Alexandre Frédéric Jacques Masson and Angélique-Dorothée Babaud

The detail to the right is taken from a painting by the French artist, Elisabeth Vigée-LeBrun, and is of the ‘Marquise de Pezé and the Marquise de Rouget with her two children’, 1787. Pezé and Pezay are alternative spellings of the same name.

It was my intention when I began writing notes on the Cassini family, to deal only with the more famous scientific members of the Cassini and Maraldi family. However, in my research I have discovered that some of the related members are also notable, albeit for different reasons. One of these is Alexandre Frédéric Jacques Masson, or the Marquis de Pezay as he became known. Another is his sister, Angélique-Dorothée Babaud who married Dominique Joseph Cassini, the younger brother of César François Cassini – Cassini III, in 1754. He was thirty-nine when they married and she was seventeen, later becoming known as Mme de Cassini, the Marquise de Cassini.

In addition to learning more about a number of individuals, these were interesting times…

Revolution in France

So, first a small digression relating to the dramatic changes at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries in France. Bear in mind that there are different conceptual views as to the dating of both the start and end of the French Revolution.

At its broadest it might be considered that revolution in France began when the citizens of Grenoble rose against the King in June 1788 and refused to pay his taxes; and that it ended with the death of Napoleon in 1821 and the beginnings of democracy. However, the 14th July 1789 witnessed the citizens of Paris storming the Bastille, and while this was mainly symbolic as the Bastille contained only seven prisoners, the military was routed and the governor, Bernard de Launay, was executed. This is the date that most accept revolution to have begun, and is that celebrated by France as its National Day. Napoleon returned to France from Egypt on the 9th October 1799, and overthrew the Directory on the 9th November. Many date the end of the revolution to this date.

Three phases are considered to define the Revolution. The first phase lasted until 1792 in which period the monarchy was rejected, the Church subordinated to the State, and a number of freedoms enacted.

This was followed by two years of the Terror when the King and Queen, many of the nobility and those who supported monarchy were executed. It is considered to have ended with the execution of Robespierre, one of the leaders of the revolution, and many of his supporters in July 1794.

The third phase might be considered to have lasted until the appointment of Napoleon Bonaparte to the position of First Consul when France again had an established leader. This was further consolidated on the 18th May 1804 when the Senate elected him Emperor of France and, on the 2nd December 1804, famously crowning himself. Incidentally, he also crowned himself, this time with an iron crown, on the 26th May 1805 to symbolise his control of Italy.

This was an extraordinary period of European history, coinciding with the end of what has been termed the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement asserting that rational human reason can be used to combat, if not resolve, the difficulties which beset the world.

Revolution was in the air both in Europe as well as America. Britain was fighting in America where France was supporting the American revolution. Britain and France formally declared war in 1778: Britain on the 6th February and France on the 10th July. This year saw Napoleon sent, at the age of nine, to the Collège militaire royal de Brienne in Paris. In 1785 he graduated as a Second Lieutenant at the age of sixteen and rapidly progressed in the French army which was fighting on a number of fronts before, through and after the Revolution. He was named général de division on the 15th October 1795 and général en chef de l’armée de l’Interieur on the 26th October 1785. He was twenty-six. Campaigns continued in Europe and Africa with the tide of war eventually turning against France. On the 11th April 1814 Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to Elba. On the 3rd January 1815 he returned to France and marched on Paris. 18th June 1815 saw the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and the 15th July 1815 his exile to St. Helena where he died on the 5th March 1821.

During this period Britain had an interest in supporting activities against France on the continent. The result of this was a high level of intrigue and espionage. There are interesting files in British archives dealing with the problems of controlling the borders and, particularly, ensuring that ‘French picture framers and Italian mirror makers’ did not slip through the system.

Dominique Joseph Cassini

Born in Paris on the 27th November 1715, Dominique Joseph Cassini died at Fillerval, near Thury, Oise on the 17th April 1790, being then recognised as the Marquis de Cassini following his elevation to that title by Royal Patent on the 19th February 1776.

His was a distinguished military career. Starting at the age of seventeen with his becoming a Musketeer of the Guard of the King in 1732, he saw continuous advancement. He became a Captain of a Polish regiment of cavalry from the 19th February 1734 at the age of nineteen, and later held the titles of Knight of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Luigi of France. He was promoted to the First Company ‘Villeroy’ of the Bodyguard of the King of France on the 9th April 1745, distinguishing himself in the Flanders campaign (1744-1747) in that year. He was promoted to Camp Marshall on the 1st December 1745 and to Brigadier in 1759, then again promoted to Field Marshall of the Royal Army on the 16th April 1767. In 1775, by Decree of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Dominique Joseph was given the right to sit on the Senate of the city of Siena, Italy, the location from which the Cassini family are said to have originated. I should also add that for some time he was Captain of the Royal Hunt of the Prince de Condé.

As I mentioned previously, Dominique Joseph married Angélique-Dorothée Babaud in 1754, in the middle of the military career that had, perhaps, delayed marriage for him. Nevertheless the woman he married had an interesting background as had, to an even greater extent, her brother.

I know little more about Dominique Joseph other than that the Hotel Cassini in Paris was bought by him in 1768, but appropriated by the Revolution on the 16th Nivôse Year IV – 6th January 1796 – and given to (later General) Marie François Auguste Caffarelli (1766-1849), regarded as gifted and one of the best servants of the First Empire. It was bought by the State in 1976 and is now the home of the Direction générale de l'administration et de la fonction publique.

The Babaud and Masson families – this tree opens in a new window – prospered through favourable marriages, and successful business deals and partnerships, in the process doing much to advance the French rôle in the industrial revolution within Europe. In Britain there is considerable information on the British industrial revolution but we learn little about what was happening in Europe at that time. It seems that the French began their industrial revolution at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and it is apparent that Pierre Babaud and Jacques Masson were particularly important in moving this forward. But a combination of the French Revolution and Napoleon combined to slow down the process of industrialisation in France despite the efforts of entrepreneurs such as the Masson and Babaud families.

