Joseph Hyacinth Francois de Paule de Rigaud, Comte de Vaudreuil

Joseph Hyacinth Francois de Paule de Rigaud,Comte de Vaudreuil (1740-1817) was a French nobleman at the court of King Louis XVI of France.

Versailles

The Comte de Vaudreuil was born in Santo Domingo , West Indies the son of the French governor of the island, and his aristocratic French Creole wife, nèè Guiot de la Mirande. His paternal ancestor was a governor of Canada. At the age of nineteen, he entered the army and during the Seven Years War he served as staff officer under the Prince of Soubise. When the war ended, he moved to Paris. At the French court, he attached himself to the king's youngest brother, the Comte d' Artois ( later Charles X of France), and took as his mistress, the beautiful Gabrielle de Polastron, Comtesse de Polignac, a close friend of Queen Marie Antoinette, and Governess to the Royal Children. Vaudreuil, highly cultured, and possessed of great charm and fascination for women, also had an extremely violent and unscrupulous character. [Joan Haslip "Marie Antoinette" Pages 93-94] He easily dominated his malleable mistress and through her sought to dominate the queen. Vaudreuil quickly became head of a dangerous coterie of courtiers, sycophants, and relations of the Polignacs who surrounded the queen. This coterie soon turned into a cabal which constantly sought positions, favours, and pensions for themselves and their greedy relatives. Marie Antoinette, although she doted on her friend, disliked the count, whom she regarded as unpredictable and violent. Thus Vaudreuil never obtained a position at Court higher that that of royal falconer; a post which earned him 30,000 livres a year. This was not enough to satisfy the ambitious count who dreamt of becoming minister of the king's household. The Abbè de Vermond shrewdly advised the queen not to appoint him; thereby Vermond incurred the hatred of the entire Polignac clan. On 14 May 1780 Gabrielle gave birth to a son,Jules de Polignac whom everyone at Court whispered had been fathered by Vaudreuil and not her husband the Comte Jules de Polignac.

The Marriage of Figaro

By the year 1783 the queen was completely dominated by her friend, Gabrielle, who in her turn, was controlled by Vaudreuil. It was the count, frustrated in his thwarted ambitions, who was responsible for the appointment of Charles de Calonne to the post of Controller General, a disastrous appointment for France, already on the brink of bankruptcy. Hatred against the Polignacs spread throughout the country, due to their influence over the queen, and their flagrant wealth. In July of that year, Vaudreuil encouraged the king and queen to allow the public performance of "The Marriage of Figaro" written by his friend Pierre Beaumarchais who was of the same liberal persuasion as himself. He himself played the part of Almaviva. This was a blatant satire against the institution of royalty, the Government, and French society in general,and it proved to be highly inflammable.

Departure

Following the fall of the Bastille on 14 July1789, which marked the beginning of the French Revolution, Vaudreuil in the company of his old comrade the Comte d' Artois, left Versailles on horseback for the Austrian Netherlands. He would spend the next twenty-five years organising a counter-revolution. Later he moved to England, where in 1795 he married his cousin, Marie Josephine de Vaudreuil (1774-18519. Two sons were born to them: Charles (1796-1880) and Victor (1798-1834). After the fall of the First Empire he returned to France where King Louis XVIII appointed him Governor of The Tuileries. In 1817, in Paris, at the age of seventy-seven, he died.

In Art

In 1784, the noted artist Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun painted his portrait. He was one of Vigee-Lebrun's most devoted patrons, and owned many of her works in his vast private art collection, including a portrait of his mistress, Gabrielle. Some have speculated that the friendship between Elisabeth and the comte was not strictly platonic. [Kimball Art Museum Exhibition Catalog. Catalog Number 14]

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