Map of the Cape Cod Canal from Poussin's Travaux d’améliorations (1834)

Guillaume Tell de La Vallée-Poussin (1794–1876) was a French engineer and diplomat.

Life

Poussin was born at Poissy (Yvelines) on 10 February 1794 and was named after the republican hero William Tell. His father, Jean Étienne de La Vallée dit Poussin (1735-1802), was a painter and decorator who had won the Prix de Rome in 1759; his mother was Élisabeth Félicité Gillet (born c. 1750).[1] In 1814 he was registered as a student of architecture at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but soon thereafter he departed for the United States. He served as a captain in the United States Army Corps of Engineers, becoming aide de camp to General Simon Bernard. He returned to France in 1831, and spent time travelling through England, Belgium, and the Rhineland, taking a particular interest in the development of railways. In 1841 he published Considérations sur le principe démocratique, to correct what he saw as Alexis de Tocqueville's superficial understanding of American democracy.[2] From 1848 to 1849 Poussin served as ambassador of the French Second Republic to the United States, answerable to Tocqueville, who was then French foreign minister. He was recalled after diplomatic relations became strained due to the intemperate language that he and the US Secretary of State, John M. Clayton, had used to one another in correspondence over an attempt by the captain of the USS Iris to claim right of salvage over a French ship stranded off Veracruz.[3]

In 1850 he married Louise Roux, who in 1853 gave birth to their daughter, Camille Emma Aline.[1]

Poussin died at home in Paris (13 rue Say) on 7 November 1876 and was buried in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery.[1]

Honours

  • Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur[1]

Publications

  • 1834: Travaux d'améliorations intérieures projetés ou exécutés par le gouvernement général des États-Unis d'Amérique, de 1824 à 1831 (Paris)[4]
  • 1836: Chemins de fer américains (Brussels)[5]
  • 1839: Examen comparatif de la question des chemins de fer en 1839 en France et à l'étranger (Paris)[6]
  • 1841: Considérations sur le principe démocratique qui régit l'Union Américaine (Paris)[7]
  • 1843: De la puissance américaine (Paris)[8]
  • 1845: La Belgique et les Belges depuis 1830 (Paris)[9]
  • 1846: Question de l'Oregon [10]
  • 1874: Les Etats-Unis d'Amérique: étude historique et d'économie politique, 1815–1873 (Paris)[11]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Marie-Laure Crosnier Leconte. "Guillaume Tell de La Vallée-Poussin". Dictionnaire des élèves architectes de l’École des beaux-arts de Paris (1800-1968).
  2. ↑ Jeremy Jennings, "French Visions of America: From Tocqueville to the Civil War", in America through European Eyes: British and French Reflections on the New World from the Eighteenth Century to the Present, edited by Aurelian Craiutu and Jeffrey C. Isaac (Pennsylvania State Press, 2009), pp. 171-176.
  3. ↑ Henry Blumenthal, A Reappraisal of Franco-American Relations, 1830-1871 (University of North Carolina Press, 1959), pp. 77-80.
  4. ↑ Poussin, Guillaume Tell (1834). Travaux d'améliorations.
  5. ↑ Poussin, Guillaume Tell (1836). Chemins de fer américains.
  6. ↑ Poussin, Guillaume Tell (1839). Examen comparatif.
  7. ↑ Poussin, Guillaume Tell (1841). Considérations sur le principe démocratique.
  8. ↑ New edition 1848; vol. 1 andvol. 2 on Google Books.
  9. ↑ Poussin, Guillaume Tell (1845). La Belgique.
  10. ↑ Poussin, Guillaume Tell (1846). Question de l'Oregon.
  11. ↑ Poussin (1874). Les Etats-Unis d'Amérique.
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