French diplomat, writer.

Secrétaire de legation at Ratisbonne and Dresden (1769). Chargé d’affaires to the elector at Saxony and Bavaria.

Named consul-général de France près du Congrès des Etats-Unis and secretary to the chevalier de La Luzerne, French Foreign Minister to the United States (1779-83).

Named an intendant at St.-Domingue (1785), where he instituted various financial reforms.

Returned to France, where he was employed in the offices of the Minister of Foreign Affairs (1790). Accused of royalism and deported to Guyana during the French Revolution.

As Minister of the Treasury under Napoleon, he was charged with negotiating the Louisiana Purchase.

Author of Complot d’Arnold et de Sir Henri Clinton contre les Etats-Unis d’Amérique … (1780), of Histoire de la Louisiane et de la cession de cette colonie par la France aux Etats-Unis (1828), and of other writings on St.-Domingue and Guyana.

Born in Metz. Married in 1784 to the daughter of Moore, governor of Pennsylvania.