Horace Francois Bastien Sebastiani de La Porta (11 November 1771-20 July 1851) was Foreign Minister of France from 17 October 1830 to 11 October 1832, succeeding Nicolas Joseph Maison and preceding Victor de Broglie.
Biography[]
Horace Francois Bastien Sebastiani de La Porta was born in La Porta, Corsica, France on 11 November 1771, a distant relative of the Bonaparte family. He left his island during the French Revolution and joined the French Revolutionary Army in 1792, serving in the Italian Campaign and being promoted to Colonel in 1799. Sebastiani became a supporter of Napoleon Bonaparte and served as the French Consulate's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire; in 1806, he revealed the Russian Empire's designs on the Balkans, leading to a six-year war between the Russians and Turks. In 1807, Sebastian helped to coordinate the defense of Constantinople, and, a year later, he was recalled due to British pressure following the overthrow of the Sultan. Sebastiani then served in the Peninsular War, the invasion of Russia, and the Defense of France, and, after Napoleon's overthrow, he recognized the Bourbon Restoration before briefly returning to Napoleon during the Hundred Days. Sebastiani was briefly exiled following the return of King Louis XVIII of France, but he became a liberal member of the Chamber of Deputies in 1819 and served as Foreign Minister of the July Monarchy from 1830 to 1832. In this position, he oversaw the French intervention in the Belgian Revolution and France's occupation of Ancona in Italy, while declining to provide French assistance to the Polish revolution. Sebastiani abandoned the political left following the July Revolution, realinging himself with the centrist Orleanists; he was one of the movers behind King Louis-Philippe I's rise to the throne. He died in 1851.