Guillaume de Félice, 4th Count Panzutti


Guillaume Adam de Félice, 4th Comte de Panzutti was a Savoy nobleman, theologian and abolitionist.

Biography

Early life

Félice was born on 12 March 1803 in Otterberg and died on 23 October 1871 in Lausanne and was the grandson of Fortunato de Felice, 2nd Comte di Panzutti, by his son Bernard, 3rd Comte di Panzutti. Guillaume grew up in a French environment as the family settled in Lille in 1804, and inherited his grandfather's vigour for radicalism and academia, and the family title, Comte di Panzutti in 1832, aged 29.
He studied theology at Strasbourg and Lausanne universities and was accepted into the Church in 1827. He became a pastor at the Reformed Church of Bolbec, in Normandy Seine-Maritime, then a professor of theology in Montauban, occupying the chair 'de morale et d'éloquence sacrée'. In later life he settled in his family town of Yverdon and married Joséphine Rivier, the daughter of a local aristocrat. They had two children, Sophie de Félice and Théodore de Félice. His daughter Sophie unusually inherited the title suo jure, with her and her husband becoming Count and Countess di Panzutti, Henri François Louis Gabriel Guisan, and thus their grandchildren became cousins of General Henri Guisan, later Commander in Chief of the Swiss Army during WWII. From this branch the family are also second cousins of the baronial family of Stael-Holstein and the ducal family of de Broglie.

Abolitionism

Whilst at Bolbec, it is thought that his interest in abolitionism was heightened due to its proximity to the slave-port of Le Havre. Félice started the movement against the French slave camps in Guadeloupe, at the time a very controversial subject. It was through his religious beliefs that he pursued his struggle against slavery, resulting in him drafting the famous French petition of 1846 in favor of abolition. Felice maintained a long correspondence with English abolitionists, who won their case in 1833, France abolishing slavery in 1848.

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