Alexandre Colonna-Walewski

Alexandre Florian Joseph, Count Colonna-Walewski (; ; 4 May 181027 September 1868), was a Polish and French politician and diplomat, best known for his position as Foreign Minister of France under Napoleon III and for his diplomatic efforts presiding over the Congress of Paris that created peace in the Crimean War and laid the base for modern international law of the sea with the Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law. Early years Walewski was born at Walewice, near Warsaw in Poland from Countess Marie Walewska and her husband Athanasius, Count Walewski. He was rumoured to be the unacknowledged son of Napoleon I, although Athanasius legally acknowledged him as his own son. In 2013, published scholarship comparing DNA haplotype evidence taken from Emperor Napoleon, from his brother King Jérôme Bonaparte's descendant Charles, Prince Napoléon and from Colonna-Walewski's descendant indicated Alexandre's membership in the genetic male-line of the imperial House of Bonaparte. Aged fourteen, Walewski refused to join the Imperial Russian army and fled to London, thence to Paris where the French government refused Tsar Alexander I's demands for his extradition to Russia.