on. A close friend of
Marie Antoinette, he presently came into collision with Calonne, who
demanded his dismissal in 1787. His influence with the king and queen,
especially with the latter, remained unshaken, and on Necker's dismissal on
the 11th of July 1789, Breteuil succeeded him as chief minister. The fall
of the Bastille three days later put an end to the new ministry, and
Breteuil made his way to Switzerland with the first party of _emigres_. At
Soleure, in November 1790, he received from Louis XVI. exclusive powers to
negotiate with the European courts, and in his efforts to check the
ill-advised diplomacy of the _emigre_ princes, he soon brought himself into
opposition with his old rival Calonne, who held a chief place in their
councils. [v.04 p.0501] After the failure of the flight to Varennes, in the
arrangement of which he had a share, Breteuil received instructions from
Louis XVI., designed to restore amicable relations with the princes. His
distrust of the king's brothers and his defence of Louis XVI.'s prerogative
were to some extent justified, but his intransigeant attitude towards these
princes emphasized the dissensions of the royal family in the eyes of
foreign sovereigns, who looked on the comte de Provence as the natural
representative of his brother and found a pretext for non-interference on
Louis's behalf in the contradictory statements of the negotiators. Breteuil
himself was the object of violent attacks from the party of the princes,
who asserted that he persisted in exercising powers which had been revoked
by Louis XVI. After the execution of Marie Antoinette he retired into
private life near Hamburg, only returning to France in 1802. He died in
Paris on the 2nd of November 1807.

See the memoirs of Bertrand de Molleville (2 vols., Paris, 1816) and of the
marquis de Bouille (2 vols., Paris, 1884); and E. Daudet, _Coblentz,
1789-1793_ (1889), forming part of his _Hist. de l'emigration._

BRETIGNY, a French town (dept. Eure-et-Loir, arrondissement and canton of
Chartres, commune of Sours), which gave its name to a celebrated treaty
concluded there on the 8th of May 1360, between Edward III. of England and
John II., surnamed the Good, of France. The exactions of the English, who
wished to yield as few as possible of the advantages claimed by them in the
treaty of London, made negotiations difficult, and the discussion of terms
begun early in April lasted more than a month. By virtue of this treaty