A student of Christoph Wilhelm von Koch and a friend of Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès at the University of Strasbourg, Ludwig Otto graduated in Modern Languages and Law.

[1] While in Philadelphia, he succeeded François Barbé-Marbois as Secretary of the French Legation in May 1785, serving another two terms as Chargé d'affaires ad interim, having established cordial relations with George Washington and other senior members of Congress.

In March 1787, Otto married Elizabeth, daughter of Peter Van Brugh Livingston; she died in December 1787.

[3] He returned to France at the end of 1792, and shortly afterwards the Revolutionary Government Committee of Public Safety appointed him as the first Head of the Political Division for Foreign Affairs.

In 1810 he was despatched as French Ambassador to Vienna,[5] where he negotiated the conditions for Napoleon's second marriage with Archduchess Marie-Louise.