Jules de Polignac

French monarchy state institutions Monarchy and royalism Counter-revolution 1780–1847 ○ Natural causes

Ultra-royalist prime minister whose July Ordinances provoked the Revolution of 1830

Born in 1780, the son of the Duchess of Polignac, a favourite of Marie Antoinette, he grew up at the court of Versailles and fled abroad with his family when the Revolution broke out. Implicated in 1804 in the plot of Cadoudal and Pichegru against Bonaparte, he was imprisoned until 1813. After the Restoration he received the title of prince from the Pope in 1820, and in 1823 Louis XVIII made him ambassador to Great Britain. One of the most conspicuous ultra-royalists of the Restoration, he was appointed foreign minister by Charles X in August 1829 and soon became President of the Council. His ministry launched the Algiers expedition and issued the July Ordinances of 1830 that provoked the July Revolution. Arrested after the revolution, he was condemned by the Chamber of Peers to perpetual imprisonment, commuted to exile by the amnesty of 1836. He died at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1847.

Also known as: Jules Auguste Armand Marie de Polignac