WALEWSKI-COLONNA, Florian-Alexandre-Joseph, Count. - Politician, b. 4 May 1810 at the castle of Walewice near Warsaw, d. 27 Sept. 1868 at Strasbourg.

Natural son of Napoleon I and of Maria Walewska, he was educated at Geneva; having returned to Poland in 1824, he refused to enter the Russian army, and settled in France. Subsequently attached to the French legation in Buenos Aires, after the accession to the presidency of Louis Napoleon

Bonaparte he became in 1849 minister plenipotentiary in Florence, ambassador in Naples, in Madrid and in London. On 7 May 1855 he succeeded Drouyn de Lhuys as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Favourable to the European nationalist movement, yet without abandoning a conservative policy, he strove in particular to guarantee, after the events of 1859, the rights of the Holy See over the Legations. This brought him into conflict with the Emperor, who openly disavowed the policy hitherto followed, with the publication of La Guéronnière's pamphlet Le Pape et le Congrès. W. accordingly tendered his resignation from the ministry in the early days of Jan. 1860. A deputy from 1865 to 1867, he was president of the Chamber, but, considered too compliant towards the anti-imperial opposition, rather than renounce his impartiality in the direction of parliamentary proceedings he withdrew from politics.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: A. Robert - E. Bourloton - G. Cougny, Dict. des Parlementaires français, V, Paris 1891, pp. 234-55; F. Charles-Roux, La mission du comte W. en Egypte, in Reu. hist., 162 (1920), pp. 45-85; P. Poirson, Un fils de Napoléon à l'île d'Elbe, in Reu. des deux mondes, 35 (1936), pp. 121-37; P. Pirri, Pio IX e l'ittrario Emanuele II dal loro carteggio privato, I-II, Rome 1944-51, passim; C. d'Ornano, Le vie passionnante du comte W., Paris 1953.

Silvio Furlani

@incollection{ec12_walewski_colonna_florian_alexa, author = {Furlani, Silvio}, title = {Walewski-Colonna, florian-alexandre-joseph, conte}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {1644--1645}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/walewski-colonna-florian-alexandre-joseph-conte} }

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Walewski-Colonna, Florian-Alexandre-Joseph, Count

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