CHOISEUL-STAINVILLE, ÉTIENNE-FRANÇOIS, DE. - French ambassador and statesman, b. June 28, 1719, d. in Paris on May 8, 1785.
Having first taken up a career in arms, he fought valiantly in the War of the Austrian Succession. By seconding the intrigues of the favorite Madame de Pompadour he secured her favor, and in 1754 he was appointed ambassador to Rome, where he remained until 1757. In this office he succeeded in settling with Benedict XIV the thorny question that kept a part of the French clergy agitated regarding the denial of sacramental absolution to those among the appellants against the bull Unigenitus who were unwilling to submit to acknowledging their disobedience. The bull of Benedict XIV Ex omnibus was published on Oct. 16, 1756, and with it the political importance of the Jansenists in France came to an end.
In 1757-58 Choiseul was ambassador to Vienna and worked to confirm that Franco-Austrian alliance which overturned the previous policy, in order to direct it against Prussia. In Nov. 1758 he replaced the abbé de Bernis at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; in 1761 he also took over the Ministry of War and the following year that of the Navy. For twelve years he was the true governor of France and worked to tighten that "Family Compact" among the Bourbon dynasties which proposed the suppression of the Jesuits, in which he had a great part. A friend of Voltaire, he was among those who considered religion good only for the people. He deemed it useful policy to set France on the path of building up a large colonial possession in competition with England, and he succeeded in this; he also annexed Corsica and Lorraine.
Having made enemies of the new favorite, Mme du Barry, he was exiled by Louis XV to his estate at Chanteloup, where he remained from 1770 to 1774, a victim of court intrigues. He died financially ruined because of his extravagant way of living.