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His father, Marie-Joseph d'Horrer, wanted to avoid placing his sons at the Military School in France, because he found the ideas there too advanced and anti-Christian. He had therefore asked the King Charles X, with whom he was personally connected, to have them serve four years abroad, and he obtained his authorization, with the verbal promise that after these four years they would be admitted into the French army with the rank acquired in foreign service. Marie-Joseph d'Horrer was Chargé d'affaires in Bern and as he was responsible for the capitulation of the 3rd Swiss Regiment in the service of the Kingdom of Naples, he obtained two places as a second lieutenant for his sons.
Joseph d'Horrer, thus appointed second lieutenant in 1827, was then only 15 years old, so he joined his Regiment only two years later, in 1829. The primitive intention of his father was therefore not to let his sons continue their career abroad, but the July Revolution of 1830 and the fall of Charles X frustrated his plans. He himself, out of loyalty to the family of Bourbon and its legitimist political principles, renounced his diplomatic functions. As the authorization given by the King to his sons was only verbal, they lost their French nationality for having served abroad, fault of being able to produce a document certifying the royal authorization.
Uniform of soldiers of the Swiss Regiments in full dress.
Thus Joseph d'Horrer remained in Italy and served as an officer in the 3rd Swiss Regiment at the service of the King of Naples and Two-Sicily until his death, which followed by two months that of King Ferdinand II of Naples, who loved him very much and treated him in a very particular way. He was, at the time of his death, major-general (= colonel) of his Regiment.
At the age of 27, he had married, in the St. Isaac’s Cathedral of Saint Petersburg, on February 11, 1840, Sophie Khvostova (1), 22 years old, born in the Tver district, daughter of Arsène Khvostov, college councilor (= ministry) and knight of several orders, and of Elisabeth-Florence-Catherine (de) Prag (2)(3).
Pervitino, a property of Sophie Khvostov's family. In 1917, the family was forced to leave, the estate was confiscated and shared between the peasants, its church abandoned, but restored in 2018 and returned to worship. Watch the video and the plan of the estate.
This small portrait of Sophie Khvostova young, painted by Alexeev, is in the Hermitage museum, in Saint-Petersburg.
In 1842, under the protection of the cardinal de Bonnechose, bishop of Rouen, she abjured the Orthodox rite for the Roman Catholic religion, at the church of Louèche, in Switzerland. In 1870, then a widow, she lived in Paris, 95 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. She died in Turin on July 2, 1882, aged 64.
They had two children:
1° Marie d'Horrer, born in 1844, died in Turin (Italy) in 1889. she had married Professor Giacomo-Filippo NOVARO, one of the most eminent Italian surgeons of the time. Widowed, he remarried and died in Turin, aged 91, in 1934.
2° Arsène-Marie-Joseph-Vincent-Ernest, Count d'Horrer:
ARSENE-MARIE-JOSEPH-VINCENT, Count d'HORRER, was born in Naples (Italy), on March 
27, 1849. In 1863, administrative procedures were initiated to get him admitted to the Naval School of Brest, then into the army, but although his father, while serving abroad, never thought he would lose French nationality nor would his children lose it, difficulties were made to him: he was obliged to wait for his majority to regularize his situation and be reintegrated into his rights as a French citizen.
Tempted by a military career but unable to wait to start it, it was decided that a procedure would be initiated to bring him into the Italian army. Count Sormani-Moretti, a friend of the family and secretary of an embassy in Paris, undertook with the Italian ambassador, Count Nigra, the necessary procedure. Through them, Arsène d'Horrer obtained the authorization to present himself at the Military School of Modena where he was admitted as a foreigner after the usual exams. On March 27, 1867, he was promoted to second lieutenant.. (See the document).
