Joseph Maria Anton Brassier de Saint-Simon-Vallade

Count Joseph Maria Anton Brassier de Saint-Simon-Vallade (8 August 1798 – 22 October 1872) was a Prussian diplomat.

Early life
Brassier de Saint-Simon-Vallade was born in Brixlegg, Tyrol to a French noble family that emigrated to Germany during the French Revolution. His parents were the Privy Councilor Marie Louis Joseph Brassier de Saint-Simon-Vallade, who was born in Strasbourg, and his wife Louise von Stampfer.

His paternal grandparents were Louis Bernard de Brassier, seigneur de Saint Simon et de Vallade and Madeleine de Brassier. His maternal grandparents were Frédéric de Strampfer and Marguerite d'Anselme.

He attended school in Züllichau (in eastern Brandenburg) and graduated from high school in June 1818.

Career
From 1819 to 1820, he served in the Prussian Army as a one-year volunteer. At the same time, he studied law and literature at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Berlin and the Ruprecht-Karl University in Heidelberg. In December 1820, he and ten other students founded the Corps Saxo-Borussia Heidelberg. He passed the auscultator (trainee lawyer) examination in April 1822 and was awarded a doctorate in the same year. After he passed the traineeship exam in November 1823, he was called up to the Prussian Foreign Service in May 1824. He initially served as an attaché in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

From October 1826 to the spring of 1827 he was temporarily employed at the German embassy in Saint Petersburg before passing his diplomatic examination in October 1827. As Legation secretary he came to the embassy in Lisbon at the beginning of 1828 and to the embassy in Constantinople in 1829. Temporarily its acting head, he was involved in the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829. In December 1832 he was given the status of Legation councilor. From July 1833 to the beginning of 1838 he was Secretary of legation at the embassy in Paris.

After temporary working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he took up the new post of Resident Minister in Athens in November 1838 before being appointed envoy on 16 January 1842. In 1844 he took over as Prussian envoy to Sweden in Stockholm. In November 1854 he took up his post as envoy to the Kingdom of Sardinia in Turin. In December 1862 he was transferred back to Constantinople and became envoy in 1862. In March 1869, he returned to Italy, this time in Florence as envoy of the North German Confederation to the Kingdom of Italy before relocating to Rome in 1871. The handover of the letter of credentials as the first envoy of the German Empire took place on 7 March 1871. He served in this role until his death in Rome in October 1872.

Personal life
On 6 June 1848, he married Marie Alexanrovna, Comtesse de Ribeaupierre (1816–1885), a native Russian who was a daughter of Count Aleksandr Ivanovich Ribeaupierre, a diplomat and chief chamberlain, and Ekaterina Mikhailovna Potemkina. Among her siblings were Princess Tatiana Alexandrovna Yusupova. In 1857 Brassier was elevated to the rank of count by the Prussian King Frederick William IV.

Count Brassier de Saint-Simon-Vallade died on 22 October 1872 in Florence.