Charles de Salis

Charles de Salis unsuccessful Parliamentary candidate for Reading, 1761.
He was born on July 25th, 1736 in the Parish of St. James, Westminster and died without children at Hieres, Provence, July 1781, aged 45.
He was the eldest son of Anglo-Grison diplomat Jerome, Count de Salis-Soglio, who had been Naturalized a British Subject in 1731, by his wife Mary, eldest daughter of Charles Fane, 1st Viscount Fane.
After some schooling with his younger brothers (Peter, Rev Dr. Henry, and William) in his father's ancestral homeland (the Grisons Republic), he studied at Eton from 1747-1753, where he was one of the 250 pupils there at the time. He traveled abroad from 1757 to 1760; the tour covered Lausanne (university), Northern Italy, Rome, Naples, Coire, Paris, Turin, and Holland.
In 1761, De Salis stood in his namesake and uncle's place as one of the two MPs for Reading, but having been admitted to a Freeman/Burgess of the Corporation of Reading on the 4th of March, 1761 he was well beaten at the poll on the 25th of March, 1761.
De Salis only obtained 258 votes, whereas the elected candidates polled 396 (John Dodd) and 355 (Sir Francis Knollys).
After returning to Provence having executed his uncle Charles Fane (c1707-1766)'s will in 1766, he continued to live at Arles, Salon, Nîmes and Hieres (also spelled: Hyères), where he died and was buried at the Couvent (Convent) des Cordeliers (now the Église Saint-Louis d'Hyères) in 1781.
On 6th April, 1764, Charles' contemporary, Edward Gibbon, wrote in his diary whilst in Lausanne: De Salis d'une indifférence qui vient plus d'un défaut de sensibilité que d'un excès de raison (this translates as: De Salis an indifference that comes more from a lack of sensitivity due to excess .).
He seems to have shared with his mother, maternal-grandmother (Mary Stanhope), and to a greater degree, his maternal aunt Dorothy Montagu, Countess of Sandwich a predilection for the . De Salis and his mother both received treatment in Provence to cure their own low-spirits from the renowned vapour theorist, Monsieur Pierre Pomme.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu