Mattheus Lestevenon
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Suffen_recevant_une_epee_d_or_de_la_Hollande.jpg/220px-Suffen_recevant_une_epee_d_or_de_la_Hollande.jpg)
Mattheus Lestevenon, heer van Berckenrode(1715–1797,The Hague) was a city-secretary andschepenin Amsterdam, then Dutch ambassador to France. Lestevenon played an important role in the year 1748 and in the negotiations for theTreaty of Paris.Pietro Locatellidedicated six violin sonatas to him.
Life
[edit]Family
[edit]Lestevenon was born into a powerfulregentfamily. His father Mattheus Lestevenon (1674-1743) was an administrator of theDutch East India Company,heerofStrijenand five-timesmayor of Amsterdam(between 1722 and 1736).Gerrit de Graeff (I.) van Zuid-Polsbroek,vrijheer van Zuid-Polsbroek, was his cousin by marriage. In 1743 Lestevenon had married Maria Wilhelmina, baronessvan der Duyn.[1]His two children Maria Jacqueline andWillem Anne Lestevenon[2]were born in 1749 in Brussels[citation needed]and Paris respectively. On 8 June 1755 he divorced the baroness, probably while she conceived a child from an officer by the name M. De Villegagnon.[3]Lestevenon next married Susanna Faulquier in an unknown year. He sold his house on Keizersgracht toThomas Hope.It's the building at Singel 292, that he had inherited from his grandfatherDirk Trip,he sold toJoachim Rendorp.After an inheritance from a late aunt, Lestevenon bought a palace atLange Voorhouton the Hague, with 16 servants. Mattheus Lestevenon married Lady Catharina Windsor, a sister ofHerbert Windsor, 2nd Viscount Windsor,in London in 1742 and went on honeymoon to Italy. His wife died of smallpox on the return trip. She was buried inBockenheimon 26 May. Mattheus again inherited "considerable wealth and goods" ( "considerabel veel gelt en goet" ) on the death of his father in 1743. He moved to the attractive building at Keizersgracht 444–446. Because he was not appointed as a successor to his father, it is supposed he was frustrated.
Career
[edit]In 1729, he got a job as city secretary. In all probability, someone else did the work and Lestevenon's earnings funded his Studie. Lestevenon was appointed schepen of Amsterdam in 1745.
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Hope-keizersgracht.jpg/300px-Hope-keizersgracht.jpg)
After thePachtersoproer(1748), theDoelisteninvitedprince William IVand requested to remove the inter-relatedregentenclique and to change the appointment of mayors. Of the forty mayors chosen between 1696–1748, only two (or, as some maintain, even just one) were not related to earlier mayors. Finally Lestevenon left the council of his own accord. The stadholder changed his opinion and more than half the men on the council got their seats back. Not long after that Mattheus Lestevenon was appointed ambassador to the court toVersailles.
Little is known about his activities as ambassador. Mostly it involved meetings withLa Vauguyonon finishing theFourth Anglo-Dutch War(1780–1784) and theTreaty of Fontainebleau (1785);his correspondence withComte de Montmorinends in 1788?[4]Mattheus Lestevenon died in 1797 in the Hague. His son meanwhile played an important role as aPatriot.
References
[edit]Bibliography
[edit]- J.E. Elias(1903–1905, reprinted 1963)De vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795,2 vols.
- Het dagboek van J. Bicker Raye;bewerkt door F. M. Bijerinck & M. G. de Boer, (1935).
- Ligtelijn, M. (2006) "Regentencoterieën 1650–1750". In:De Gouden Bocht van Amsterdam,p. 187. Edited and composed by Milko den Leeuw en Martin Pruijs.