Florimond Claude, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau

He was born in Liège, Belgium, to Antoine, comte de Mercy-Argenteau, and entered the diplomatic service of Austria in Paris in the train of Reichsfürst Kaunitz. He became Austrian minister in Turin at the court of King Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia, in St. Petersburg at the court of Catherine the Great, and then Paris at the court of King Louis XV of France in 1766. In Paris, his first work was to strengthen the alliance between France and Austria, which was cemented in 1770 by the marriage of the dauphin, afterwards Louis XVI, with Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria, youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, afterwards known as Queen Marie Antoinette. When Louis and Marie Antoinette ascended the throne of France in 1774, Mercy-Argenteau became one of the most powerful personages at the French court due to his influence over Marie-Antoinette, which made her unpopular with the French nobility and French people. He was in Paris during the turbulent years that led up to the French Revolution, and gave powerful aid to the finance ministers Loménie de Brienne and Necker. In 1792, he became governor-general of the Austrian Netherlands, which had just been reduced to obedience by Austria. There, his ability and experience made him a very successful ruler. Although at first in favor of moderate courses, Mercy-Argenteau supported the action of Austria in making war upon its former ally after the outbreak of the French Revolution, and in July 1794, he was appointed Austrian ambassador to Britain, but he died a few days after his arrival in London.

He was played by Henry Stephenson in the 1938 film Marie Antoinette, and by Steve Coogan in the 2006 film of the same name.

• T. Juste, Le Comte de Mercy-Argenteau (Brussels 1863)
• A. von Arneth and A. Geoff roy, Correspondances secretes de Marie Therese avec le comte de Mercy (Paris 1874)
• A. von Arneth and J. Flammermont, Correspondance secrete de Mercy avec Joseph II et Kaunitz (Paris 1889–1891)
• Mercy-Argenteau's Correspondances secretes de Marie Terese has been condensed and translated into English by Lilian Smythe under the title of A Guardian of Marie Antoinette (2 vols., London 1902)

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Mercy-Argenteau, Florimond Claude, Comte de". Encyclopædia Britannica. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 159–160.