Adrien-Louis de Bonnières, duc de Guînes

Commissioned into the Grenadiers à Cheval de la Garde Impériale, he saw active service commanding the Royal Navarre Cavalry Regiment during the Seven Years' War.

[1] After his father died in 1763, he was accorded the courtesy title of comte de Guînes and embarked upon a diplomatic career, both buoyed and hampered by a dry wit.

As a consolation, upon Queen Marie-Antoinette's instigation, he was appointed Ambassador to the Court of St James's the following year, and remained in that post, with periodic visits to Versailles, until 1776.

He gained a wider notoriety with the awkward "Guînes affair" requiring him to press charges, 20 April 1771, against his private secretary, Barthélemy Tort de La Sonde, who he asserted used his name in speculating with and thereby misappropriating French government funds.

[5] De Guînes was eventually proven not guilty, by a narrow margin, in a specially convened Council of State commanded by King Louis XVI.

On his return to France he was created Duc de Guînes[7] and remained in royal favour, being appointed Chevalier of the Order of the Holy Spirit on 1 January 1784.