Background
George Eustis, the eldest son of George, eminent Louisiana jurist, and Clarisse Allain Eustis, was born in the city of New Orleans.
George Eustis, the eldest son of George, eminent Louisiana jurist, and Clarisse Allain Eustis, was born in the city of New Orleans.
He was educated at Jefferson College, St. James Parish, Louisiana, and at Harvard College, where, according to the records of that institution, he attended during the session of 1844-45 but took no degree.
For a time he followed in his father’s footsteps and practised law in his native city, but soon forsook it for a political career. He was elected a representative from Louisiana to the Thirty-fourth Congress, and reelected to the following Congress. While in the House of Representatives he was a member of the committee on commerce, of which Elihu B. Washburne of Illinois was chairman, and was active in the support of measures for the improvement of the navigation of the Mississippi River and of other Southern waterways. At Washington, D. C. , he met and married Louise Corcoran, daughter of W. W. Corcoran [g. jy. ] , banker, and founder of the Corcoran Art Gallery of that city. They had three children. When the Civil War broke out, Eustis entered the Confederate service, and was soon appointed secretary of the Confederate legation at Paris, where he served under John Slidell, Confederate minister to France. He was with Mason and Slidell on the famous voyage of the British mail steamer Trent, and with them he was held a prisoner at Fort Warren in Boston harbor, until the seizure was declared illegal and they were permitted to proceed on their way. After the war he remained abroad, spending most of his time with his family at “Villa Louisiana, ” his home at Cannes, France. Being a man of fine intelligence, great social charm, and thoroughly familiar with the French language, law, and literature, he was exceedingly popular in his adopted country, and on terms of intimacy with many of its most important public men. When the Fran- co-Prussian War broke out, and United States minister Washburne, overwhelmed by the pressure of work, was finding it almost impossible to get the necessary help in his legation, Eustis generously volunteered his services. His knowledge of the French language, his long acquaintance in Paris, and his familiarity with diplomatic usages, enabled him to render invaluable services to his former chief (E. B. Washburne, Recollections of a Minister to France, 1887, I, 112-13). It is said that Washburne also employed him to negotiate a postal treaty with the French government. Eustis was far from being a well man, and his work at the legation probably sapped his vitality and hastened his death. At all events, before the siege of Paris his health failed perceptibly, and he sought rest and recuperation at his Cannes home, where he died about a year later from Bright’s disease. Mrs. Eustis had died at the same place three years earlier.
He was elected a representative from Louisiana to the Thirty-fourth Congress, and reelected to the following Congress. While in the House of Representatives he was a member of the committee on commerce, of which Elihu
Being a man of fine intelligence, great social charm, and thoroughly familiar with the French language, law, and literature, he was exceedingly popular in his adopted country, and on terms of intimacy with many of its most important public men.
At Washington, D. C. , he met and married Louise Corcoran, daughter of W. W. Corcoran, banker, and founder of the Corcoran Art Gallery of that city. They had three children.