Lewis Goldsmith (c. 1763 – 6 January 1846) was an Anglo-French

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Allied with Napoleon

In 1801, Goldsmith published ''The Crimes of Cabinets, or a Review of the Plans and Aggressions for Annihilating the Liberties of France and the Dismemberment of her Territories'', an attack on the military policy of Pitt. Soon afterward, in 1802, he moved from London to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. There Talleyrand introduced him to

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

. With Napoleon's assistance, Goldsmith established the ''Argus'', a biweekly publication in English reviewing English affairs from a French point of view. In 1803, according to Goldsmith's own account, he was entrusted with a mission to obtain from the

Comte de Provence ''Comte'' is the French, Catalan and Occitan form of the word "count" (Latin: ''comes''); ''comté'' is the Gallo-Romance form of the word "county" (Latin: ''comitatus''). Comte or Comté may refer to: * ''Comte'', French for a count (i.e. the nob ...

, the head of the French royal family and subsequent King

Louis XVIII Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. Before his reign, he spent 23 y ...

, a renunciation of his claim to the throne of France in return for the throne of

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. The offer was declined. Goldsmith says he then received instructions to kidnap Louis, or to kill him if he resisted. Instead, Goldsmith revealed the plot. Until 1807, however, when his Republican sympathies began to wane, Goldsmith continued to undertake secret service missions on behalf of Napoleon. Goldsmith's hand has been seen in the ''Revolutionary Plutarch'' of 1804–05, an ''émigré'' work edited in London, and with a title harking back to the ''British Plutarch'' of

Thomas Mortimer Sir Thomas Mortimer (c. 1350–1399) was a medieval English soldier and statesman who served briefly in several important administrative and judicial state offices in Ireland and played a part in the opposition to the government of King Richar ...

. That would imply that Goldsmith was by then already playing a double game.

Anti-Napoleon

Goldsmith returned to England in 1809. At first he was arrested and imprisoned, but soon was released and established himself as a

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in London. By 1811 he had become strongly anti-republican, founding the ''Anti-Gallican Monitor'' and ''Anti-Corsican Chronicle'' (subsequently known as the ''British Monitor'') through which he now denounced the French Revolution. He proposed that a price be put on Napoleon's head by public subscription, but found himself condemned by the British government. In 1810 he published ''Secret History of the Cabinet of Bonaparte'' and ''Recueil des manifestes, proclamations, discours, etc. de Napoleon Buonaparte'' (Collection of the Decrees of Napoleon Bonaparte); and in 1812 he published a ''Secret History of Bonaparte's Diplomacy''. He claimed Napoleon then offered him 200,000 rancs?to discontinue his attacks. In 1815, he published ''An Appeal to the Governments of Europe on the Necessity of Bringing Napoleon Bonaparte to a Public Trial''.

Later life

In 1825, he moved back to Paris, publishing his ''Statistics of France'' a few years later. His only child, Georgiana, become the second wife of

John Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst John Singleton Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst, (21 May 1772 – 12 October 1863) was a British lawyer and politician. He was three times Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. Background and education Lyndhurst was born in Boston, Massachusetts, ...

in 1837. He died 'of paralysis' after an illness lasting several months, in his home on the Rue de la Paix, Paris, on 6 January 1846.Oxford

Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

References

* Oxford

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Goldsmith, Lewis 1760s births 1846 deaths People of the French Revolution 18th-century British Sephardi Jews British emigrants to France Jewish British writers French people of Portuguese-Jewish descent