Antoine Marie Chamans La Valette, count de, a French officer, born in Paris in 1769, died there, Feb. 15, 1830. At the breaking out of the revolution he became an officer of the national guard, and he was one of the last defenders of the king on Aug. 10,1792. Entering the republican army, he distinguished himself on the Rhine and in La Vendee, and gained the confidence of Bonaparte, who appointed him his adjutant and private secretary. He accompanied him to Egypt, and became more nearly allied to him by marrying a niece of Josephine. After the 18th Brumaire he was made postmaster general and count. In 1814 he lost his office, but he reoccupied his post immediately on the departure of Louis XVIII. for Ghent. After the restoration of Louis XVIII. he was arrested for having aided the emperor, and condemned to death. He escaped by the aid of his wife and daughter and three English gentlemen, and went to Munich, where he was kindly received by the king. Mme. de La Valette, after the escape was discovered, was kept for some time imprisoned, and became insane; but she survived until June, 1855. In 1822 La Valette was pardoned and returned to France, where he lived in obscurity. He left a volume of Memoires et souvenirs (Paris, 1831), containing an interesting account of his escape.

Napoleon I. bequeathed 300,000 francs to La Valette, of which he received 60,000; in 1855 Napoleon III. paid the remainder to his heirs.