Louis-André Pichon

Louis-André Pichon began his American diplomatic work as a legation secretary in the early 1790s. After work in the French foreign ministry, he became an intermediary during the crisis that produced the undeclared naval war between France and the United States. In 1798 he held confidential conversations at The Hague with American minister William Vans Murray about the assurances required before a new American mission could be received in Paris. ¹

Murray’s October 1798 report to John Adams shows Pichon transmitting the American demand for an explicit promise of respectful treatment to Talleyrand and forwarding the minister’s response. Murray emphasized that he lacked authority to negotiate and that Pichon’s communications were preliminary. ²

Pichon returned to the United States as consul general and chargé d’affaires. During the Saint-Domingue campaign, displaced colonists accused him of accommodating American interests. Jansen’s archival research also identifies Pichon’s protests against the brutality of the French expedition. ³

After his recall, Pichon entered the service of Jérôme Bonaparte’s Kingdom of Westphalia, working on the council of state and in treasury administration before resigning in 1812. Under the Bourbon Restoration he undertook administrative work connected with Martinique and Guadeloupe and became secretary general of the justice ministry. Following the conquest of Algiers, he served in its civil administration and published Alger sous la domination française in 1833. He remained a councillor of state under the July Monarchy and died in 1854. ¹