Choiseul, Etienne François, Duc de

views updated May 21 2018

Choiseul, Etienne François, Duc de (1719–85) French statesman, chief minister of Louis XVI (1758–1770). As ambassador to Vienna (1757–58), he negotiated the marriage of Marie Antoinette and the future Louis XVI. As minister of foreign affairs, he negotiated the Family Compact (1761), which allied the Bourbon rulers of France and Spain, and the Treaty of Paris (1763), in which France was forced to surrender French Canada and India to Britain. Choiseul supported the publication of the Encyclopédie (1759) and approved suppression of the Jesuits (1764).