Willem Anne Lestevenon
Encyclopedia
Anne Willem Lestevenon van Berkenrode (born in Paris on October 14, 1750 and died at La Ferté-Gaucher
La Ferté-Gaucher
La Ferté-Gaucher is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.-External links:* * *...

 on October 4, 1830) was a Dutch politician and art collector.

Biography

Willem Anne Lestevenon was born in 1750 in Paris, where his father, Mattheus Lestevenon
Mattheus Lestevenon
Mattheus Lestevenon, heer van Berckenrode was a city-secretary and schepen in Amsterdam, then Dutch ambassador to France. Lestevenon played an important role in the year 1748 and in the negotiations for the Treaty of Paris. Pietro Locatelli dedicated six violin sonatas to him.-Life:Lestevenon...

, was an ambassador of the United Provinces
Dutch Republic
The Dutch Republic — officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , the Republic of the United Netherlands, or the Republic of the Seven United Provinces — was a republic in Europe existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the Batavian Republic and ultimately...

 to the King of France. In 1760 he was sent to Leiden to study law. Upon graduation in 1768 he became bailiff of the town and Barony of Breda
Breda
Breda is a municipality and a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. The name Breda derived from brede Aa and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. As a fortified city, the city was of strategic military and political significance...

. Ten years later, he moved to Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...

 and was appointed to the city's vroedschap
Vroedschap
The vroedschap was the name for the city council in the early modern Netherlands; the member of such a council was called a vroedman, literally a "wise man"...

 and joind the Dutch Society of Science. He was sent to the States from Holland in 1783 and then to the States General of the United Provinces in the following year.

In July 1785, the States designated him on a special mission to Marie-Christine von Habsburg-Lorraine, governor of the Austrian Netherlands to solve the problems which had started with the Kettle War
Kettle War
The Kettle War is the nickname given to a short war or incident between the troops of the Republic of the Seven Netherlands and the Holy Roman Empire that began on 8 October 1784...

, resulting in the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1785)
Treaty of Fontainebleau (1785)
The Treaty of Fontainebleau was signed on November 8, 1785 in Fontainebleau between Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, ruler of the Habsburg Monarchy, and the States-General of the United Provinces. Based on the terms of the accord, the United Provinces was permitted to maintain sovereignty over the...

.

Lestevenon was an ardent supporter of the Batavian patriots
Patriots (faction)
The Patriots were a political faction in the Dutch Republic in the second half of the 18th century. They were led by Joan van der Capellen tot den Pol, gaining power from November 1782....

, leading William V of Orange to the sack. In February 1788 Lestevenon lost all his functions and traveled to Rome, where he bought a collection of drawings by Italian masters like Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

, Bernardino Poccetti
Bernardino Poccetti
Bernardino Poccetti , also known as Barbatelli, was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker in etching ....

, Giuseppe Porta
Giuseppe Porta
Giuseppe Porta , also known as Giuseppe Salviati, was an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance period, active mostly in Venice....

, and Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese was an Italian painter of the Renaissance in Venice, famous for paintings such as The Wedding at Cana and The Feast in the House of Levi...

, formerly owned by Christina I of Sweden and now in the Teylers Museum
Teylers Museum
Teyler's Museum , located in Haarlem, is the oldest museum in the Netherlands. The museum is in the former home of Pieter Teyler van der Hulst . He was a wealthy cloth merchant and Amsterdam banker of Scottish descent, who bequeathed his fortune for the advancement of religion, art and science...

, the Louvre, the British Museum and the MET
Met
-In the arts:* Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan, New York* Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, New York* Various buildings known as the Metropolitan Opera House* The Metropolitan Ensemble Theater in Kansas City, Missouri-In computing and the Internet:...

.

When the Batavian Revolution
Batavian revolution
The term Batavian revolution refers to the political, social and cultural turmoil that marked the end of the Dutch Republic at the end of the 18th century...

 broke out in January 1795 and William V fled to England, Lestevenon purged the municipality of the city to replace the Orangemen with patriots.

Considered one of the ablest diplomats of the country, he was one of the Batavian representatives to negotiate with Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès , commonly known as Abbé Sieyès, was a French Roman Catholic abbé and clergyman, one of the chief theorists of the French Revolution, French Consulate, and First French Empire...

 and Jean-François Reubell the Treaty of The Hague (1795)
Treaty of The Hague (1795)
The Treaty of Den Haag was signed on May 16, 1795 between representatives of the French Republic and the Batavian Republic. Based on the terms of the treaty, the Batavian Republic ceded the territories of Maastricht, Venlo, and Flanders to France...

, signed May 16.

January 27, 1796 he was elected to the First National Assembly
National Assembly
National Assembly is either a legislature, or the lower house of a bicameral legislature in some countries. The best known National Assembly, and the first legislature to be known by this title, was that established during the French Revolution in 1789, known as the Assemblée nationale...

 and served on the Foreign Relations Committee. On 18 June he was sent to Paris to represent the Batavian Republic
Batavian Republic
The Batavian Republic was the successor of the Republic of the United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on January 19, 1795, and ended on June 5, 1806, with the accession of Louis Bonaparte to the throne of the Kingdom of Holland....

 in negotiations between Spain and France, resulting in the Second Treaty of San Ildefonso
Second Treaty of San Ildefonso
The Second Treaty of San Ildefonso was signed on August 19, 1796 between the Spanish Empire and the First French Republic. Based on the terms of the agreement, France and Spain would become allies and combine their forces against the British Empire.-See also:...

.

In 1797 he was embroiled in a sex scandal
Sodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...

 and, in absence, banned from the country. Lestevenon lost all his functions, sold Berkenrode
Berkenrode
Berkenrode is a former village in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is first mentioned as a 'Heerlijkheid' in 1284, though first mention of a castle is found much later in 1466. Thi sis because the family Van Berkenrode preferred to live on the Grote Markt in Haarlem...

and settled in France.
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