François Barbé-Marbois

François Barbé-Marbois (1745–1837), born in Metz, began his diplomatic career in the German states, serving at Regensburg, Dresden, and Munich. He accompanied La Luzerne to America in 1779 and helped organize France's consular network, which linked the Philadelphia legation with ports from Boston to Charleston. He married Elizabeth Moore, daughter of a Pennsylvania political family, in 1784. ¹

In 1780 he circulated twenty-two questions about the American states. Virginia delegate Joseph Jones passed them to Thomas Jefferson, who supplied a response in December 1781. Jefferson continued revising and enlarging it before publication in Paris in 1785 as Notes on the State of Virginia. ²

After America, he became intendant of Saint-Domingue in 1785. His attempts to impose financial discipline provoked resistance from colonists, and he left during the upheavals of 1789. Back in France he briefly served as mayor of Metz and entered the Council of Ancients. The coup of 18 Fructidor in 1797 brought deportation to French Guiana. He returned after the fall of the Directory and eventually became Napoleon's treasury minister. ¹

In 1803 he acted as France's plenipotentiary in the Louisiana negotiations with Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe. Their treaty, dated 30 April, ceded Louisiana to the United States; accompanying conventions provided for sixty million francs to France and up to twenty million francs in American claims against the French government. The agreements also regulated the transfer of territory, archives, and military posts. ³

A financial crisis involving the treasury's contractors cost him his ministry in 1806. Napoleon subsequently appointed him first president of the newly established Cour des comptes in 1807. Except during the Hundred Days, he led the court until 1834. He also briefly served as justice minister in 1815–16 before returning to his work at the court. ⁴

His later public life included opposition to deportation, the slave trade, and colonial ventures, and sustained concern with prison conditions. He visited prisons, considered the treatment and future reintegration of prisoners, and supported wider publication of public financial scrutiny. Increasing visual impairment preceded his retirement in 1834. He died in 1837. ⁴