GRAMONT, ANTOINE-AGÉNOR-ALFRED de, Prince of Bidache, Duke of Guiche. — French statesman, b. 14 Aug. 1819 at Paris, d. there 18 Jan. 1880. Linked by family ties to Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, he became after the coup d’état minister plenipotentiary at Cassel, Stuttgart (March 1852), and Turin (Jan. 1853).
At this last post he remained for more than four years and took part in the negotiations that led to Piedmont’s entry into the Anglo-French alliance and Sardinia’s participation in the Crimean War. He then went to Rome, where he remained until 1861. Ambassador to Vienna from 1861 to 1870, he moved to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it is largely due to his inept handling during the candidature of Leopold of Hohenzollern to the throne of Spain that the Franco-Prussian War broke out. As Minister of Foreign Affairs he announced in 1870 to the court of Rome the withdrawal of French troops from the Papal States and vainly attempted a triple alliance between Austria, Italy, and France. After the fall of the Second Empire he tried in vain to justify his conduct during the final crisis of the regime, but his statements were unanimously contradicted.