Charles Pictet de Rochemont

Charles Pictet de Rochemont (22 September 1755 – 29 December 1824) was a Swiss statesman and diplomat who prepared the declaration of Switzerland's permanent neutrality ratified at the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

[2] By late 1813, as armies of the Sixth Coalition invaded the French Empire, Austrian troops under Ferdinand von Bubna quickly swept through Switzerland.

[2] Pictet drafted the proclamation of the provisional government on 30 December 1813, on the eve of the Austrians' entry into Geneva and the restoration of the Republic.

[2] Two apparently contradictory objectives of the new government, much favored by Pictet, were to restore Genevan independence but also to make Geneva part of the Swiss Confederation.

To achieve this it was necessary to: (a) to make Genevan territory homogeneous (it consisted of several fragmented communes); and (b) to connect it physically to the canton of Vaud and thus to Switzerland as a whole (Versoix was in France).

As had already been decided in Vienna and Paris, by the Treaty of Turin in 1816 on the left bank another twenty-three communes were transferred from Savoy and became part of the canton.

It was also stated that the non-Swiss customs posts were to be situated at least one league (approximately five kilometers) from the new Swiss frontier, thus creating the "zone franche" on both sides of the canton.

[3] In December 1951, the Swiss charitable foundation Pro Juventute honoured Pictet de Rochemont in their semi postal series with a 5 centimes plus 5 stamp.

In 1968 sculptor Peter Hartmann was commissioned to make a statue of him which was completed and installed the following year on the Promenade de la Treille.