In reality, he was the son of the best friend of his father, Pierre Victor, baron de Besenval de Brünstatt, who acquired a certain notority under the French Revolution.
Victor Hugo | Pierre Boulez | Baron | Pierre Trudeau | William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley | Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Victor | baron | Victor Talking Machine Company | Sacha Baron Cohen | Pierre Corneille | Jean-Pierre Rampal | Pierre Loti | Pierre | Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister | Joey Baron | Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell | Pierre Teilhard de Chardin | Jean-Pierre Thiollet | Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux | Victor Emmanuel III of Italy | Pierre Puvis de Chavannes | Pierre Cardin | Pierre Bourdieu | Pierre Amoyal | Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester | Victor Wooten | Victor Vasarely | Pierre Huyghe | Pierre Bonnard |
Born at Solothurn, he was the son of Jean Victor de Besenval, colonel of the regiment of Swiss Guards in the pay of France, who was charged in 1707 by Louis XIV with a mission to Sweden to reconcile Charles XII with the tsar Peter the Great, and to unite them in alliance with France against England.
In 1788 he published his Mémoire sur l'esclavage des négres as an opponent of Abbé Raynal, who advocated the abolition of slavery.