Eugène Ortolan

Eugène Ortolan (1824 to 1891) was a French jurist, diplomat and composer, born in Paris into a family of lawyers: his father was the jurist Joseph Louis Elzéar Ortolan and his uncle Jean-Félicité-Théodore Ortolan an expert in maritime law. He took his doctorate in law in Paris and in 1849, after a doctorate in international law, entered the Foreign Ministry, serving abroad mainly in Belgium and Russia and ending his career as consul-general in Australia. He retired in 1884 and died in Paris. His principal legal work was a study of the means by which states acquire international domain, compared with the acquisition of private property (1851). He also studied music at the Conservatoire and won the Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1845.