GENET, EDMOND CHARLES (1763-1834), French min ister plenipotentiary to the United States in '793, was born on Jan. 8, 1763, at Versailles. He was for a time attached to the embassy at Berlin and later to the embassy at Vienna ; and at the age of 18, following his father's death, succeeded him as secretary interpreter at the ministry of foreign affairs. In 1787 he was sent to the embassy at St. Petersburg where he remained un til July 1792, when his liberal views made him persona non grata. After a brief stay in Paris, where he came more fully under the influence of the Revolution, "citizen" Genet was sent as French minister to the Congress of the United States. He was assuming a position which would require much tact, but his impetuous nature combined with the ovations accorded him by the Democratic-Republicans, led him into misjudging public opinion regarding American neutrality. His activities in instigating military operations against the Spanish possessions of Florida and Louisiana and against Canada, the fitting out of privateers in American ports, his acrimonious debates with the Federal Govern ment and his caustic attacks on the president, demonstrate con clusively his lack of diplomacy. Genet's threat to override the executive by appealing to the people caused Washington to ask the French republic to recall its representative. His successor, "citizen" Fauchet, brought orders to arrest him and send him back to France for trial, but Washington refused to permit the extradi tion. He subsequently became a naturalized American citizen. In 1794 he married Cornelia Tappen Clinton, daughter of the governor of New York and in four years of ter the death of his first wife, married Martha Brandon Osgood, daughter of the first postmaster general. He died on July 14, 1834.
See M. Minnigerode, Lives and Times (1925) ; G. C. Genet, Wash ington, Jefferson and "Citizen" Genet 1793 (privately printed 1899) ; Report 1896 (1897) and Report 1897 (1898) of the American His torical Association; The American Historical Review vol. iii. (1898) ; and Mississippi Valley Historical Review vol. vi.