Narcisse Achille, Comte de, a French writer and statesman, sprung from an Irish family, was born at Condom, in the department of Gers, on the 11th of June 1796. Having been sent at a very early age to Paris, he received his education at the Lycée Napoléon. The needy youth enrolled himself in a volunteer corps in 1812, and served with much distinction throughout the campaigns of 1813-14, and had the honour to receive the decoration of the Legion of Honour from the hands of the emperor on the 6th of April 1814. On the restoration of the Bourbons, Salvandy expressed his devotedness to the new regime in these words: "After having shed my blood in an illegitimate cause," he wrote to the Duc d'Angoulême, "I would die for the Bourbons." Having accompanied Louis XVIII. to the Belgian frontier in 1815, he returned to Paris, and published his pamphlets, Mémoire sur les Griefs et les Vœux de la France; and Observations sur le Champ de Mai. Next year he brought out La Coalition et la France, which produced a considerable sensation in the courts of Europe. In 1819 he was made a member of the Council of State, and appointed Maître des Requêtes; but the French cabinet not acting according to his liking in the electoral system, he had the audacity, at the risk of place, to defend that system in his clever brochures Vues Politiques and Dangers de la Situation présente. In 1820, Salvandy having gone to Spain during the ministry of the Duc de Richelieu, studied with warm interest the liberal movement in that country. In 1823 appeared his celebrated romance Don Alonso, ou l'Espagne, which has been frequently reprinted. In 1824 began his connection with the Journal des Débats, which was destined to continue at intervals for the next twenty years. In his political articles he pursued a bold yet steady course, scorning to fawn upon any potentate, and flattering no party. He never abandoned his fundamental principle, that there was no security for France but in constitutional monarchy—a maxim which he urged with all the warmth of language and energy of style competent to a man of a lively imagination and of perfect self-consciousness. Salvandy held the position of councillor of state during the ministry of Martignac, but resigned on the subsequent dissolution of the cabinet. During the reign of Louis Philippe, he continued to pursue his liberal policy, both in political leader and in pamphlet, with the same steady adherence which had hitherto characterised him. He held several offices of state, was made a member of the French Academy, and was created a count. On the coup d'état of December 1851, he went into retirement, and died on the 15th December 1856, in his sixty-second year.