The families became increasingly powerful from their wealth, acquiring noble titles associated with their buying of land, hence ‘de Guérigny’ and ‘de Pezay’. Their considerable wealth came particularly from their establishment and development of iron forges in the area in which they operated, the department of Nièvres, in the French region of Burgundy. It was Pierre Babaud and Jacques Masson who can be argued to have established the first industrial empire based on iron, Jacques being the former business partner of Pierre Babaud’s father, Jean.

The association of Jacques Masson and Pierre Babaud – both Protestants who converted to Catholicism – which began in 1725, carried on until the former’s death in June 1741 at the age of fifty-seven. Pierre continued to run the iron forges successfully. In ten years the company had expanded into thirty parishes and comprised five blast furnaces, seventeen forging mills, five forging mills for the production of anchors, mast collars, metal sheets, and cannonballs. He provided iron and anchors for the ports of war having obtained a virtual monopoly in 1762, as well as for the French India Company. The organisation was able to produce up to 4,000 tons of iron for the Navy, and employed a workforce of more than 2,000.

With the peace following the Seven Years’ war in 1763, the government scaled back its needs and Pierre sought to sell the company to Louis XVI in 1769 for 2.4 million livres. This was rejected but, in 1780 Pierre sold it to a private company. On learning of this Louis XVI instructed that the sale be cancelled and paid 3 million livres for it. The company continued to fabricate chains and anchors for the French navy until the 1960s when it was eventually closed down.

The Babaud family

Jean Baptiste Babaud and his brother, Pierre Babaud, were the second and last of the four children of Pierre Babaud and Marguerite Touhinot. Their older brother, Charles, became a priest and, born between them, was a sister, Louise. Jean and Pierre worked in the lucrative family business providing timber to the French navy.

Jean and Marie Boesnier were married about 1720 and had two daughters, Marie Charlotte Jeanne – who married Louis Jacques Gilbert Robert, Baron de Poiroux and Marquis de Lezardière in 1750 – and Angélique-Dorothée Babaud, the latter and her relationship with the Cassini family being my reason for taking an interest in the Babaud and Masson families.

As I wrote earlier, Pierre and Jean worked in the family business, providing timber to the French navy. In order to cement a business deal, Jacques Masson, a Swiss, gave his fourteen year old daughter, Jacqueline Anne Marie Masson, in marriage to Pierre. They were married on the 4th March 1734.

Jean Babaud died on the 15th December 1738 at St. Eustache, Paris. The following year his widow, Marie, married his business partner, Jacques Masson and a son, Alexandre Frédéric Jacques, was born on the 27th April 1741. Alexandre Frédéric Jacques was six weeks old when his father, Jacques Masson, died in July 1741. Marie, who had been born in April 1708, died in either 1744 or, in accordance with the Graffigny index, 1755.

Pierre Babaud seems to have lived an interesting life, the kind which many others of the Babaud and Masson families enjoyed, involving intrigue and politics in their quest for fame and fortune. By 1740 he was known at Court. There is an interesting story that Pierre even married off his younger daughter, Louise Rose Babaud de la Chaussade, to a hated competitor, Berthier-Bizy who had a nicer chateau than him in Guérigny.

Interestingly, Louise Rose took it upon herself to visit the National Convention – between 1792 and 1795 – in Paris to save the life of her husband when he was arrested as a nobleman. She explained that not only were they not a real noble family, but that they had even invited Jean Jacques Rousseau to their home when he was convalescing in nearby Pougues-les-Eaux.

The Masson family

Little is known of the origins of the Swiss, Jacques Masson. By 1725 he had become the Director of Finance of Léopold, Duke of Lorraine, where he was briefly jailed on the suspicion of having embezzled a considerable amount. In 1736 he became Chief Clerk to the Controller General of Finances responsible for businesses in Lorraine and, in 1740, Director General of French mines and minerals.

Angélique-Dorothée – Demoiselle Masson following the marriage of her mother, Marie, to Jacques – was now the step-sister of Alexandre Masson who later called himself the Marquis de Pezay; and Jacques Masson was the Seigneur de Guérigny, having bought the title in 1720. Although I believe the dates in the preceding paragraph are correct, my researches have Jacques Masson’s death as being at Versailles on the 12th June 1741, shortly after the birth of his son, his wife Marie dying three years later in 1744. However, I have also seen a note stating that Mme Masson died in early September 1767.

Be that as it may, some time after Angélique-Dorothée married Dominique Joseph Cassini her brother, Alexandre Frédéric Jacques married Caroline de Murat, a noted beauty though their union produced no children. She is the woman on the left in the portrait at the head of this page. Previously, in 1772 ̵ according to the memoirs of the Duke of Lauzun – believing them to be extremely rich, he had declared his love to Marianne Dorothy Harland, the older daughter of Admiral Sir Robert Harland and, on being rejected, tried the same with the younger daughter, Susannah Edith, but with the same result.

Alexandre Frédéric Jacques Masson

Alexandre was said to be a libertine, a poet, and a courtier with a considerable interest in political intrigue. Born a commoner and known as M. Masson de Pesai, he seems to have invented his title of Marquis. However, he had good connections and obviously developed and used them. For a time he was advisor to his god-father, the Comte de Maurepas, Louis XVI’s first Prime Minister and mentor, as well as to the Minister of War, Alexandre-Marie-Léonor de Saint-Mauris, the Prince de Montbarrey of whom the infamous Comtesse du Barry, mistress to the King, said he:

made up in pretensions for what he lacked in talent. He was weak, self-important, selfish, fond of women, and endeavoured to preserve all the airs of a man of good breeding in the midst of the grossest debauchery.

The Comtesse may well have been biased in this judgement as the Prince had made an unwelcome and rebuffed pass at her. But it may, of course, be an accurate description, though it would have been a strategic mistake on his part to give her cause for complaint due to her having the ear of the King. However, it is evident that Alexandre had managed to get himself into a position of influence and was used to moving in powerful circles.

One of Alexandre’s friends or acquaintances was the King’s Musketeer and writer Claude Joseph Dorat, a man considered to be ambitious well beyond his talent – to the extent that he published his own work illustrated at great expense to ensure sales, and produced shows where he bought up many of the seats in order to imply success of the performances.

This engraving shows Alexandre with Dorat on the left. I don’t know who the third person is. Dorat made enemies both with those supporting the Englightenment and those opposing it. This, perhaps, illustrates a little of the complexity in the atmosphere of intrigue of the times, and Dorat may not have been the best person for Alexandre to be associated with.

