Paul Barillon

Paul Barillon d'Amoncourt, the marquis de Branges (1630–1691), was the French ambassador to England from 1677 to 1688. His dispatches from England to Louis XIV have been very useful to historians of the period, though an expected bias may be present With the conquest of England by William of Orange, Louis XIV's most implacable enemy, Barillon was expelled from England and war soon commenced between the two kingdoms. His successor after the war was Camille de Tallard, and his immediate predecessor was Henri de Massue, 1st Marquis de Rouvigny. Family and early career He was the son of Jean-Jacques de Barillon, Master of Requests of the Parlement de Paris. He acquired the Branges and Amoncourt titles by inheritance from his uncle Antoine, who had married the Amoncourt heiress. In 1663 he married Marie Madeleine Mangot: they had three children, Antoine, Philiberte and Bonne. He was successively Intendant of Paris (1666), Flanders (1667) and Amiens (1668). In 1673 he was one of the French plenipotentiaries to the Congress of Cologne. In 1681 he became a Councillor of State. Ambassador to England Both Charles II and James II invariably treated Barillon with great courtesy: one historian refers to his "rather pampered existence at Whitehall". Both monarchs appeared to confide in him, although it is not always clear that they were entirely frank. Charles II, at the outbreak of the Popish Plot, did tell Barillon openly that Titus Oates, the inventor of the Plot, was a villain, and that the Plot itself was an invention, but that it would be unwise to say so publicly.