Anne Chrétien Louis de Hell

[1][2][3] Born in Verneuil-sur-Seine, as a promising young nobleman, he received his first military commission as a sub-lieutenant at the age of six (not totally unheard of at the time) and was sent by his family to a friend at Brest during the upheavals of the French Revolution.

As a slave-based plantation-society, there was considerable resistance from the local landholder class, though de Hell apparently enjoyed some success in his transition work.

Later on, he was elected the Strasbourg member of the Chambre des députés and finally Président du conseil général (roughly analogous to provincial governor) of Bas-Rhin.

In 1847, he was named to lead the Direction générale des cartes et plans de la marine (naval cartography office).

He died in 1864 at the age of 81 at his ancestral castle near Oberkirch, and even though over 20 years had gone by since his governorship, Réunion records note that a large number of locals turned out to mourn him.