Arthur de Pourtalès

Pourtalès succeeded his father as the 3rd Count de Pourtalès on 31 July 1876.^[1] Throughout his diplomatic career, he served in various roles, including as the French Consul at Newcastle in England,^[7] and the Secretary to the French legation in Washington, D.C. and in Buitenzorg in Indonesia. He also served as the Minister Plenipotentiary of France to Guatemala.^[1]

Pourtalès was twice married to American heiresses. His first marriage was to Jenny Lind Holladay (1851–1873) on 6 December 1869 at the Château de Gorgier. Jennie's father, Ben Holladay, owned the Pony Express and created an overland stagecoach route during the California Gold Rush, earning him the nickname "Stagecoach King."^[8][9] Jennie's sister Cassandra married Baron Henri de Bussière (a relative of his aunt Mélanie de Pourtalès).^[10][11] Before her death on a train on 15 May 1873, they were the parents of one daughter:^[7]

• Marie Pauline Louise "Jenny" de Pourtalès (1871–1912), who married Antoine Grubissich de Keresztúr in Japan in 1898. He later became the first secretary to the Austrian legion of the Austrian-Hungarian empire and later Consul-General in Tunis.^[12]

After his wife's death in 1873, while in Baltimore, Maryland, he met and became engaged to Marie Boozer (1852–1908), a stepdaughter^[8](p18) of David Boozer and the former wife of John S. Beecher, with whom she had a son, John Preston Beecher (later the U.S. Vice Consul in Le Havre and Consul at Cognac).^[13][14] Marie was also, purportedly, the lover of Union Gen. Hugh Judson Kilpatrick.^{[15][failed verification]} They were married on 2 May 1876.^[8] After their wedding, they went to Shanghai and Hong Kong where they were entertained by Governor John Pope Hennessy before returning to France.^[8] She claimed to be a daughter of Beauvar-Boosier, Esq. of New Orleans.^[7] Actually her natural father was Peter Burton of Columbia, South Carolina.^[8](p16)

The Countess de Pourtalès died 25 January 1908 at their twenty-five room Villa Terrarossa near Toscana, just three miles from Florence in Italy. Count de Pourtalès died twenty years later in 1928.^[8]