GRAMONT, ANTOINE AGENOR ALFRED, Due DE, Duc DE GUICHE, PRINCE DE BIDACHE (1819-1880), French di plomatist and statesman, was born in Paris on Aug. 14, 1819, of a family originally royalist, though the younger members were Bonapartist. Antoine was educated at the Ecole Polytechnique, but entered the diplomatic service. His promotion began with the accession of Louis Napoleon to the supreme power. He was successively minister plenipotentiary at Cassel and Stuttgart 0852), at Turin (1853), ambassador at Rome (1857) and at Vienna 0860. ). On May 15, 18 i o he was appointed minister of foreign affairs in the 011ivier cabinet, and was thus concerned in the bungling of the negotiations between France and Prussia aris ing out of the candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern for the throne of Spain, which led to the disastrous war of 18 7 0-71. The famous declaration read by Gramont in the Chamber on July 6, the "threat with the hand on the sword-hilt," as Bismarck called it, was the joint work of the whole cabinet; the original draft presented by Gramont was judged to be too "elliptical" in its conclusion and not sufficiently vigorous. The history of the affair is given in detail by Emile 011ivier himself in his Empire liberal (vol. xii., 1909). It was Gramont who pointed out to the emperor, on the evening of the 12th, the dubious circumstances of the act of renunciation of the prince of Hohenlohe-Sigmaringen on behalf of his son, and on the same night, without informing 011ivier, he despatched to Benedetti at Ems the fatal telegram demanding the king of Prussia's guarantee that the candidature would not be revived. The supreme responsibility for this act must rest with the emperor, "who imposed it by an exercise of personal power on the only one of his ministers who could have lent himself to such a forgetfulness of the safeguards of a parlia mentary regime." says 011ivier.
Gramont resigned office with the rest of the 011ivier ministry (Aug. 9), and after the revolution of September he went to Eng land, returning after the war to Paris, where he died on Jan. 18, 1880. He published various apologies for his policy in 187o, notably La France et la Prusse avant la guerre (1872).