The Count de Pourtalès was born in Neuchâtel, then in the Principality of Neuchâtel under Prussian rule, into a large family of Protestant financiers on 28 November 1776.[1] He was the son of Countess Rose Augustine Marie de Luze (1751–1791) and Jacques-Louis de Pourtalès (1722–1814),[2] a banker in Naples who amassed a fortune in commerce and was made a count by King Frederick William II.[3] Among his siblings were Louis de Pourtalès (husband of Sophie d'Audanger) and Frédéric de Pourtalès (husband of Marie Louise de Castellane and grandfather of Friedrich von Pourtalès).[4]
His paternal grandparents were Jérémie de Pourtalès[5] and Marguerite de Luze (who was the younger sister of his maternal great-grandfather).[5] The Pourtalès family were French Huguenots who settled in Neuchâtel following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.[4] His maternal grandparents were the former Marianne-Françoise Warney (a niece of Daniel Roguin of Yverdon)[6] and Baron Jean-Jacques III de Luze, a prosperous textile manufacturer at Colombier and were both friends of writer and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.[7][a]. They had an elegant country house near the governor's château in what was then the principality of Neuchâtel.[8]
In 1813, he acquired the seigneuryofGorgier, which he added to the family name, from Charles Henry, Vicomte de Gorgier.[b][10][11] He served as Chamberlain to the King of Prussia and was awarded the title of Count on 20 November 1814 by King Frederick William III, who ruled Prussia during the Napoleonic Wars and the end of the Holy Roman Empire.[1] Pourtalès freed the Bérochaux from cartage chores in 1822 and, in recognition, received a bench with his coat of arms at the church. From 1816 to 1829, he was a member of the General Audiences.
In 1809, he also acquired Château de Luins in the Swiss Canton of Vaud for 150,000 Swiss francs. The estate passed to his eldest daughter and her husband, the Marquis de Ganay, and their family.[14]
On 12 June 1809, he was married to Anne Henriette de Palézieux-Falconnet (1792–1836) in Neuchâtel. His wife was a daughter of banker Jean Louis de Palézieux-Falconnet and the former Anna Hunter, an American who was the sister of William Hunter, a U.S. Senator from Newport, Rhode Island. His wife's sister, Eliza Augusta, married the American archeologist and artist John Izard Middleton.[15] Together, they were the parents of:[4]
Élisa Calixte de Pourtalès (1810–1877), who married diplomat Charles-Alexandre, Marquis de Ganay (1803–1881), son of Gen. Antoine-Charles de Ganay, in 1831.[4]
Cécile de Pourtalès (1812–1833), who married Rodolphe Émile Adolphe de Rougemont (1805–1844) in 1830.[4]
Henri de Pourtalès-Gorgier (1815–1876), who married Anne Marie d'Escherny (1820–1901) in 1840.[4]
Jacques-Robert de Pourtalès (1821–1874), a French politician who married Adèle Anna Hagermann (1825–1898), a daughter of Swedish banker Jonas-Philip Hagerman, in 1846.[4]
Through his eldest daughter Élisa, he was a grandfather of General Jacques de Ganay (1843–1899), who married Renée de Maillé de La Tour-Landry, the third daughter of Jaquelin Armand Charles, Duc de Maillé (son of the Duke and Duchess of Maillé) and his wife Jeanne d'Osmond (daughter of Gen. Rainulphe d'Osmond).[17]
Through his son Henri, he was a grandfather of Count Arthur de Pourtalès (1844–1928), a diplomat who twice married Americans.[18]
His father, Jacques-Louis de Pourtalès.
Portrait of his parents and family, c. 1784.
His daughter, Élisa, Marquise de Ganay, c. 1830.
His son-in-law, Charles-Alexandre, Marquis de Ganay, by James Tissot, 1868.
^The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau described his grandfather, Jean-Jacques de Luze, whom he had been friends with for many years, as "having a cold manner but a warm heart."[7]
^In 1831, Pourtalès, as the Lord of Gorgier, ceded his jurisdiction to the sovereign, keeping the château as a fief and various properties that depended on it. Pourtalès' eldest son Henri de Pourtalès-Gorgier succeeded his father and was the last Lord of Gorgier. In 1848, he entered into an arrangement with the government at the time of the founding of the Republic, concerning certain seigneurial rights which had been reserved during the direct meeting in 1831. The Pourtalès family sold the Château de Gorgier to Alphonse Berthoud in 1879.[9]
^Boisset, Olivier Les antiques du comte JA de PG: une introduction, in Monica Preti-Hamard & Philippe Sénéchal (eds), Collections et Marché de l'Art en France 1789-1848, Rennes 2005.
