Comte Antoine-François Bertrand de Molleville (20 October 1746, Toulouse ~ 30 December 1818, Paris) was a French politician.
A staunch monarchist,[1] he was known as the enfant terrible of the monarchy. He was first conseiller to the Parlement de Toulouse in 1766, then maîtres des requêtes in 1774 and finally Intendant de Bretagne, in 1784. Bertrand de Molleville was then charged in 1788 with the difficult task of dissolving the Parlement of Rennes.
Favourable to the gathering of the estates general in 1789, he advised Louis XVI after the dissolution of the Assemblée. Made ministre de la Marine et des Colonies from 1790 to 1792, he organised the mass emigration of officers. Due to numerous denunciations, he retired from his functions and became chief of the royal secret police. Before and after the 10 August 1792, he tried to organise an escape for the king, but he was eventually forced to resolve to flee to England himself. Despite his dedication and his friendship for, he was one of his most untalented servants.[2]
Antoine-François Bertrand de Molleville was received as a conseiller to the Parlement de Toulouse in 1766. His secretary was Bernard François Balssa, father of Honoré de Balzac, still in de Moleville's service in 1771.
Bertrand de Molleville served his apprentice in the school of minister Maupeou. He was maîtres des requêtes in 1774. In 1775, Bertrand de Molleville defended the memoir of his ancestor chancellor Jean Bertrand, seigneur de Frazin,[3] attacked by Condorcet in his Éloge du chancelier de L'Hôpital, but he only published this apology after having communicated it to Condorcet lui-même.[4]
Bertrand de Molleville was made Intendant de Bretagne in 1784.
In 1788, along with the Commander of Rennes, Governor Molleville went to Brittany to announce the royal edict that the Breton Parliament was abolished. The entire town turned out, and rumors began to spread that it wasn't a royal edict but a power move by the governor. Fighting broke out, civilians fighting soldiers, and rioters were able to get a noose around Molleville's neck, but he was saved at the last second by the Commander throwing down his sword into the street, saying he refused to fight the people, and by fraternizing with the masses, cooling tensions and saving the governor.[5] Later in the same year, when the Pont Neuf was covered in troops preparing for the Revolution, he remarked he saw "those who later on took part in all the popular movements of the Revolution."[6]
On his death in 1818, he was buried in the church of Ponsan-Soubiran.