Choiseul-Amboise

Choiseul-Amboise, ÉTIENNE FRANCOIS, DUC DE, minister of Louis XV., was born in 1719. He served with credit in the Austrian Wars of Succession, and through the favour of the king's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, became lieutenant-general in 1748, and Duc de Choiseul in 1758. He was sent to Rome and next to Vienna in 1756 to arrange the alliance between France and Austria against Frederick the Great, and it was his policy that brought about later the family league of the Bourbon monarchs in Europe. He made himself very popular by the fairly favourable terms he obtained in 1763 at the close of a disastrous war, and further by his opposition to the Jesuits. He conceived, and almost carried out, a plan for the formal emancipation of the Gallican Church from papal influence, improved the army and navy, developed the trade and industry both of the nation and of the colonies, and opened up anew an intercourse with India, whose native princes were assisted by French officers in their endeavours to expel the British from the peninsula. He had spies in every European court, and so ruled all diplomatic and political cabals as to deserve the title the Empress of Russia gave him, Le Cocher de l'Europe. His power had survived the death of his patroness in 1764, but the rise of Madame Dubarry, who succeeded Madame de Pompadour in the king's affections, gradually alienated Louis from his able minister, who retired in 1770 to his magnificent estate of Chanteloup, where he lived in princely splendour. After the accession of Louis XVI. he received permission to return to Paris, and was often consulted, but never recovered his official position. He died May 7, 1785.