Charles-Joseph, comte Bresson (27 March 1798 inEpinal – 2 November 1847 in Naples) was a French diplomat.
He gained the confidence of KingLouis-Philippe of France by successfully arranging the marriages of three of his children: thePrince Royal, PrincessLouise d'Orléans and theDuke of Montpensier. Count Bresson committed suicide in 1847 following family and political pressures.
The son of a chef de division in the ministry of foreign affairs, Bresson soon became destined for a diplomatic career.Hyde de Neuville,ministre de la Marine underCharles X, put him in charge of a mission toColombia.
In 1830 he was ordered to notify Switzerland of Louis-Philippe's accession to the French throne, before becoming first secretary to the French embassy in London underTalleyrand. He was one of two diplomats given the task of forcing the Belgian government to accept the decisions of theLondon Conference, a task he acquitted well. To the king's satisfaction, he then led the marriage negotiations as to a match between the new king of BelgiumLeopold I with princessLouise d'Orléans. That success brought him to the height of favour with Louis-Philippe. During this era he also became the lover of the Belgian ambassador's wife, thecomtesse Le Hon, allegedly fathering her son Léopold (born 1832).[1]
In 1833, he was made chargé d'affaires inBerlin with the title ofminister plenipotentiary. He re-established relations (with strong compromises) between France andPrussia, ensuring the latter did not undertake any closer rapprochement with Russia. On 10 November 1834 he was appointed France'sForeign Minister in the temporaryHugues-Bernard Maret ministry, but he did not even have the time to reach Paris before that ministry fell. He thus remained in Berlin to arrange the 1837 marriage of thePrince royal to princessHelen of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, of a family allied to the Prussian royal family. After this diplomatic success, Louis-Philippe made him apeer of France on 6 May 1839. In theChambre des pairs Bresson strongly defended the Paris fortifications project of 1841 in which the king took particular interest.
He was then made ambassador to Madrid and played a major role in the difficult marriage negotiations to marryIsabella II of Spain to her cousin theduke of Cadiz (which occurred on 10 October 1846) and theduke of Montpensier to princessLuisa Fernanda, a sister of Isabella II. During these negotiations France's interests were vigorously opposed to those of theJuly Monarchy's erstwhile ally theUnited Kingdom, and so count Bresson had to thwart sometimes disloyal manoeuvres by SirHenry Bulwer, the British ambassador to Spain. In reward for this success, Bresson's son was made agrandee of Spain, 1st class, with the title of 'duke of Sainte-Isabelle'. Bresson himself was recalled to France in 1847, spending a few weeks in London before being appointed ambassador to Naples, a post he had only just taken up when he cut his throat with a razor and died, probably due to domestic troubles.
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