In 1872, he entered the War School of Turin, left it in 1875, and continued his career in the Italian army, where he obtained the rank of captain and then major (Gazetta incumbent of the Règ ned'Italia, 14 January 1882); he served there until 23 November 1885. During his service, a ministerial order obliged all the officers of the Italian army to justify titles of nobility which were attributed to them by the Military Yearbook.
He had to provide the justification for the title of count and the coat of arms of our family. Once these were registered by the "Consulta Araldica" of the Kingdom of Italy, a diploma was issued to him on November 27, 1877. That is why the d'Horrer family is registered in the Elenco of the Italian nobility. (See document).
But the desire to leave his children with an undisputed French nationality, to get closer to his wife’s family, as well as the fear of seeing relations, then less cordial, between France and Italy worsen, decided him in 1885 to resign, in order to be able to request his reintegration into his original nationality, which he obtained by decree of the President of the Republic (Doc-18 Naturalization). He had published around 1920, in memory of his only son who died during the 1st World War, a pamphlet entitled "In memory of Viscount Léon d'Horrer, who died for France in 1916".
Established by his marriage in Monluçon (Allier) and at the castel of Brignat, which is close to this town, he died in Bordeaux on March 8, 1923, aged 74.
He had married in Naples, on July 4, 1881, Marie GUILHOMET, born in 1859, daughter of Léonce Guilhomet and Marie Moussy. (Doc-19 : Marriage certificate of Arsène d'Horrer and Marie Guilhomet). Surviving her husband until the age of 101, she lived alternately in Bordeaux, 214 rue Saint-Genès, and the castle of Brignat, near Montluçon.
From this union were born two children:
1° MARGUERITE d'HORRER, born in Naples (Italy) on June 15, 1882, married a first marriage, in Monluçon, to Raymond AUPETIT-DURAND, colonial infantry officer, then captain in the 6th Colonial Regimentknight of the Legion of Honor, died in Paris on June 12, 1907..
In a second marriage, she married in Pau, on February 5, 1910, Count Pierre de MAUSSION de CANDE (2), naval officer, knight of the Legion of Honor, decorated with the Croix de Guerre, heroically killed at Diksmuide (Belgium) at the head of a compagnie of the 2nd Marine Rifle Regiment, on October 19, 1914. He was then a lieutenant. His widow lived alternately in Paris and the castle of Brignat.
From the second union she had children:
1. MONIQUE DE MAUSSION DE CANDE, born in Montluçon on February 6, 1913, married Michel ROUSSEAUX and had 5 children:
View Monique Rousseaux's descendants
2. PIERRE, Count de MAUSSION de CAE, born posthumously in Brignat (Allier) on April 27, 1915, married Odile de ROYERE and had 6 children:
View the descendants of Pierre de Maussion de Candé
1° LEON, Count d'HORRER, who follows
in the center the count Léon d'Horrer,
to the right his brother-in-law, Count Pierre de Maussion de Candé.
NOTES
1/ Khvostov, Хвосто́в : Family of ancient nobility of Tver inscribed in the Velvet Book of the Nobility of Russia. (DOC-17 : the coat of armes of the Khvostov family) and Sophie's lineage tree.
Interesting: See the video of a property belonging to the Khvostov family, Pervitino, historical monument unfortunately deteriorated by the Soviets who made it a college. Description of Piervitino castle on the Russian Wikipedia (right-click : translate)
Two Khvostov lineages should not be confused: Arsène Nicolaievitch Khvostov (1783-before 1837), Sophie’s father, belonged to a lineage of the Khvostov of Tver which, traced until 1667, does not show any connection with the tree to which Minister Nicolaï Alexeevitch Khvostov and Alexis Nicolaievitch Khvostov, Interior Minister assassinated in 1916, belonged. An extinct branch had the title of count.
2/ Maybe Prag, Austrian barons ?
3/ Were witnesses at this marriage: L. Dubelt, general major and knight of orders: A. Politkowski, chamberlain of the Tsar; Prince Constantin Giedroyoz, chamberlain of the Tsar.