Odilon Barrot | |
|---|---|
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| Prime Minister of France | |
| In office 20 December 1848 – 31 October 1849 | |
| Monarch | Louis Phillipe |
| Preceded by | Louis-Eugène Cavaignac |
| Succeeded by | Alphonse Henri, comte d'Hautpoul |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 19 July 1791 Villefort |
| Died | 6 August 1873(1873-08-06) (aged 82) Bougival |
| Political party | Doctrinaires(1815–1830) Party of Movement(1830–1848) Party of Order(1848–1852) |
Camille Hyacinthe Odilon Barrot (French:[ɔdilɔ̃baʁo]; 19 July 1791 – 6 August 1873) was aFrench politician who was briefly head of the council of ministers under kingLouis Phillipe in 1848–49.
Barrot was born atVillefort, Lozère. He belonged to a legal family, his father, an advocate ofToulouse, having been a member of theConvention who had voted against the death ofLouis XVI. Odilon Barrot's earliest recollections were of the October insurrection of 1795. He was sent to themilitary school of Saint-Cyr, but later moved to theLycee Napoleon to study law and was called to the Parisian bar in 1811.[1]He married the granddaughter of the liberal politicianGuillaume-Xavier Labbey de Pompières (1751–1831).[2]He was the brother ofAdolphe Barrot andFerdinand Barrot.[3]
He was placed in the office of the politician Jean Mailhe, who was advocate before the council of state and the court of cassation and was proscribed at the second restoration. Barrot eventually succeeded him in both positions. His dissatisfaction with the government of the restoration was shown in his conduct of some political trials. For his opposition in 1820 to a law by which any person might be arrested and detained on a warrant signed by three ministers, he was summoned before a court of assize, but acquitted.Although intimate with Lafayette and others, he took no share in their schemes for the overthrow of the government, but in 1827 he joined the association known as "Aide-toi, le ciel t'aidera".[1]
He presided over the banquet given by the society to the 221 deputies who had signed the address of March 1830 toCharles X, and threatened to reply to force by force. After the ordinances of 26 July 1830, he joined theNational Guard and took an active part in the revolution. As secretary of the municipal commission, which sat at the hôtel-de-ville and formed itself into a provisional government, he was charged to convey to the chamber of deputies a protest embodying the terms which the advanced Liberals wished to impose on the king to be elected. He supported the idea of aconstitutional monarchy against the extremeRepublicans, and he was appointed one of the three commissioners chosen to escort Charles X out of France.[1]
On his return he was nominated prefect of theSeinedépartement. His concessions to the Parisian mob and his extreme gentleness towards those who demanded the prosecution of the ministers of Charles X led to an unflattering comparison withJérôme Pétion under similar circumstances.Louis Philippe's government was far from satisfying his desires for reform, and he persistently urged the "broadening of the bases of the monarchy," while he protested his loyalty to the dynasty. He was returned to the chamber of deputies for the department ofEure in 1831. The day after the demonstration of June 1832 on the occasion of the funeral ofGeneral Lamarque, he made himself indirectly the mouthpiece of the Democrats in an interview with Louis Philippe, which is given at length in hisMêmoires. Subsequently, in pleading before the court of cassation on behalf of one of the rioters, he secured the annulling of the judgments given by the council of war.[1]
The death of theDuke of Orleans in 1842 was a blow to Barrot's party, which sought to substitute the regency of theDuchess of Orleans for that of theDuke of Nemours in the event of the succession of theComte de Paris. In 1846 Barrot made a tour in theNear East, returning in time to take part a second time in the preliminaries of revolution. He organized banquets of the disaffected in the various cities of France, and demanded electoral reform to avoid revolution. He did not foresee the strength of the outbreak for which his eloquence had prepared the way, and clung to the programme of 1830. He tried to support the regency of the duchess in the chamber on 24 February, only to find that the time was past for half-measures.[1]
After theRevolution of 1848, Barrot acquiesced to the republic and gave his support toGeneral Cavaignac.[1]
In the December 1848 election for President of the republic, Napoleon won with 5,434,266 votes to 1,448,107 for Cavaignac. Napoleon took his oath on 20 December 1848 a day ahead of schedule, and appointed a ministry that included Barrot and the conservativeFrédéric Alfred Pierre, comte de Falloux.[4]Barrot was Minister of Justice and "president of the council of ministers when Napoleon was absent".[5]Following national elections, the Constituent Assembly was replaced by the Legislative Assembly, which sat for the first time on 28 May 1849. On 2 June 1849 a new ministry was announced, again headed by Barrot. It includedde Tocqueville as Minister of Foreign Affairs. This ministry was dissolved by Napoleon on 31 October 1849.[6]The new ministry did not have a "president when Napoleon was absent".[7]A biographer said that Barrot had hoped to extract Liberal measures, but was dismissed as soon as he had served the president's purpose of avoiding open conflict.[1]
After the coup d'état of December 1851 Barrot was one of those who sought to accuse Napoleon of high treason. He was imprisoned for a short time and retired from active politics for some ten years. He was drawn once more into affairs by the hopes of reform held out byÉmile Ollivier, accepting in 1869 the presidency of an extraparliamentary committee on decentralization. After the fall of the empire he was nominated byAdolphe Thiers, whom he had supported under Louis Philippe, as president of the council of state, but his powers were failing, and he had only filled his new office for about a year when he died atBougival.[1]
Barrot was described byPaul Thureau-Dangin as "the most solemn of the undecided, the most meditating of the unwise, the happiest of the ambitious, the most austere of the courtiers of the crowd" (le plus solennel des indécis, le plus méditatif des irréfléchis, le plus heureux des ambitieux, le plus austere des courtisans de la foule).[1]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Prime Minister of France 1848–1849 | Succeeded by |
First cabinet of Odilon Barrot (20 December 1848 to 2 June 1849) | ||
|---|---|---|
Under the Presidency ofLouis Napoleon | ||
| President of the Council, Minister of Justice | ||
| Interior | ||
| Foreign Affairs: | ||
| Finance | ||
| Agriculture and Commerce | ||
| Public Works | ||
| War | ||
| Navy and Colonies | ||
| Public Education and Religious Worship | ||
Second cabinet of Odilon Barrot (2 June 1849 to 31 October 1849) | ||
|---|---|---|
Under the Presidency ofLouis Napoleon | ||
| President of the Council, Minister of Justice | ||
| Interior | ||
| Foreign Affairs: | ||
| Finance | ||
| Agriculture | ||
| Public Works | ||
| War | ||
| Navy and Colonies | ||
| