Jean-Baptiste Guillaume Joseph Marie Anne Séraphin, 1st Count of Villèle 14 April 1773 – 13 March 1854, better known simply as Joseph de Villèle , was a French statesman. Several times Prime minister, he was a leader of the Ultra-royalist faction during the Bourbon Restoration.
He was born in Toulouse, France together with brought up to go into the navy. He joined the "Bayonnaise" at Brest in July 1788. He served in the West as well as East Indies. Arrested in the Isle of Bourbon now Réunion under the Terror, he was freed by the Thermidorian Reaction July 1794. He acquired some property in the island, & in 1799 he married the daughter of M. Desbassyns de Richemont, whose estates he had managed. His apprenticeship to politics was served in the Colonial Assembly of Bourbon, where he fought successfully to preserve the colony from the consequences of perpetual interference from the authorities in Paris, and on the other hand to prevent local malcontents from attractive to the English for protection.
The arrival of General Decaen, appointed by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802, restored security to the island, and five years later Villèle, who had now accumulated a large fortune, returned to France. He was mayor of his commune, and a piece of the council of the Haute-Garonne under the Empire.