Jean Louis Barthélemy O'Donnell

Who is Jean Louis Barthélemy O'Donnell?

Comte Jean Louis Barthelemy O'Donnell, was born in Maine-et-Loire, France, and was a Hiberno-French count who survived the French Revolution, campaigned in Italy and Spain under Napoleon Bonaparte, and played a prominent role in local government in France. He was also a member of the Conseil d’État and the Légion d'honneur.

On 15 April 1817, he married Élisa-Louise Gay, daughter of Jean Sigismond Gay in Paris, and adopted by the latter's second wife, Marie Françoise Sophie Nichault de la Valette, who came from a family ruined by the Revolution. With Élisa-Louise, Comte O’Donnell had two sons, Gustave Anatole O’Donnell, and Sigismond Anatole O’Donnell, who married Jeanne Marthe Marie de Pechpeyrou Comminges de Guitaut, of the Marquis d’Époisses. His mother-in-law, known also as Sophie Gay or Mme. Sigismond, held salons for the rising elite of the "Restauration", frequented by France's greatest writers and artists. She lived at Villiers-sur-Orge, just south of Paris, in the Maison-Rouge, where they moved in 1813, and where Élisa-Louise and Sophie's own three children grew up. This was also where Comte O’Donnell courted Élisa-Louise, and established their family, after his military service. She was also a correspondent of Honoré de Balzac, sending him poems that she had coaxed her half-sister Delphine to write.