Abel Servien

Engraving of Abel ServienAbel Servien, marquis de Sablé et de Boisdauphin and Comte de La Roche des Aubiers (1 November 159317 February 1659) was a French diplomat who served Cardinal Mazarin and signed for the French the Treaty of Westphalia. He was an early member of the noblesse de robe in the service of the French state.

Biography Abel Servien was born at the château of Biviers, near Grenoble, the son of Antoine Servien, Procureur général of the estates of Dauphiné.

He succeeded his father in that office in 1616, and in the following year attended the assembly of notables at Rouen convoked by the young Louis XIII. In 1618 he was named councilor of state and in March 1624 was called to Paris, where he found favor with Cardinal Richelieu. He displayed administrative ability and great loyalty to the central government as intendant in Guienne in 1627,

Servien's exile lasted until Cardinal de Richelieu's death in 1642. The same year, he was called back to Court by Mazarin, who entrusted him with the conduct, conjointly with the count Claude d'Avaux, of French diplomatic affairs in Germany. After five years negotiations, and a bitter quarrel with the comte d'Avaux, which ended in the latter's recall, Servien signed the two treaties of 24 October 1648 which were part of the general Peace of Westphalia. With the cardinal exiled, Servien was minister of state, de facto governor of France with his nephew Hugues de Lionne and his rival Michel le Tellier. He was made Superintendent of Finances in 1653, conjointly with Nicolas Fouquet. He was an adviser to Mazarin in the negotiations which terminated in the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659). He amassed a considerable fortune, and was unpopular, even in court circles. He died at the Château de Meudon, which he had purchased in 1654 and where he had launched ambitious works of rebuilding.

His nephew, Hugues de Lionne (1611–1671), marquis de Fresnes and seigneur de Berny, was a diplomat and minister of state under Louis XIV. Abel's brother, Ennemond III de Servien, enjoyed a long career as French ambassador to the court of Savoy. His elder brother François was Bishop of Bayeux.

Servien left an important and voluminous correspondence.