Alexandre became first a musketeer, then aide-de-camp to Prince de Rohan, Captain of Dragoons, but the positions which Alexandre obtained gave him access to many influential people and in the case of his mentor the Prince de Montbarrey, his wife – Mme de Montbarrey – who became his mistress. But it also gave him access to the Comte de Maillebois who took him under his wing and placed funds and information at his disposal.

It appears that Alexandre, by design and in concert with his lover, Mme. de Montbarrey, made himself indispensible to many, even initiating and maintaining secret correspondence with the inexperienced young King Louis XVI himself with the hope of eventually obtaining advancement for them both. There is an amusing account of how he was able to advance himself secretly to the young King, stating he wished for no reward but, within the year having become known and accepted considerable benefit. What is particularly interesting is the manner in which he advertised himself as having competence and intelligence in a wide range of areas of potential interest to the King. In becoming known to the King the latter introduced him to his Prime Minister, Maurepas, suggesting they worked together to advise him. Maurepas, surprised by both the introduction and instruction, told the King he was Alexandre’s godfather. What he obviously didn’t tell the King was that he was extremely irritated by having to take advice from somebody he knew to be inexperienced in much other than poetry. To complicate matters I understand that Mme de Montbarrey was related to Maurepas.

Although it is difficult to apportion the extent to which each helped the other, some of Pezay’s early success was due to introductions and the manoeuverings of his sister, Angélique-Dorothée, Mme de Cassini, by now, following the Marquise de Polignac, the mistress of the marquis de Maillebois, thanks to whom Alexandre entered the army with an officer’s rank of Captain in the Dragoon Regiment de la Chabot. Maillebois took Alexandre under his wing and placed funds and his experience at Alexandre’s disposal, which he consequently wrote down as the ‘Campagnes de Maillebois’. Actually, it is more probable that Alexandre wrote only a part of the book, essentially giving his name to it and writing a few drafts, the preface and dedication.

It is thought that it was Alexandre who engineered the appointment of the future Comptroller General, the Protestant Jacques Necker, to the Finance Ministry, and he is considered to have played a considerable part in the plot to dismiss Turgot, the economist and statesman, in 1776 who had, only two years previously been appointed first as Minister of the Navy and then to Comptroller-General.

Perhaps understandably, the constant intrigues finally caused the weakening Maurepas, with whom he was now in direct conflict, to have Alexandre removed to the provinces where he was given the Inspectorate of the Places Maritimes, a post he soon lost through mismanagement. Alexandre Frédéric Jacques Masson, Marquis de Pezay, retired to his estate near Blois and died soon after, on the 6th December 1777, only a year after he married Caroline de Murat, a beautiful young woman of a very good family, but with no fortune.

Caroline de Murat

Caroline and Alexandre were married on the 24th November 1776 following the signing of the marriage contract by the King and Queen and Royal family though with the apparent indignation of a number of courtiers. Virtually nothing is recorded about Alexandre’s beautiful widow, Caroline de Murat, left on her own a year later. I don’t believe she had any children, though I have found a lead to papers for Henriette de Murat, comtesse de Pezay, but assume that the title passed on to another branch of the family to which she belongs.

It is known that Caroline frequented the salon of the painter, Elisabeth Louise Vigée le Brun, one of her paintings illustrating Caroline with a good friend of hers, also a widow by this time – ‘Caroline de Murat, Marquise de Pezay, and Nathalie-Victorienne de Mortemart, Marquise de Rougé, with Her Sons Alexis-Bonabes and Adrien de Rougé’ – the painting illustrated at the head of this page.

It is not known what happened to Caroline in 1789 and the fall of the Bastille, but it is known that her friend, Marquise de Rougé, left immediately to Switzerland though returned in 1790 to live quietly with Alexandre’s aunt, the Duchesse d’Elbeuf, at the Chateau de Moreuil.

But, in 1791, the Marquise de Rougé, together with her children, mother and Caroline de Murat emigrated to Germany, settling first in Heidelberg then, in 1796, moving to Neustadt, near Vienna and then on to Altoona and Munster, returning to Paris in 1798. I assume that Caroline de Murat travelled with them though rumours are that the pair quarrelled bitterly.

I have not yet been able to discover what happened to Caroline de Murat, Marquise de Pezay subsequently, nor when she died.

Angélique-Dorothée Cassini

Meanwhile, Angélique-Dorothée Babaud, now Mme de Cassini and wife of Dominique Joseph Cassini, the younger brother of César François Cassini – known as Cassini III – had liaisons of her own. One such was with Jean-Baptiste-François Desmarets, marquis de Maillebois and baron de Châteauneuf-en-Thimerais (1682-1762) or, perhaps more likely, with his son, Yves-Marie Desmarets who, in turn, became marquis de Maillebois (1715-1791). There were others including the Prince de Condé and, perhaps, the Prussian Ambassador, Goltz, whose views she may have been responsible for introducing to both Maillebois and Vergennes, the anti-British Foreign Minister of King Louis XVI.

The diagram above illustrates two of these possible relationships, as well as that which her brother, the marquis de Pezay, had with Madame de Montbarrey, wife of the Prince de Montbarrey.

This behaviour was not uncommon in the mid to latter part of the eighteenth century, but it was conduct attacked by the ancien régime who saw private and public behaviour as closely related. However, political intrigue depended to a large extent on personal relationships, a situation which encouraged liaisons and affaires as being necessary for social and public advancement.

Madame de Cassini had a beautiful voice and was an attractive woman by all accounts. It was written about her that young women can readily move in the society of ministers and the like and that, in older age, these connections maintain their usefulness. Despite this it is also recorded that Louis XV refused to have her presented at court due to her reputation for intrigue. However, following his death, she was, to some extent, able to ingratiate herself with the new court.

The world in which Mme de Cassini and her brother, the Marquis de Pezay, lived would have been an interesting one. Her relationships with at least the Marquis de Maillebois and the Prince de Condé place her in an important position with regard to the society of the time, though both she and her brother had mixed fortune in their relationships. Some of this may have been self-induced, some a result of the fortunes of those with whom they enjoyed a variety of relationships. This society must have provided a complex area to negotiate as, to an extent perhaps difficult for us to imagine today, this society was both heavily stratified and dependent on patronage.

