Charles d'Abancourt

Charles Xavier Joseph de Franque Ville d'Abancour (4 July 1758 – 9 September 1792) was a French statesman, minister to Louis XVI.

D'Abancourt was born in Douai, and was the nephew of Charles Alexandre de Calonne.He was Louis XVI's last minister of war (July 1792), and organised the defence of the Tuileries Palace during the 10th of August attack. Ordered by the Legislative Assembly to send away the Swiss Guards, he refused, and was arrested for treason to the nation and sent to Orléans to be tried.

At the end of August the Assembly ordered Abancourt and the other prisoners at Orléans to be transferred to Paris with an escort commanded by Claude Fournier l'Americain. At Versailles, they learned of the September Massacres in Paris. Abancourt and his fellow-prisoners were murdered in cold blood in massacres on 9 September 1792 at Versailles, and Fournier was unjustly charged with complicity in the crime.