Recalled due to British pressure after the deposition of Selim III, he served in the Peninsular War and resided in the Alhambra, took part in the unsuccessful invasion of Russia, and defended the Champagne region in front of the Sixth Coalition.

Briefly exiled after the return of King Louis XVIII, he was again admitted as a Deputy in 1819, sitting with the Left faction, supporting liberal politics, and coming into conflict with the Jean-Baptiste de Villèle Cabinet.

Sébastiani's time as Foreign Minister saw France's involvement in the Belgian Revolution, its refusal to sanction the November Uprising, the controversial solution to a commercial dispute with the United States, and the French occupation of Ancona.

[9] Sébastiani negotiated with the British military commanders in the aftermath of the French invasion of Egypt (1798), asking them to abide by the newly signed Treaty of Amiens and withdraw from Alexandria;[9][10] following this he met with Ottoman officials in Cairo, unsuccessfully offering to mediate between them and rebellious beys (see Muhammad Ali's seizure of power).

[5] According to a biographical essay published by the Revue des Deux Mondes in 1833, Sébastiani faced almost universal hostility from the anti-French diplomatic corps—whose opinions were influenced by the Russian Count Andrei Yakovlevich Budberg and the British Ambassador Charles Arbuthnot.

[10] Among Horace Sébastiani's moves to enlist Ottoman support for Napoleon was the establishment of a printing press in Constantinople, which published works of French literature translated into Turkish and Arabic.

[2][4][9][10] The British bombardment, coming at a time when the Muslim population was celebrating Eid al-Adha,[10] was met with panic, and Sébastiani's group of French military officers was soon the only organized force present on the European side.

[10] In his messages to Selim, Sir John Duckworth asked for the French ambassador to be removed, for the Ottoman fleet and the Dardanelles military facilities to be handed over,[2][10] and for Russia to be granted rule over Wallachia and Moldavia.

[15] According to the Revue des Deux Mondes biography, Sébastiani had betrayed Aleko Soutzos' confidence by revealing as many details of Anglo-Ottoman negotiations as to render it clear that the Dragoman had been acting as his spy, and by failing to respect the promise of French protection.

[20] Starting from that date, Sébastiani gained a reputation for lacking leadership skills: popularly nicknamed "General Surprise" as a result of having been caught out by enemy troops a significant number of times, he was argued by Jean-Baptiste de Marbot to have been noted for nothing other than mediocrity.

The same source recounted that, after Talavera de la Reina and especially after Almonacid, the general raised suspicion that he wasted men and resources, systematically failed to report all his casualties, and seriously exaggerated the scale of his victories.

The Revue claimed that the ducal title "of Murcia" was adopted by the General himself, after he reaped a minor victory in Lorca and reportedly advanced a project to gain the region back from guerrilla forces (the plan was to be discarded by Sébastiani's commander, Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult).

[5] The American author Washington Irving, who visited Spain in the following period, recounted that: "With that enlightened taste which has ever distinguished the French nation in their conquests, this monument of Moorish elegance and grandeur was rescued from the absolute ruin and desolation that were overwhelming it.

The roofs were repaired, the saloons and galleries protected from the weather, the gardens cultivated, the watercourses restored, the fountains once more made to throw up their sparkling showers; and Spain may thank her invaders for having preserved to her the most beautiful and interesting of her historical monuments.

Inside the Chamber, he joined forces with Maximilien Sebastien Foy, notably pushing projects to recognize the merits of Grande Armée veterans; a speech he held on the latter occasion, which gave praise to the French tricolor, caused an uproar among conservative deputies.

[2] Allegedly establishing links with the radical Aide-toi, le ciel t'aidera society in the early days of the July Monarchy,[10] he subsequently rallied with the centrist politics of the Orléanist camp.

This policy was viewed as a capitulation by the Legitimists, and most notably by Jean Maximilien Lamarque, who, while deploring the separation of the French and the French-speaking Walloons, accused Sébastiani of having obtained the destruction of fortifications in Belgium not as a concession from other states, but rather because "the allied powers want to set aside the means of entering France without running into obstacles".

As Russian troops carried out a violent intervention against the rebellion, a deputy in the Sejm lamented that Poland was perishing without having even seen a French courier; the minister responded to similar accusations at home by stating that France was determined not to raise the anger of Emperor Nicholas.

To this end, he sent a mission to Saint Petersburg, which attempted to mediate an understanding between the Polish revolutionaries and Russia; in order to undermine communications between France and Poland, the government of Viktor Kochubey took the decision of recognizing the July Monarchy, which it had refused to do until then.

In January 1831, after pressures from the Marquis de La Fayette, the Duke of Mortemart was dispatched to Russia in order to seek a new agreement—his mission was made ineffectual by the revolutionaries' decision to dethrone Nicholas from his position as King of Poland, which in turn led to a standoff between all sides involved.

[19] In parallel, Sébastiani allegedly approved the designs of Armand Charles Guilleminot, the Ambassador to The Porte, who attempted to undermine the Holy Alliance by stressing that Russian actions in Poland and the Balkans could rally opposition from Austria, the Ottoman Empire and the United Kingdom.

[10] Historian Barthélemy Hauréau indicated that the moderate path pursued by Sébastiani had been largely responsible for convincing Jan Zygmunt Skrzynecki to postpone military operations, to the point where it was later contended that the minister was plotting with Russian authorities.

[23] As Sébastiani's words began circulating freely, public opinion considered them evidence of callousness, and, in December, they were used by J. J. Grandville as title for a cartoon showing the effects of repression in Congress Poland.

"[10]During a Chamber session in September 1831, the liberal Marquis de La Fayette publicly accused the Laffitte cabinet in general and Sébastiani in particular of having secretly encouraged the Poles while persuading them to delay their attack on Russian troops (allegedly promising that France would give them official backing following that moment, and later forfeiting the pledge).

[10] Over the following year, he and Prime Minister Périer were called upon by the Marquis de La Fayette to express disapproval for reactionary politics in the Austrian Empire, and to allow Italian Carbonari refugees such as Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso to remain on French territory.

The Revue argued that this was the most significant gesture of his career, and credited him with having planned it as an indirect but effective strike at Austrian economic interests, when implying that France would march into Rome and Trieste in the event of a war with Austria.

[5][29][30] He was recalled and replaced by François Guizot after refusing, against his government wishes, to support the cause of Muhammad Ali's design to extend his rule out of the Egyptian realm by conquering Ottoman lands in Syria (see London Straits Convention).

Adolphe Thiers later pointed out that he agreed with Sébastiani's view, which he defined as: "The apprehension [...] over seeing France engaging in the Oriental question, to find herself the only one of that opinion, and from that moment on to be reduced to the alternative of either ceding or risk a universal war over an object that was not worth it [...].

"[30]During the ministerial crisis provoked by the fall of the Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult cabinet, before Thiers' nomination, Sébastiani was considered for the office of Premier; his failure to gain the position was attributed to rejection from all political camps, based on the view that he was overtly subservient to King Louis-Philippe.

The Revue des Deux Mondes' François Buloz announced, in April 1835, that Vicomte Tiburce Sébastiani was involved in heated disputes with other public figures, over repeated allegations that his brother had harmed French interests in the American creditors' affair.