Those who were, or who considered themselves to be, leaders in society maintained salons at which the great and good regularly attended events and performances, met friends and others of their acquaintance, and exchanged news and gossip: this was a politically charged arena in which a number of issues might be discussed and matters arranged. Mme de Cassini maintained a salon at Rue de Babylone. There are records of Jean-François de la Harpe’s play, ‘Mélanie’, or ‘La Religieuse’ having its première there in July 1772, two years after it was written, and I understand that Mme de Cassini actually performed in it.

The performing of this play in her salon brought Mme de Cassini opprobrium due to its content. It may also have harmed her in that a correspondent tells me she played the leading rôle in this first showing. I am also told that the Archbishop of Paris forbade any further showing and it wasn’t performed again until the 7th December 1791. The first overtly anti-religious play in France, it would have been acclaimed by the self-appointed and frequently hypocritical intellectual and philosphical elements of society, though would have been considered impious not just to the General Assembly of Clergy but also to the majority of ordinary French men and women.

The play seeks to infer that female convents were institutions in which neophytes were forced to take religious vows. It was presumably written either to reinforce the prejudices of those who already thought this, or to persuade others that this was so. But documentary evidence asserts that convents were virtually the only places where young women could obtain an education, and that the decision to take vows was, for the most part, a personal and free decision.

Although the peformance may have been a social gaffe on Mme de Cassini’s part, caused a stir at the time and, perhaps, contributed to her previously mentioned disfavour by the King, the play later found favour in revolutionary Paris where it was performed eighty-seven times between 1791 and 1799. Perhaps because of this popularity, it is probable that several authors used it as a model for their own writings. These would include Joseph Fiévée’s ‘Les Rigueurs du Cloître’, (Paris, 1790) and Mme Olympe de Gouges’ ‘Le Couvent ou Les Vœux Forcés’, (Paris, 1790). Nevertheless, Pierre Laujon’s splendid ‘Le Couvent ou Les Fruits du Caractère et de l’Éducation’ (Paris, 1790) and Jean Corsange’s et Jean Hapdé’s ‘Le Dernier Couvent de France ou l’Hospice’ (1796) more accurately portray female convent life in 18th century France.

Jean-Baptiste-François Desmarets, marquis de Maillebois

Jean-Baptiste-François Desmarets followed a military career being appointed, in 1708 a Brigadier, in 1718 Maréchal de camp, in 1731 Lieutenant Général, in 1730 Director of the Depot de la Guerre and, on the 11th February 1741, Maréchal de France.

The Depot de la Guerre was a resource of documents relating to war, and Maillebois was instrumental in beginning the process of classification and organisation which would make it a more valuable resource from which to derive information on military issues. This included the appointment and training of geographical and topographical engineers, another very valuable resource in war, reinforced by the acquisition of Cassini’s great map, begun in 1751. Regrettably for France, the cadre of engineers was suppressed in 1791.

A descendant of Colbert, principle minister to Louis XIV, Maillebois appears to have had skills more useful to a soldier than those of the politician and courtier. Married with four children he died at the age of eighty. Interestingly I have seen a quotation that, ‘according to the Marquis d’Argenson – whose daughter married Maillebois’ son – he was a bad politician, a hard and sullen courtier, a great hunter, an excellent father to his family’… [Journal et Memoires du marquis d'Argenson. ed. E.J.B. Rathery (Paris 1859-67) 9 vols. iv.210.]

Yves-Marie Desmarets, marquis de Maillebois

Yves-Marie Desmarets began his military life at an early age. At nineteen he was Colonel of the First battalion La Sarre French infantry at the Battle of Parma, 29th June 1734, where he was wounded in the head. That battle, one of those relating to the War of Polish Succession (1733-1738), was indecisive, though it is considered that the Austrians beat the French and their allies, but later lost at the Battle of Luzzara, 19th September 1734. The War was fought by the French and their allies with the intent of countering Russian and Austrian interests.

Yves-Marie Desmarets, also marquis de Maillebois, had an active life of his own. Born the 3rd August 1715, following his father’s marriage in 1713, he was made an Honorary Academician on the 16th June 1749, Vice President of the Royal Academy of Science in 1750, 1770, 1775 and 1781, and its President in 1751, 1771, 1776, 1782 and 1786. He was also a soldier, again as his father had been.

As I must have mentioned a number of times, this century was marked by intrigue and the fortunes of most of its important figures were constrained, directed and affected by this background. Maillebois was appointed to command of the Dutch army in 1784, or early 1785, a characteristic of the Dutch army being that it was usually commanded by a foreigner, until 1783, Duke Louis of Brunswick. This appointment came against a concerted effort to prevent it, the argument being that Maillebois was too old to provide the King with the degree of expertise needed. And, despite his success in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) he had quarelled with his commander, the Maréchal d’Estrées following the battle of Hastenbeck in 1757, and attacked his ‘irresolution’ in a pamphlet resulting in his facing a Court Martial and subsequent imprisonment in the fortress of Doullens in the Somme département of Picardie.

However, for some time Maillebois had been providing Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes and Foreign Minister with advice on the reform of the army, the appointment having been achieved with the aid of a number of his supporters, notably Comte Charles de Polignac – whose wife had been the mistress of Maillebois, and Mme la Marquise de Monconseil. Sadly for Maillebois, the appointment exposed him to a degree of intrigue from which he never recovered. This included the accusation that Maillebois was involved with and supported the Prussian position, it being argued that he was associated with Golz, the Prussian Ambassador in Paris through Mme de Cassini, apparently a friend of the Ambassador.

Interestingly, in a paper in the French national archives, a note states that he was sent to Holland to support the Democratic party against Prussia. Following his denunciation in 1790 to the Comité des Reserches by his secretary, Thomas-Jean Grandmaison, and their being presented with evidence in support of this, Maillebois was indicted for plotting against it, and fled on the 22nd March – the leisurely indictment being published on the 9th July – to the Netherlands, where he subsequently died.

