Pierre-Barthélémy Portal d'Albarèdes

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Pierre-Barthélémy Portal d'Albarèdes, known as Baron Portal, was a French politician born on 30 October 1765 in Montauban in the Albarèdes area, and he died on 11 January 1845 in Bordeaux. In 1789 he started a trading company called Portal Larrode and Co. He joined the Board of Trade in 1801 and helped found the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce in 1803. He served as Minister of the Navy and Colonies from December 1818 to December 1821. Earlier in his career, he was a judge at the tribunal of commerce, mayor of Bordeaux, and a representative for Bordeaux trade to demand the restitution of goods seized by U.S. ships, named to this task by Napoleon. He was also Master of Requests in 1813. In 1818 he became a Peer of France and was made a hereditary baron; in 1821 he received the title of Baron-hereditary peerage. The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux has a bust of him by the sculptor Dominique Fortune Maggese. He is buried in the Protestant cemetery of Bordeaux. He was the brother of Paul Portal, who led the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce, and his grandson, Count Stanislas d'Escayrac de Lauture, the explorer, wrote about his travels.