Maarten van der Goes van Dirxland

Maarten van der Goes entered the diplomatic service in 1785, in which he was sent to Copenhagen, then Madrid from 1793 to 1796.

He was then secretary to the second national assembly of the Batavian Republic and became its foreign minister on 8 October 1798.

At the end of July 1803, Van der Goes, Gerard Brantsen and Jan Bernd Bicker formed a Batavian deputation sent to Napoleon Bonaparte at Brussels, where Bonaparte was visiting the French departments in what is now Belgium.

After France's annexation of Holland in 1810, Van der Goes entered the First French Empire's Corps législatif as the representative of the department of Bouches-de-la-Meuse.

He was made Grand Treasurer of the Order of the Reunion on 22 February 1813 and a baron de l'Empire on 27 January 1813.