People · French consul-general
Brenier de Montmorant
白来尼Báiláiní · 1813–1894
French consul-general 1864-69 who dissolved the French Municipal Council in 1865; the 1866 regulations then put the police under the consul-general.
Vicomte Brenier de Montmorant (白来尼, Báiláiní) was French consul-general in Shanghai from 1864 to 1869 and the official who dissolved the French Municipal Council in 1865.
Born in 1813 in the Isère, he had been a government commissioner to San Remo and Seville in 1848 before coming to Shanghai. Disputes soon arose with the French Municipal Council (公董局) over the consulate building, the budget and control of the police. On 12 October 1865 he ordered the Council’s board dissolved. The conflict led the French Foreign Ministry to set up a commission on the Shanghai affair, and the 1866 regulations followed: the consul-general now commanded the police, and the Council became an advisory body under his control.
He also agreed with daotai Ding Richang on closing gambling houses in the concession, and dealt with Chinese authorities over Catholic church sites at Suzhou and Nanjing and a French concession at Xiaguan. The new consulate-general was finished in May 1867. He left Shanghai in March 1869, served as minister in Beijing from 1876 to 1879, and retired in 1880.
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Connections
Ding Richang丁日昌Agreed with Consul-General Brenier to suppress gambling houses in the French Concession, 1865