Emmerich Joseph Heribert, afterwards the Duke of Dalberg, was born in Mainz in May 1773, the son of Baron Wolfgang Heribert. Entering the service of Baden in 1803, as a second class Privy Counsellor and Minister to Paris, he became a full Privy Counsellor in November 1806, shortly after his father’s death, and was awarded the House Order of Fidelity on the same occasion.

After the Treaty of Schonbrunn in 1809, he entered the service of Napoleon, who created him Duke and a Councillor in State, and in May 1814, he was appointed a Minister of State in Talleyrand’s Provisional Government, by whom the Bourbon Kings were recalled. In July 1814, Louis XVIII bestowed the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour on him, in addition to appointing him Minister Plenipotentiary and Deputy to Talleyrand at the Congress of Vienna 1814-15 - as a consequence of signing the “Outlawry Decree” against Napoleon, launched by the European powers in the latter year, his estates in France were confiscated, but they were returned after the Second Restoration.

In 1816, Dalberg was appointed ambassador to Turin, in which capacity he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies in 1817, to which accolade he added, in September 1820, his appointment as a Knight of the Saint Esprit, one of 32 restoration grandees so honoured on the occasion of the birth of the longed-for Bourbon heir, the Duke of Bordeaux.

Meanwhile, the Duke had inherited the family property of Herrnsheim from his uncle, the Arch Chancellor Karl von Dalberg, and it was here that he spent the latter years of life. He died in April 1833.

France, Louis Philippe, Legion of Honour, Grand Cross breast star, 72 x 69mm., silver, gold and enamel, unmarked, lacking pin fitting and support prongs, minor enamel damage, good very fine £1800-2200

Originally awarded the Legion of Honour, Grand Cross, by King Louis XVIII in July 1814. The above star was of the type awarded during the reign of King Louis-Philippe (1830-48).