Albert Gaspard Grimod

Jean-François-Louis-Marie-Albert Grimaud (June 15 1772-1843), "Comte d'Orsay", was a Bonapartist general and nobleman. He was the son of the collector Pierre Gaspard Marie Grimaud d'Orsay (1748-1809) and his first wife Marie Louise Amélie de Croÿ (1748-1772), princesse de Croÿ-Molembais, daughter of Prince Guillaume François de Croÿ et Princess Anne Françoise Amélie de Trazegnies. She died in giving birth to him and his father began travelling Europe for consolation, gathering famous collections of paintings and sculptures and marrying again, to Marie Anne de Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Bartenstein, on 22 August 1784. The couple moved to Germany in 1787, meaning that - on the outbreak of the French Revolution two years later - their property in France was seized, Albert's father was declared an Émigré, and they were left in the poverty in which Albert's father died.

Albert married Eleanore de Franquemont, an illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Württemberg by the Italian adventuress Anne Franchi, and they had two sons - the first died in infancy, and the second became the dandy Alfred Guillaume Gabriel.

He became a Général de brigade in Napoleon I's La Grande Armée on 19 November 1813, a year before Napoleon's abdication and first exile. [http://web.genealogie.free.fr/Les_militaires/1789-1815/Terre/Generaux_Division/O.htm] It is unknown what role he played in the previous and subsequent events of the Napoleonic Wars, or whether he supported Napoleon during the Hundred Days or at Waterloo, but he did survive the wars to see the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy, dying five years before the end of the latter. It is also unknown if he lost his title on the Restoration due to his Bonapartist sympathies - his son was certainly styling himself "comte" around 1821, long before his father's death.

He was sold the chateau at Rupt-sur-Saône (then state property) in 1820. [http://www.racinescomtoises.net/Chateau-de-Rupt-sur-Saone]

External links

* [http://www.napoleonica.org/denon/Corpus/den-3261-1.xml A letter from him to Napoleon] (from [http://www.napoleonica.org/denon/Index/den-indexG.xml here] )