Arnaud II de La Porte

He was named Intendant of the Civil List (Minister of the Royal Household) in December 1790 which gave him direct control of the large sums of money that were considered the private wealth of the King and so not subject to public audit.

Seeing how dangerous things were becoming, La Porte, who conferred on a daily basis with the King in his apartments in the Pavillon de l'Infante of the Louvre (which were attached by a long wing to the Tuileries Palace at that time), proposed a plan to his sovereign in an attempt to save his life.

When the royal family attempted the flight to Varennes, La Porte was left behind, entrusted by the King to read his letter explaining his motives to the Constituent Assembly, something that must have been a thankless, not to say extremely dangerous task.

His services and ultimate sacrifice were recalled after the Restoration by the King's younger brother who had been crowned as Louis XVIII, and his son Arnaud III de La Porte was created a baron in recognition of all this in 1822.

"): Laporte (Arnaud de), born in 1737 of a family which over the last century had provided several intendants and chief administrators to the Navy and the Colonial Office, he was destined to follow the same career.

The Jesuits, with whom he did his studies at the Collège Louis Le Grand, had hoped to acquire him for their company; but the young Laporte did not heed their hints, though he was always to retain feelings of attachment and veneration for his former masters.

At an early age (he was barely 23 years old), he was given the task of directing construction in the ports of Calais and Boulogne, of flat-bottomed boats, of a kind which, since they were ultimately to prove useless, have become the objects of ridicule by the English but which had for quite some time been the subject of their liveliest anxiety.

Although the new Intendant disapproved of some of these changes, having foreseen and reported several inconveniences likely to come of them, he nevertheless set himself to implement them in confidence he inspired in general, that Laporte was in great part responsible for the rapid expansion of the French Navy during the period of the War of American Independence, this in spite of the innumerable difficulties that the execution of the new order entailed.

M. de Castries, having become Naval Minister in 1780 immediately called Laporte to his side and gave him, under the title of Intendant General of the Navy, the direction of all matters remaining under Administrative Corps.

Louis XVI, who had been unable to approach him in person at the time, finally got the chance eighteen months later in December 1790 when, come to name his new Intendant of the Civil List decided upon Laporte for the job.

The latter was however no longer in France, having emigrated to Vitoria, near Bilbao in Spain which is where he received the king's letter, and though he had no doubts as to the danger to which he would expose himself, without a moment's hesitation he hastened to the service of a master who had found him worthy, and who lost no time in coming to appreciate the value of his servant.

It was this close collaboration with Louis XVI that led a great many people to come into contact with him, some no doubt in hope of acquiring an entrée with the king in the event that royal authority might eventually be restored, others with perhaps purer motives.

One reads in the accounts of the day that when he was called upon to appear before the National Assembly to present the declaration the king had prepared before the royal family's flight to Varennes, he refused to disclose the letter his unfortunate master had written him which he regarded as a sacred trust which he would not violate.

Despite their best efforts not to omit anything that might produce their desired results, even to the point of removing chimney stones and pulling up the floorboards of his apartment, not a single piece of evidence was found that might have incriminated anyone at all.

The care taken by this good man, who in so much personal danger himself, still took the pains not to compromise all those who had been in correspondence with him shows one of the character traits of Arnaud de Laporte which has sadly largely been ignored by posterity.

Too many with too much to lose had good reason to keep him in oblivion, and so it wasn't until many years later that a few of those who were saved by his actions on that day were able to come forward in their memoirs to express their belated gratitude and pay homage to his memory.

He had no personal enemies, and as such he probably would not have been singled out to become one of the Revolution's first victims had not the cold calculations of the leaders of the movement required them to find someone of "great guilt" to sacrifice in order to stoke the fires of public fury.

It is quite clear that Laporte would not have been chosen to open up the abominable series of judicial murders which was to be the prelude to the more wholesale slaughter of 25 September, except that the persons upon whom the revolutionaries’ eyes had first fallen had for the most part already made their escape from the capital or were being reserved for an even crueler fate.

And yet, surprisingly, after all that, such a great impression had he made upon his judges by his evident virtue, that they found themselves divided, and could not get the required majority vote for a condemnation, as was later reported by M. Julienne, the lawyer who had the courage to take on the dangerous job of defending Laporte.

His faith, this religion which he'd always respected, so full of hope and consolation in adversity gave him the courage to remain calm without affectation, which made a deep impression upon all who witnessed it, including the judges who had just condemned him.

During a long and grave illness in 1780 while posted there, the sailors of the port would gather daily at the door of the Intendancy eager for any scrap of news as to how he was faring, and thirty years after his death, when an old-timer from Brest was asked if he had known Arnaud de Laporte the codger could not bring himself to answer, so overcome was he with tears of emotion.