Beyens (Belgian family)
In the early seventeenth century people named Beyens belonged to the notable personalities of the area.
[1] In the first quarter of the 18th century, Franciscus Beyens, born in Nazareth on 7 August 1691, married Josine (Judoca) Van Acker.
[3] Pierre-François Beyens (Wontergem, 16 February 1731 [4] – Deinze 24 August 1794), nicknamed 'The Rich Man', was married with Marie-Jeanne Camberlyn (1724–1801).
The couple had five girls and five boys: The four sons who reached adult life studied at the University of Louvain.
Constantin Beyens (Deinze, 15 September 1758 – Ghent, 12 December 1808) was the fourth child of the couple Beyens-Camberlyn and the eldest to reach adult life.
He wrote three juridic treaties, preserved in handwriting: Remaining a lawyer during the following years, he was 39 when in 1800 he married the young Suzanne Mouriau (1778–1814).
The attorney-general Frans Jozef Beyts wrote about him (and this at a time when Beyens had fallen in disfavour: I attended some of his sessions at the tribunal.
His honesty is recognized, he identifies himself with the Codes of justice procedure, he studies them and applicates them with passion, from morning till night, he is a man of extraordinary talents.
In order to finance his purchases of nationalized property he had signed bills of exchange in favour of the banker Josse Bernard Goethals.
There he found time to write two juridic treaties (also remained unpublished): In 1817, having lost in Amsterdam his wife and one of his two daughters, he came back to the Southern Netherlands.
He established himself as a lawyer in Brussels and soon acquired a favorable reputation, especially where actions against the king and the government were involved.
Eugène-Frans Beyens (Deinze 25 May 1762 – Ghent 10 October 1793) acquired the degree of doctor in theology at Louvain and on 8 September 1787 he was ordained as a priest.
Jean-Baptiste Justin Beyens (Deinze, 5 June 1766 – Brussels, 1 November 1829) was the ninth child of the couple Beyens-Camberlyn.
But in July 1799 the tide turned and Du Bosch was permanently banned from the political life in Ghent.
His daughter Hortense married the well known Dutch general Hubert Joseph Jean Lambert de Stuers.
On 26 November 1850, while he was secretary at the embassy in Coburg, duke Ernst II of Saksen-Coburg and Gotha bestowed upon him a title of baron ('Freiherr'), hereditary for all his descendants.
In 1920 Beyens and two other diplomats were appointed by the League of Nations as arbiters for the dispute between Sweden and Finland over the Ålande Islands.
He married with Simonne Goüin (Paris 17 February 1911 – Ixelles 15 December 1991), from a wealthy French banking and industrial family, and they had three sons.
After the war he was chargé d'affaires in Madrid and negotiated – in vain – with the government of general Francisco Franco regarding the extradition of Léon Degrelle.
He continued with assignments at the Belgian embassies in Paris, Islamabad, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and The Hague.