It was obviously a closely knit society so I should not have been surprised to discover a link between the Maillebois and Cassini families from the reverse side of a piece of paper on which there is a sketch of a Legion’s uniform. This typed note states that Yves-Marie Desmarets was the General in charge of the Maillebois Legion in the Low Countries, a part of the Fourth Battalion, and raised on the 12th April 1786 though you will see that there is, at the top of the page, the date of 10th January 1785. I believe this might be the date on which an Artillery Company was added to the Legion. I have also seen the date of the 17th April given as the date of the Legion being raised.

The note goes on to state that the Legion was led by a Kolonel Comm. D. Mark. de Cassini whom I assume to be Dominique Joseph, Marquis de Cassini, Madame de Cassini’s husband.

On another note kindly provided to me by the Central Bureau of Genealogy in the Netherlands, Dominique Joseph is recorded as retiring from the Regiment on the 31st December 1787.

In the Autumn of 1787, the alliance concluded in 1785 between France and the United Provinces was fractured by a Prussian invasion, the King of Prussia, Frederick William II being the brother-in-law of William V of Orange. France was unable to respond to the difficulties of its Dutch allies due to both a serious lack of finances as well as increasingly fragmented Royal foreign policies in this period immediately prior to the Revolution, two of the factors which were soon to precipitate the Revolution.

Dominique Joseph, Marquis de Cassini, died on the 17th April 1790 at his chateau at Fillerval, near Thury. It is recorded – though the date of his death stated as being the 8th April 1790 may be incorrect – that, as soon as her husband died, Mme de Cassini left to join her lover, Maillebois, at Maestericht. If this was true, it sadly didn’t last long; Yves-Marie Desmarets died on the 17th December 1791 at, I believe, Liège. I don’t know where Mme de Cassini then went.

In one of the letters written by Mme de Cassini to William Windham – discussed below – she mentions that her nephew will be leaving in a week’s time to join his parents in Holland. This was in 1797 and I wonder if there may be a link to a Cassini living in Holland at that time. I don’t yet know if this would have been a Cassini, a relation from her own side of the family, or if the term ‘nephew’ was being used familiarly for somebody not related but well known to her.

The Princes de Condé

Perhaps more importantly, Angélique-Dorothée was also the mistress of Louis Joseph, Prince de Condé, (1736-1818) or, perhaps, of his son Louis Henri, Duke de Bourbon (1756-1830), who became the Prince de Condé in 1818 on the death of his father but who accompanied his father into exile in 1789 when they fled the French Revolution. Following the storming of the Bastille on the 14th July 1789, the feudal system was abolished on the 4th August 1789 and titles abrogated between the 19th and 23rd June 1790.

Of the two of them, I believe it more likely to be the father with whom Mme de Cassini enjoyed a liaison, but I have to admit that I’m not sure. Louis Joseph, having fought a distinguished campaign in the Seven Years’ War, established an army in association with the Austrians and fought until the Peace of Campo Formio, 1797, when he was being funded by the English. The army he raised was known as the ‘armée de Condé’ and operated between 1792 and 1796. He worked briefly for the Russians in their Polish campaign before retiring with his son to England in 1801 where he made a second marriage, this time to another refugee, Marie-Catherine de Brignole-Sale, his first marriage to Charlotte Godefride de Rohan-Soubise having ended with her death in 1760 at the age of 23. The Restauration of the Bourbon dynasty saw Louis XVIII returned to power in 1814 and it is likely it was in that year Louis Joseph returned to Paris, dying there in 1818.

Louis Henri, his son, married in 1770 and, two years later his wife, Louise Marie Thérèse Mathilde, gave birth to their only child, the ill-fated Louis Antoine Henri, Duke of Enghien, the traditional title given to the eldest son of the Princes de Condé. Louis Henri’s marriage lasted only until 1780 when the couple separated. He did not marry again but scandalised society by taking a mistress in Paris, Marguerite Michelot, an opera singer by whom he had two illegitimate daughters. He seems to have cut this tie when he moved to England. There he took another mistress, Sophie Dawes who made herself indispensible to him. She, and members of her family followed him back to France. On becoming the Prince de Condé he was unable or unwilling to maintain the relationship she demanded and, it is said, by her behaviour and machinations, hastened his end. He was found hanged under very suspicious circumstances in 1830.

Louis Henri’s son, Louis Antoine Henri, the Duke of Enghien was alleged to be a participant in a plot against the Consulate and made the mistake of settling in Ettenheim, Baden-Baden, only just over the French border. Living on a British pension, and having had discussions with the British supporting them against what he saw to be the illegitimate rule of the Napoleon, he made little attempt to avoid capture. Having notified the Baden-Baden authorities of their intention, General Ordener was instructed to organise the arrest of the Duke. With a force of about a thousand he crossed the border at night and captured the Duke on Wednesday, the 14th March, at 5 a.m, carrying him back to France under the name of Plessis. A week later, following a summmary trial, the Duke of Enghien was executed in the ditch of the fortress of Vincennes at 3 a.m. the 21st March 1804. Although his grandfather and father survived him, Louis Antoine Henri was the last of the line of Princes de Condé.

Madame de Cassini, the Marquise de Cassini

1797 was an interesting year in Europe. In September the British secret service’s counter-revolutionary plans in France collapsed. (Note that it was on the 18th Fructidor V – 4th September 1797 – that there was a coup d’état in France.) I believe that both Louis Joseph de Condé and his son, Louis Henri would still have been in England. Around this time Angélique-Dorothée, Madame de Cassini, the Marquise de Cassini, who was then around sixty, visited London apparently to meet William Windham, Secretary at War, 11th July 1794-1801, and the individual responsible for running spies for England, particularly in French Normandy and Brittany.

I had assumed that Madame de Cassini came to England from France specifically to see Windham. That may be so, however there is a note in the Departmental records of l’Oise that she emigrated in 1792, and that the State confiscated her goods. In fact her nephew, Jean-Domenique Cassini, known as Cassini IV, director of the Observatory of Paris, protested against this confiscation of goods which, according to him, did not belong to the widow but to the heirs of his uncle, Domenique-Joseph Cassini who had died in 1790. This implies that Angélique-Dorothée and Domenique-Joseph had children though I have not been able to find any record of this. It might be, of course, that Jean-Domenique thought he might benefit.

