Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim was the 71st Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, also known as the Knights of Malta. Born on the 9th of November 1744 in Bolheim, he was the first German ever elected to the office of Grand Master. He died on the 12th of May 1805 in Montpellier, France.
Hompesch surrendered Malta in June 1798 because his forces of around seven thousand men were vastly outnumbered by Napoleon's twenty-nine thousand troops. The Order's ability to resist was also weakened by a Maltese rebellion against the Order and by the refusal of many French members of the Order to fight against their own countrymen.
The Knights of Malta lost the island on the 12th of June 1798, when Hompesch signed a treaty ceding sovereignty to France. French troops had begun landing on the 10th of June, and Hompesch formally capitulated on the 11th of June after less than two days of resistance.
Hompesch went to Trieste, where he issued diplomatic protests against the French occupation and attempted to establish a new headquarters for the Order. He later abdicated as Grand Master in 1799 via letters to the Holy Roman Emperor and the Tsar of Russia, then disputed his own abdication in 1801, claiming the Austrian government had forced him to sign. He died penniless in Montpellier in 1805.
Ferdinand von Hompesch is buried in the Church of Saint Eulalie in Montpellier, France, where he died in 1805.
The Knights of Malta had ruled the island of Malta since 1530, meaning they held it for roughly two hundred and sixty-eight years before Hompesch ceded it to France in 1798. The Order's sovereignty over an independent state traced back even further to the Crusades.