Adrien de Lezay-Marnésia

Adrien de Lezay - Marnésia ( born October 18, 1769 in St. Julien, † October 9, 1814 in Strasbourg ) was 1806-1810 Prefect of the Département de Rhin -et -Moselle and 1810-1814 prefect of the department of Bas- Rhin.

Life and career

Lezay - Marnésia originally came from Spain and was a distant relative of Napoleon. He was married to Françoise de Briqueville. Under the Directory he fled to Switzerland and returned on 17 May 1801 back to France. For long trips through Germany, he learned to know the country and was also proficient in German. He studied at Göttingen and there translated Schiller's Don Carlos in 1800 into French. Napoleon sent him in 1803 on a diplomatic mission to Hungary.

On May 15, 1806, he was appointed Prefect of the Département de Rhin -et -Moselle, based in Koblenz. There he cared mainly about the education, agriculture and road construction. On him the first attempts go back to make the waterfront on the left bank of the Rhine horticulturally. The Koblenz population was so impressed by his Rheinanlagen that gave her the name " Parc Lezay - Marnésia " the city council. His tenure was 1806 and the establishment of a law school (University) in the house Metternich, the birthplace of the Austrian statesman Prince von Metternich, and in 1808 the establishment of the casino company.

On 1 March 1810, he moved to Strasbourg, where he was previously appointed prefect of the department of Bas- Rhin. He died in 1814 at the consequences of an unfortunate fall. Before the hotel Klinglin in Strasbourg reminds one of Philip Grass 1853 created Statue to the Prefect.