Gaston Pierre de Lévis

Gaston-Pierre-Charles de Lévis-Lomagne, duc de Mirepoix (Belleville, 2 December 1699 – Montpellier, 24 September 1757), maréchal de France and Ambassador of Louis XV, was a French aristocrat.

Biography

Gaston Pierre Charles de Lévis descended from the House of Lévis, an old noble family established in Languedoc as Seigneurs of Mirepoix, Ariège since the 11th century. They settled in Languedoc during the Albigensian Crusade.

He was the only son of Pierre-Louis de Lévis de Lomagne, Count of Terrides, later Marquis of Mirepoix, "Marshal of the Faith," and his wife, Anne-Gabrielle Olivier. This earned him the Order of the Holy Spirit, which he received on 2 February 1741.

He returned to France where the King appointed him brigadier general. During the War of the Austrian Succession, he participated in many battles, marching on Bohemia in 1742. He fought in the Battle of Lauffeld alongside Marshal de Saxe and took part in the victory at Mont Alban , where his conduct earned him the rank of lieutenant general in 1744. He fought in Provence, the County of Nice, and Italy in 1746. Appointed governor of Brouage in 1747, he then became Ambassador extraordinary to London between 1749 and 1755, where he tried unsuccessfully to negotiate with the British cabinet to avoid a confrontation between the two monarchies in New France.

He was named Duke of Mirepoix on 25 September 1751, both for his military talents and his diplomatic abilities. After his return from London in 1755, he was appointed Lieutenant-General and Governor of the Pays de Vivarais and Velay, the Diocese of Uzès and the Province of Languedoc. On 24 February 1757, he was made Marshal of France by King Louis XV. He died 7 months later in Montpellier. Her cook invented a preparation based on chopped vegetables and spices, still known as today. .

There were no children from these two unions.

According to Pierre Larousse (quoted in the Oxford Companion to Food), the unfortunate Duke of Mirepoix was "an incompetent and mediocre individual [...] who owed his vast fortune to the affection Louis XV felt toward his wife and who had but one claim to fame: he gave his name to a sauce made of all kinds of meat and a variety of seasonings".