RAYNEVAL, Maximilien, Comte de (1778-1836). A French diplomatist. Secretary of Embassy at Lisbon, then at St. Petersburg; he was made Consul-General at London at the Restoration. He then became successively Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador at Berlin, in Switzerland, at Vienna and at Madrid. In every case he rendered eminent services, and was made a Count and raised to the Peerage.
RÉAL, Comte (1765-1834). Procureur au Châtelet before the Revolution, Conseiller d'État after the 18th brumaire, Prefect of Police during the Hundred Days. He was proscribed by the Second Restoration, and did not return to France till 1818. In 1830 he had a post in the office of the Prefect of Police, and thereafter lived in retirement.
RÉCAMIER, (1777-1849). Julie Bernard, married when she was sixteen M. Récamier, a rich Parisian banker. She was both witty and good, and under the Consulate and the Empire she collected in her salon a crowd of distinguished persons. Exiled from Paris she returned after the fall of Napoleon. Madame Récamier retired in 1819 to the Abbaye-aux-Bois, where she continued to receive all the celebrities of the period.
REGENT, The, Philippe d'Orléans (1674-1723). Governed France during the minority of Louis XV.
RÉMUSAT, Charles, Comte de (1797-1875). A French author and politician. A member of the Institut and a Minister of State.
RETZ, Cardinal de (1614-1679). Jean François Paul de Gondi played a prominent part in the Fronde troubles. He was forced into exile until the death of Mazarin. He left Memoirs which are one of the masterpieces of French literature.
RICHMOND, Duke of (1799-1860). Charles Lennox, a British officer, Lord Lieutenant of Sussex. Became Postmaster-General in the Reform Government of 1830. He married a sister of the Marquess of Anglesea.
RIGNY, Henri Gauthier, Comte de (1783-1835). Entered the Navy 1798 and took part in the campaigns of the First Empire. He was made a Rear-Admiral at the Restoration, and distinguished himself at Navarino, on which occasion he received the title of Count and was made Maritime Prefect of Toulon. He became Minister of Marine in 1831, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, and afterwards Ambassador to Naples.
RIPON, Lord (1781-1859). Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1833. He was originally a Tory but joined the Whigs.
ROBESPIERRE, Maximilien (1758-1794). A lawyer and member of the Convention. He governed by terror through the Committee of Public Safety, but a reaction set in and he perished on the scaffold.