Jean-Frédéric de la Tour du Pin-Gouvernet

Jean-Frédéric de La Tour du Pin Gouvernet (22 March 1727, Grenoble – 28 April 1794 Paris) was a French nobleman and politician. His full titles were Comte de Paulin, Marquis de la Roche-Chalais et de Cénevières, Vicomte de Calvignac, Comte de Chastelard, Vicomte de Tesson et d’Ambleville, Baron de Cubzac, Seigneur du Cubzaguais, Seigneur de Formarville. He was the penultimate Secretary of State for War under the Ancien Regime before being executed in 1794 with his brother Philippe-Antoine.

Life
He was the son of Jean de La Tour-du-Pin, Comte de Paulin and Suzanne de La Tour. He married Marguerite Cécile Séraphine de Guinot, daughter of the Marquis de Monconseil, which gave him the viscounty of Ambleville.

He served as colonel of the Bourbon Regiment of Cavalry in 1741, captain in 1744, colonel of the Grenadiers de France in 1749, Chevalier de Saint Louis in 1757, colonel of the Regiment Brigadier Guien in 1761; he was appointed colonel of the Piedmont Regiment and Marshal of the camp in 1762. He was a Lieutenant General in 1781.

In 1787 he was appointed Lieutenant General and Commander in Chief of the provinces of Aunis, Saintonge, Poitou and Lower Angoumois, and Lieutenant-General of the Armies of the King on 5 December 1787 and Marshal of the camp. The Comte de La Tour du Pin was appointed commander of the Provinces of Poitou and Saintonge, and then he was elected deputy to the Estates General on 26 March 1789. He represented the nobility of the sénéchaussée Saintes.

He served as Minister of War, 4 August 1789 to 16 November 1790, during the first years of the French Revolution.

He restored discipline in the army and received the congratulations of the National Assembly. Soon under political attack by the Jacobins, he offered his resignation, but the King refused to accept it. Louis XVI also recalled him in 1792 to become part of the Government.

He defended Marie-Antoinette during her trial before the prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville, who did not like La Tour du Pin's respect for the Queen.

He was guillotined on 28 April 1794, when he was sentenced at the same time as his elder brother.

Family
His son Frederick Séraphin, led the 43rd infantry regiment of the line, was Ambassador and Peer of France, and married Henriette Lucy Dillon, the daughter of Arthur Dillon. He was aide du camp to Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette. His daughter-in-law is famous for her "Memoirs of a woman of fifty years." She is the subject of a recent biography.

His grandson, Marquis Aymar de La Tour du Pin, sold all of the family's land in Cubzaguais to the father of Louis Henri Hubert Delisle in 1835.

His châteaux
In 1759 he began the demolition of the chateau of La Roche-Chalais, due to the decay of the house and the cost of repairing it.

He demolished the old chateau in Saint Andre Bouilh Cubzac, and began construction of a new edifice in 1787, designed by the Parisian architect Victor Louis. However before the chateau was completed, the Revolution broke out and the building stands unfinished to this day.