In the letters, Mme de Cassini makes no mention of children but does write of both a nephew and niece. There is no clue as to whether they are brother and sister. She states that the niece had met William Windham, and that the nephew was going to meet his parents in Holland. It is interesting to speculate who these might be.

As far as I have been able to discover the only candidates alive at this time would have been Jean Dominique Cassini – Cassini IV, but who was a favourite of Napoleon and unlikely to be meeting a British minister, and his sister, Françoise Elisabeth Cassini and her husband, Louis-Henri de Riencourt. But their father, César Françoise Cassini – Cassini III, was dead by this time though his wife, Charlotte-Jeanne, lived to 1818. Moreover Françoise Elisabeth and Louis-Henri de Riencourt were married in 1747 and, fifty years later it would be unlikely he would be visiting his parents in Holland.

There is the possibility that she was referring to the children of Françoise Elisabeth and Louis-Henri de Riencourt of whom there were four sons and two daughters. But one of the daughters had died before Madame de Cassini’s visit to London and the other would have been fifteen – later Catherine Elisabeth Agathe de Riencourt married her cousin, Alexandre Henri Gabriel Cassini, Cassini V. I have found nothing to suggest that their parents were in Holland.

There is also the possibility that she might have been referring to young friends but I think it unlikely she would have referred to them as being her relations in a letter to Windham.

It might well have been that Windham was attempting to use her influence with the Prince de Condé whom the English wanted to use to lead a new army against Napoleon and in support of the restoration of the monarchy. Perhaps the more likely possibility is that she was operating as a go-between with Royalist forces in France as Windham was corresponding with others such as Georges Cadoudal, leader of the insurrectionary Royalists in Brittany, the Prince de Bouillon, the Comte de Puisaye and his lieutenant, Tinténiac the Breton Royalist. Regrettably the letters give no real clue as to why she was in England, and what she was doing on what I assume was a single stay.

She refers in her letters to her ‘dear baptiste’ and of his spending several days with ‘barthelemy and the arrested deputies’. I understand from a correspondent that these might be respectively General Pichegru with whom William Wickham, the Prince de Condé and others were negotiating with the intent of his changing sides to the Royalists, and François-Marie Barthélemy, Member of the Executive Directory of the French Republic, who was arrested on the failure of the coup d’état of the 4th September 1797 and exiled to French Guiana, thence making his way to England. Mme de Cassini writes that she corresponds with them and that she had arranged for funds – I assume from Windham – to be placed in Baptiste’s hands before his arrest.

Reading William Windham’s diary it is difficult to obtain an understanding of his attitude to the Prince de Condé due to the abbreviated character of his entries, but it appears that he was not happy with Condé’s operation, noting ‘Bad opinions and feelings about the Condé army’ in an entry of the 28th April 1797. There is also no note in his diaries of any meeting he had with Mme de Cassini though there is mention of Royalists from time to time.

Whatever the reason might have been for her visit to England, she stayed at two separate addresses in north London, writing four letters in a frail hand to Windham. The letters are esentially formal letters but demonstrate that she was important enough for Windham to meet her a number of times. It seems entirely probable to me that there is a connection between her visit, the British interests in overturning the revolution in France and her political and personal connections.

Madame de Cassini is recorded as dying on the 8th May 1805 at the house of a Jean Duchesne. I believe this may have been Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Duchesne, known as Duchesne des Argilliers, a miniaturist. He was born at Gisors, a small town about seventy kilometres north-west of the centre of Paris on the 8th December 1770 where he also died on the 25th March 1856.

Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith

I can’t tell who made it, but a note in a different hand on one of the letters from Mme de Cassini to William Windham states that Sir Sidney Smith was in the Bastille at that time. This was a mistake, in fact he was incarcerated in the Temple prison. However, I believe this note may be significant in suggesting a reason for Mme de Cassini’s visit to William Windham. He is certainly mentioned in one of the four letters.

Born on the 21st June 1764, William Sidney Smith joined the British navy in 1777, seeing action at the battles of Cape Saint Vincent, Chesapeake and the Saintes, but was demobilised on half-pay and the rank of Captain following the Treaty of Paris on the 3rd September 1783. He then spent some time travelling in France, learning to speak perfect French. For two years, under the guise of being a traveller, he observed the development of the harbour at Cherbourg, reporting to the Admiralty that, when completed, the French port would have a similar capability as Portsmouth, Britain’s main military port. Suspected of spying he left in 1787 via Spain, moving to Tangiers in the anticipation of future conflict there.

This was a time when there was considerable activity by Barbary pirates who ranged all over the Mediterranean and Atlantic, taking goods as well as slaves from shipping and land bases in Europe and even Iceland and America. The British government had not yet come to terms with the settlement of the problems created by these activities originating as they did some way from England, and when their more immediate problems were America and Europe. Interestingly, in semi-retirement, Smith campaigned for the release of Christian slaves from captivity in Barbary north Africa.

At this time, Sultan Sidi Muhammad bin Abdullah was attempting to amend his economic policies from those relating to the collection of taxes and a standing army, to one based on maritime trade. To further this policy, the Sultan wished to allow American ships into his ports. Smith’s recommendations to change British policy and strengthen control of the Straits of Gibraltar were not acted upon and, in the apparent lack of interest, he accepted an invitation in 1790 from the King of Sweden to advise in his naval war against Russia, in fact leading successful naval operations against it. Regrettably six British naval officers were killed fighting on the side of the Russians which earned Smith a degree of enmity though, at the request of King Gustavus III of Sweden, George III invested him a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Sword, an additional cause for jealousy.

Smith returned to London in May 1792 and was directed to join his younger brother, the chargé d’affaires in Constantinople, where he was able to provide intelligence to Britain at a time when Napoleon was about to move into the region. There he recruited a crew and joined the British Mediterranean fleet as a volunteer, carrying out a mission to burn the general stores in Toulon and set fire to French ships there. This operation was only a partial success, the result of which left him unpopular with Nelson and others.

In January 1795, and returned again to London, Smith was given command of a small flotilla in the Channel, sailing on HMS ‘Diamond’. In July of that year Smith occupied the islands of St. Marcouf off the Normandy coast with the intention of blockading Le Havre and assisting migrants leaving France. Despite his skills in carrying out this operation, an unfortunate change of wind direction in the estuary enabled the French to capture Captain Smith and others.

