He was born at Alata, near Ajaccio, the son of Giuseppe Pozzo di Borgo of a noble Corsican family, four years before the island became a French possession.

On his safe return to Corsica, he was warmly received by Pasquale Paoli, but found himself in opposition to the Bonaparte brothers who belonged to a different Corsican clan (and one he detested) who were now veering towards the Jacobin party.

When Napoleon sent troops to occupy the island Pozzo was excepted from the general amnesty, and took refuge in Rome, but the French authorities demanded his expulsion, and gave orders for his arrest in northern Italy.

He was entrusted with an important mission to Constantinople in 1807, but the conclusion of the alliance between Tsar Alexander I of Russia and Napoleon at Tilsit in July interrupted his career, necessitating a temporary retirement after the completion of his business with the Porte.

Pozzo assisted at the Congress of Vienna, and during the Hundred Days he joined Louis XVIII in Belgium, where he was also instructed to discuss the situation with the Duke of Wellington.

During the early years of his residence in Paris Pozzo laboured tirelessly to lessen the burdens laid on France by the allies and to shorten the period of foreign occupation.

He consistently supported the moderate party at court, and stood by the ministry of the Duc de Richelieu, thus earning the distrust and dislike of Metternich, who held him responsible for the revival of Liberal agitation in France.

His influence at the Tuileries declined with the accession of Charles X, whose reactionary tendencies had always been distasteful to him; but at the revolution of 1830, when Tsar Nicholas was reluctant to acknowledge Louis Philippe, he did good service in preventing difficulties with Russia.

Although he did not lose in official standing, Pozzo was aware that this change was due to suspicions long harboured in various quarters in St Petersburg that his diplomacy was too favourable to French interests.