror.

At the Estates-General, his mandate required him to vote by head, but he considered that he could not join the Third Estate on June 25, 1789. He was in favor of a liberal society, referring to the English constitution. On June 22, 1791, he took the military oath. He voted against the assignats, against the attachment of Avignon and the County of Venaissin.[5]

During the Revolution and the Empire

He emigrated after August 10, 1792, joined the army of the princes, where he was badly received, and finally served as a private in an Austrian regiment.

The revolutionary decade saw the Duke and Duchess of Lévis make several trips back and forth between France and England, together or separately.

They appear on the list of emigrants from 1794.

Gaston de Lévis participated in the Quiberon expedition. He arrived opposite Carnac on June 25, 1795 and landed a first time on the 27th. Then he took command of 300 royalists from Auray, disembarked again this time in front of Fort of Penthièvre on July 5, took it away from the Republican garrison and, as the only superior officer, took command of about 600 men to block the access to the peninsula. He was wounded in the leg on July 16, his horse killed under him, and was finally able to return to an English ship that took him back to Plymouth on July 27.

He returned to France after the Coup of 18 Brumaire. In 1801, he bought, near Paris, the Château de Champs-sur-Marne, former property of his mother's family. He kept it until his death, after which his children sold it.

He devoted himself to writing and stayed away from the imperial regime. A man of spirit, he was appreciated by Chateaubriand.

Under the Restoration

During the first Restoration, he was named a life peer by order of June 4, 1814 and promoted to Maréchal de camp in March 1815.

In the Chamber of Peers, he seated on the right, while staying away from the ultras.

In the spring of 1815, he accompanied the Duchess of Angouleme to Bordeaux and left the city with her, before joining Louis XVIII in Ghent.

During the second Restoration, he was made a hereditary peer by an order of August 19, 1815, and then a hereditary duke-peer (without majorat) by an order of August 31, 1817. He sat in the Chamber of Peers until his death.

In 1816, he was made a knight of honor by the Duchess of Berry.

He was mayor of Champs-sur-Marne from 1826 to 1830.

Private life

At the age of 20, Gaston de Lévis married Pauline Charpentier d'Ennery on May 13, 1784 at the Church of St. Eustache, in Paris. She was 13 years old and the only daughter of Victor-Thérèse Charpentier, Count and then Marquis d'Ennery, Marshal of the King's camps and armies, Governor of Martinique and then of Saint-Domingue, who died in 1776, and of Rose Bénédicte d'Alesso d'Éragny. She inherited all her father's property, including the castle of Ennery (Val-d'Oise). Gaston and his wife will make the castle of Ennery their favorite residence by making many improvements and embellishments. She died in Paris on November 2, 1829. Gaston and Pauline de Lévis have two children:

  • Adèle Charlotte Augustine de Lévis (1788–1848) married in 1809 Aymard Théodore de Nicolaÿ, Count of Nicolaÿ, peer of France from 1815 to 1830 (1782–1871), of which posterity;

Works

  • Maximes, préceptes et réflexions sur différens sujets de morale et de politique (1807–1808; 1825)
  • Les voyages de Kang-Hi ou nouvelles lettres chinoises (1810)
  • Contes d'Antoine Hamilton, avec la suite des "Facardins" et de "Zénéyde" (1813)
  • Souvenirs et portraits (1813; 1815; reprinted as Souvenirs de Félicie, 1882)
  • L'Angleterre au commencement du XIXe siècle (1814)
  • Considérations morales sur les finances (1816)
  • Des emprunts en 1818 (1818)
  • De l'autorité des chambres sur leurs membres (1819)
  • De l'état du crédit en France au commencement de 1819 (1819)
  • Considérations sur la situation financière de la France et sur le budget de 1825 (1824)
  • La conspiration de 1821 ou les jumeaux de Chevreuse (1829)
  • Lettre sur la méthode Jacotot, dite enseignement universel (1829)
  • Écrire la Révolution, 1784-1793: "Lettres à Pauline" (2011; edited by Claudine Pailhès)

References

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Further reading

  • Tackett, Timothy (1997). Par la volonté du peuple, comment les députés de 1789 sont devenus révolutionnaires. Paris: Albin Michel.

External links

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  5. ↑ Lemay, Edna Hindie (1991). Dictionnaire des Constituants 1789-1791, Vol. 2. Paris: Universitas, pp. 593–95.
  6. ↑ Martin, Georges (2007). Histoire et Généalogie de la Maison de Lévis. Lyon: l'Auteur, pp. 130–34.
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