Sir Sidney was imprisoned for two years in the Temple prison, but escaped on the 24th April 1798, together with John Wesley Wright – a midshipman from the ‘Diamond’ and who acted as his secretary in prison – in an operation planned by the British secret services, travelling via Rouen to Le Havre, and arriving in London on the 6th May, according to William Windham’s diary. The Temple prison had become a State prison in 1796, having previously housed King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in 1792 until their execution the following year.

In the context of the letters from Mme de Cassini to William Windham, mentioned above, it is interesting to note that Smith also corresponded with Windham from his prison. Bearing in mind that he was ‘detenu au secret’ and that correspondence was forbidden, at least five letters passed between them, unopened. Writing on the 6th October 1796, Sir Sidney began his letter:

My letter of July 23 was written, I confess, without much hope of its reaching you. Judge then of my surprise and satisfaction at receiving an acknowledgement of it in your letter of September 9. How a letter of that nature can have passed the jaws of all the cerberuses and the Eyes of all the Arguses by which I am surrounded, so as to arrive into the innermost recess of this Tomb with the seal unbroken is matter of mystery to me. It is useless and would be impolitic to enquire into that too much. Your ability in contriving to find such able and faithfull agents calls forth my admiration, at the same time that the warmth of your expressions respecting the interest that is taken in my situation, commands my most lively gratitude. May I beg of you to convey these sentiments likewise to those you allude to as taking part in the general wish for my safety and welfare.

William Windham responded to Smith on the 5th November 1796, giving him news about the taking of a Dutch squadron and his views on the Austrians as well as hoping that Lord Malmesbury, the Ambassador to Paris, might help his predicament, and that correspondence might be allowed. This secret correspondence appears to have been effective. Windham recorded in his diary of the 17th November that he had received a letter from Sir Sidney dated the 9th November and delivered by a M. Duverne.

Sir Sidney was treated strictly, being moved from the responsibility of the French Minister of War to that of the Minister of the Interior. Furthermore it was argued that he could not be exchanged, as was the practice, because he was not recognised to be a prisoner of war, having held no commission from the British Government when he had burnt the French ships at Toulon.

He continued to argue with his captors, exchanging letters with them and apparently enjoying some sympathy from French officers coming into contact with him. At the same time the British government sent Lord Malmesbury and Henry Swinburne – the latter who had travelled extensively across Europe, producing illustrated books on his travels in Spain and the Two Sicilies – to negotiate his, and others’ release, but to no effect.

A month after Sir Sidney escaped, Windham recorded in a letter of the 17th May 1798 to Lord Grenville, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Windham’s cousin, that Smith had spoken with Lord Grenville about the parlous state of the Royalists in France. Windham argued that relatively small funding would help tie up French forces in Brittany and La Vendée, and that foreign groupings allied against France should use the Royalists. Bear in mind that Grenville supported war on land as opposed to war at sea, the preferred approach by Henry Dundas, Secretary for War under William Pitt.

There is considerable correspondence to and from Windham at this time relating to the Royalists and their use in the fight against revolutionary France.

On the 1st July 1798, Napoleon had landed in Egypt and the British government were concerned for the security of British interests in the Indian sub-continent. Napoleon was, however, land-locked with the destruction of his fleet at the battle of Aboukir Bay on the 1st August 1798. In order to make progress in Egypt, as well as to advance his position with those running France, Napoleon implemented a strategy based on the gaining and dissemination of information both locally and in France.

Smith was rewarded for his escape from Paris with command of HMS ‘Tigris’, an eighty-gun, Duquesne class vessel captured from the French. On the 3rd October 1798 by order of an ‘Instrument of Full Power’ he was given autonomous military and political capability under the command of Admiral Vincent in the Mediterranean, an appointment which caused considerable irritation to Nelson who didn’t want to work with such a junior officer.

To some extent this posting might be explained by the skills Smith had demonstrated so far, but they were also seen to be related to family connections, the Prime Minister, William Pitt being his cousin, Lady Grenville, wife of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, his aunt and, particularly useful, his brother being the chargé d’ffaires in Constantinople.

It is also significant that he took on board with him seven French speakers whom he had come to know when imprisoned in Paris and who were familiar with espionage and the use of propaganda. Their names were disguised within the roster for the Royal Marines and Smith’s intent was to use them in dealing with French propaganda as well as hoping to spread dissension among French troops.

Sidney Smith arrived at Constantinople on the 26th December 1798, aware that Britain had no ground troops to move against Napoleon, and the knowledge that Britain saw the way forward by coming to an accommodation with the Ottoman empire. Largely due to his initiatives and activities, Smith defeated the French siege artillery at the Turkish held city of Acre, lifting the siege on the 20th May 1799. Napoleon returned to France, hence relieving the British of their concern for French interests in the Indian sub-continent.

On the 12th February 1806 Smith was again writing to William Windham, this time noting that he had accepted Nelson’s offer of an off-shore Mediterranean squadron which he was commanding from HMS Pompée, a French Téméraire class 74 gun ship-of-the-line which fled to the British in 1793 with the attack on Toulon. Essentially the letter appears to show Smith looking for action and complaining of those who were happy to take a more sedentary approach to their duties. This attitude was soon to get him into trouble as, on the 9th September Windham, now Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, wrote to Lord Grenville, now First Lord of the Treasury, the following private letter:

I certainly have every reason to agree with you in the wish of making the censure on Sir Sidney Smith as mild as possible, nor would I on any account urge you to a decision on the subject before you have given yourself time to consider the papers before us, which, I am sorry to say, are such as to have impressed my mind with the absolute necessity, on grounds of public duty; of our expressing a decided, tho’ mild, disapprobation of the following points:
1. His having, without the concurrence of the King’s Minister in Sicily, accepted a commission from that Government.
2. His having taken upon himself the command or direction (call it which we will) of an insurrection in Calabria destined to co-operate with a body of British troops under the command of a British General, in whom that direction ought, as far as it was fit to be assumed by any British officer, exclusively to have been vested. And,
3rdly, this issuing and acting under the proclamation of the Court of Sicily, such as we have actually received, and are not therefore at liberty to doubt of its existence, or of its having been directly remonstrated against by the King’s Minister in Sicily.
All these facts appear to be but too well established by Elliot’s letter to Fox, by the copy of Sir Sidney’s letters inclosed in that to Fox, and by the copy of the proclamation itself, transmitted to Lord Howick by Lord Collingwood.
But the censure may certainly be so worded as to attach only on the facts supposing them to be such as they now appear. In point of form, there can, I think, be no doubt that this, which is matter of general and political direction, ought to issue from the Secretary of State thro’ the Admiralty, and not from the latter in the first instance.

