Antoine Raymond Jean Gualbert Gabriel de Sartine, comte d'Alby (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃twan də saʁtin]; 12 July 1729 – 7 September 1801) was a French statesman who served as Lieutenant General of Police of Paris (1759–1774) during the reign of Louis XV and as Secretary of State for the Navy (1774–1780) under King Louis XVI.

After the death of his mother, Antoine de Sartine was sent to France and put under the guidance of Charles Colabeau, businessman and friend of his father.

These were oil lamps with reflectors which were hung above the center of streets and produced a more abundant and stable light than the candle lanterns that had been used for centuries before.

The aim was both to train artisans and artists so as to improve the quality of the Parisian luxury goods industries and handicrafts, but also to teach poor youths a trade and keep them from roaming the streets and disturbing public order.

Among other measures, he subjected the night watchmen to military discipline; he put an end to the abuse of the claque in theatres; he banned gatherings of horn blowers in pubs.

All the governments of Europe, Catherine II of Russia, Maria Theresa of Austria, the Pope, consulted him on the best way to organize police services in their states.

Once, a minister of Maria Theresa wrote to Sartine asking him to arrest a famous Austrian thief who was thought to be hiding in Paris.

Sartine personally analyzed an enormous correspondence and received his subordinates and commissioners of police anytime of day and night.

Furthermore, his political police was known for its efficiency in detecting agitators, dissenters, anticlerical propagandists, and other people perceived as trouble makers, who were imprisoned without trial through the lettres de cachet.

In parallel with his career as Lieutenant General of Police of Paris, Antoine de Sartine became maître des requêtes in December 1759 and conseiller d'État in 1767.

Antoine de Sartine was close to the party of the minister Choiseul, who had been disgraced by Louis XV in 1770 and ordered to retire to his estate.

Antoine de Sartine inherited a strong French Navy, resurrected by Choiseul after the disasters of the Seven Years' War (in which France had lost Canada, Louisiana, and India); a resurrected French Navy which would later play a major role in France's victory in the American Revolutionary War.

Sartine also initiated the building of the long breakwater which protects the port of Cherbourg and commissioned the construction of dry docks in Brest, Rochefort, Lorient, and Toulon.

In these critical times, he fought successfully against insubordination in the Navy, notably by publishing a regulation in 1780 dealing with hygiene on board the vessels of the fleet and with marine crew health issues.

The budget deficit, which was aggravated by France's participation in the War of American Independence, led to conflict between the finance minister, Necker, who sought to limit expenditures, and Sartine, who wanted to expand the French Navy even further.

Antoine de Sartine tried to justify his actions as minister in a vitriolic pamphlet against Necker, whom he accused of having "sold himself" to the British, but he didn't win over the public and was the victim of numerous puns and epigrams such as this one: I swept Paris with extreme care, And, wishing to sweep the English from the seas, I sold my broom so dearly That I was swept away myself.