American statesman and soldier, born in Castillon, France. He was taught at the Jesuit colleges in Toulouse and at Bordeaux, but declined to enter the Roman Catholic priesthood. While editing a paper in Paris he attacked the ministry of Charles X., and was compelled to leave France. He first went to Haiti, from there, in 1826, to Baltimore, and a little later, to New Orleans. He was desirous of studying the English language, and he did so diligently in his spare hours, while doing gardener’s work for a living. When he had acquired English, he began studying law, was soon admitted to practice, and proved highly successful in his handling of cases. In 1847 he was appointed to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate, and was afterward elected for a full term. In 1853 he was sent as minister to Spain, and while there engaged in a duel with the Marquis de Turgot, and crippled the latter for life; in June 1855 resigned, and returned to New Orleans; in 1860–61 declared himself strenuously opposed to secession. He remained in New Orleans until the city fell into the hands of the Union troops in 1862, when he became a prisoner in Fort Lafayette, New York harbor. On his release he went to Nassau, West Indies, but later joined the staff of General Beauregard and repaired to Richmond, where, in 1863, he was made a brigadier-general and commissioned to raise a foreign legion. He failed to do so, however, and then went to Havana. At the close of the war he returned to his home in New Orleans. He was connected with Dr. Gwin’s plan for the colonization of the Sonora province, Mexico, a project warmly indorsed by Emperor Maximilian. It failed, and the resources of Soulé became exhausted. He resumed, for a time, the practice of the law, but his strength soon ebbed out, and he died in poverty in New Orleans, LA, on the 26th of March 1870.
