Charles-Alexandre de Hénin-Liétard d'Alsace

Hénin was born in Brussels on the 17 June 1744,[1] son of Alexandre Gabriel Joseph de Hénin-Liétard, Marquess of La Verre, and was baptised in Saint Jacques-sur-Coudenberg.

[4] Hénin became captain of a company of the Garde du Corps attached to the Count of Artois (the future Charles X of France).

His relationship with the opera singer Sophie Arnould, while his wife was engaged in an affair with the chevalier de Coigny,[5] caused a stir in French high society.

On 7 July 1794, in the final days of the Reign of Terror, he was one of 59 suspects summarily tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal and executed as counter-revolutionary conspirators.

[4] As Hénin had been born a subject of the Austrian Habsburgs, and died leaving a will whose sole beneficiary had predeceased him, the settlement of his estate – which could not take place until after 1814 – became a test case of French succession law.