Despite the foregoing, Sir Sidney was raised to the rank of Vice-Admiral on the 31st July 1810 though he didn’t raise his flag until the summer of 1812 when he was appointed second in command of the Mediterranean fleet under Sir Edward Pellew, later Lord Exmouth.

Because of his services following the Battle of Waterloo and his safeguarding the return of Louis XVIII to Paris, Smith was rewarded with the British KCB in 1815 and, in 1838, the GCB. He attained the rank of Admiral on the 19th July 1821. Regrettably he was considered difficult to work with and arrogant, characteristics which made him unpopular in an increasingly bureaucratic navy.

Because of the British government’s tardy repayment of expenses due to him, and the threat of being imprisoned for debt if he settled in England, Sir Sidney Smith went to live in Paris, taking with him his wife, Caroline, the widow of Sir George Berriman Rumbold, British minister to Hamburg. Smith married her in October 1810 and they had three daughters and a son. He died in Paris at the age of seventy-six on the 26th May 1840, and is buried in the largest Parisian cemetery – Cimetière du Père Lachaise.

John Wesley Wright

This was an interesting time in both England and France with spies being run into and out of both countries and their borders leaking badly. In fact instructions were given by the British government to the Channel ports that all the ‘Italian mirror makers and French picture framers’ were to be rounded up and imprisoned… In the middle of all this, the British secret service’s counter-revolutionary plans collapsed in France in September 1797.

John Wesley Wright, born in Minorca in 1769, was a captain in the British navy who carried secret agents into and out of revolutionary and Napoleonic France on his small, quarter-deck brig, HMS ‘Vencejo’, captured from the Spanish in 1799. One such group was landed on the 30th August 1803 and comprised Georges Cadoudal and his fellow chouans and, on the 16th January 1804, General Charles Pichegru was landed, all these being involved in the plot to overthrow the Consulate. Incidentally, it was the Prince de Condé who brought General Pichegru into this operation.

Prior to his capture by the French with Sir Sidney Smith at Le Havre in 1796, John Wesley Wright and Sir Sidney served together for two years on HMS ‘Diamond’, Wright serving on her as a midshipman. Wright, serving now as a Lieutenant on HMS ‘Tigre’, was also present at the siege of Acre, between the 18th March and 20th May 1799.

Wright was wounded and captured again by the French on the 8th May 1804, this time at Quiberon Bay on the north-west coast of France where he held out against superior odds for six weeks, but was taken when his ship, HMS Vencejo, was becalmed. He was returned to the Temple prison. The British government attempted to have him freed, a second motion being made on 11th July according to William Windham’s diary but the French, perhaps smarting from his earlier escape, accused him of conspiracy and other transgressions rather than treating him as a legitimate prisoner of war, and refused to free or exchange him arguing that no French officer would accept the dishonour of exchange with him.

Although there were plans being made to assist his escape, he died in his cell in the Temple on the night of the 3rd to 4th Brumaire – 24th to 25th October 1805, at the age of 36. He was buried on the 27th October 1805. There seem to be a number of different causes given for his death. It is said that he was found in his cell with his throat deeply cut by a razor which should have been discovered in the daily search of his cell. But the memoirs of Sir Sidney Smith state that he was shot after a mock trial, it previously being believed that he had been strangled, as had General Pichegru, by an individual who attended both Wright and Pichegru in the Temple. Whatever the cause of his death, the French claimed he killed himself; the British believed he was murdered. The rationale for this is based on Smith’s discussions with the wife of the Gaoler of the Temple and others, the official records together with an examination of over two hundred papers Wright had written in the Temple, which showed him to have been positive in his outlook and, as was very important in those days, to behave properly and set a good example.

The Latin inscription on his tomb at Père La Chaise cemetery in Paris, was written by Sir Sidney Smith:

HERE LIES INHUMED
JOHN WESLEY WRIGHT,
BY BIRTH AN ENGLISHMAN,
CAPTAIN IN THE BRITISH NAVY
Distinguished both among his own Countrymen and Foreigners
For skill and courage;
To whom,
Of those things which lead to the summit of glory,
Nothing was wanting but opportunity:
His ancestors, whose virtues he inherited,
He honoured by his deeds.
Quick in apprehending his orders,
Active and bold in the execution of them;
In success modest,
In adverse circumstances firm,
In doubtful enterprises, wise and prudent.
Awhile successful in his career;
At length assailed by adverse winds, and on an hostile shore,
He was captured;
And being soon after brought to Paris,
Was confined in the prison called the Temple,
‘Infamous for midnight murders’,
And placed in the most rigid custody:
But in bonds,
And suffering severities still more oppressive,
His fortitude of mind and fidelity to his country
Remained unshaken.
A short time after,
He was found in the morning with his throat cut.
And dead in his bed:
He died the 28th October, 1805, aged 36.
To be lamented by his Country,
Avenged by his God!

Military and cartographic issues

As will be obvious from what has gone before, while putting together these notes on the Babaud and Masson families, I have come across a number of individuals who were military officers in both the French armies and navy. It is notable that the French military were significantly better advanced both in military science as well as in the use of cartography – the latter admirably developed by the Cassini family – than the British. The interaction of military movement and cartography go hand in hand and, in this area, the French held significant advantages which were not countered by the British for some time, in fact until the early years of the nineteenth century.

A second issue is that there were a significant number of French Catholics serving in the French military at the beginning of the French Revolution. The majority of these would have been French, of course, but there were also a significant number of foreign soldiers, among them British officers. Some of these Catholics found themselves unable to support Revolutionary France and gave their skills and experience to the British, an extremely useful asset at this period of European history.

more to be written…