Charles Xavier Joseph de Franque Ville d'Abancour (July 4, 1758 in Douai – September 9, 1792 in Versailles)^[1] was a French statesman, minister to Louis XVI^[2] and a nephew of Charles Alexandre de Calonne.

[edit] Biography

D'Abancourt was Louis XVI's last minister of war (July 1792), and organised the defence of the Tuileries Palace during the 10th of August attack. Ordered by the Legislative Assembly to send away the Swiss guards, he refused, and was arrested for treason to the nation and sent to Orléans to be tried.

At the end of August the Assembly ordered Abancourt and the other prisoners at Orléans to be transferred to Paris with an escort commanded by Claude Fournier l'Americain. At Versailles, they learned of the September Massacres in Paris. Abancourt and his fellow-prisoners were murdered in cold blood in massacres on September 9, 1792, and Fournier was unjustly charged with complicity in the crime.^[3]

[edit] References

1. ^ "G.H.C. Numéro 61 : Juin 1994 Page 1081". Généalogie et Histoire de la Caraïbe. http://www.ghcaraibe.org/bul/ghc061/p1081.html. Retrieved 2006-08-13. 
2. ^ Chambers Biographical Dictionary, ISBN 0-550-18022-2, page 1
3. ^ Weiss, Charles. (1841) Biographie universelle, ou Dictionnaire historique contenant la nécrologie des hommes célèbres de tous les pays... Tome Premier, Furne.

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Abancourt, Charles Xavier Joseph de Franqueville D'.