ROUILLE (Antoine-Louis de, comte de Jouy)

Antoine-Louis Rouillé, comte de Jouy (, 7 June 1689 – 20 September 1761) was a French statesman and comte of

Jouy-en-Josas Jouy-en-Josas () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the south-western suburbs of Paris, from the center of Paris. Jouy-en-Josas is home to the main campus of HEC ...

. Born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, the son of Marie-Louis-Paulin Rouillé and Marie-Angélique d'Aquin, he was in succession conseiller to the

parlement de Paris The Parliament of Paris (french: Parlement de Paris) was the oldest ''parlement'' in the Kingdom of France, formed in the 14th century. It was fixed in Paris by Philip IV of France in 1302. The Parliament of Paris would hold sessions inside the ...

(1711),

maître des requêtes A Master of Requests () is a counsel of the French ''Conseil d'État'' (Council of State), a high-level judicial officer of administrative law in France. The office has existed in one form or another since the Middle Ages. The occupational title ...

(1717), intendant of commerce (1725), conseiller d'État and finally commissaire to the

French East India Company The French East India Company (french: Compagnie française pour le commerce des Indes orientales) was a colonial commercial enterprise, founded on 1 September 1664 to compete with the English (later British) and Dutch trading companies in th ...

(1744). Named Secretary of State for the Navy to replace

Maurepas Maurepas may refer to: * Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas, French statesman Count of Maurepas (Yvelines) * Fort Maurepas, also known as Old Biloxi, a settlement in Louisiana (New France) * Maurepas, Louisiana, an unincorporated comm ...

, he worked to reorganise the

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

. He left this ministry on 24 July 1754 to hold that of Foreign Secretary. As Foreign Secretary, Rouillé generally pursued a pacific policy, trying to avoid escalation of the increasingly bitter colonial feud with Britain in North America. His role in French foreign policy, however, was not central, as most of the important initiative during the time of his ministry was conducted personally by King

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached ...

and his favorite Madame de Pompadour. Rouillé was unable to prevent the escalation of the Anglo-French conflict into open war in 1756. Although he had little to do with the diplomatic maneuvers which led to the

Diplomatic Revolution The Diplomatic Revolution of 1756 was the reversal of longstanding alliances in Europe between the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War. Austria went from an ally of Britain to an ally of France, the Dutch Republic, a long sta ...

of 1756, Rouillé, as Foreign Secretary, was one of the French signatories of the first

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...

(1756), which joined France and Austria together in an alliance. Soon after the conclusion of that alliance led to open war between France and its former ally, Prussia, in late 1756, Rouillé was replaced as Foreign Secretary on 28 June 1757 by Cardinal de Bernis. He died in

Neuilly Neuilly (, ) is a common place name in France, deriving from the male given name A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as we ...

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160 Ministries of Foreign Affairs (1589-2000)
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160 Ministries of Foreign Affairs (1589-2000)
1689 births 1761 deaths Counts of France Secretaries of State of the Navy (France) Secretaries of State of Ancien Régime France French Foreign Ministers {{france-noble-stub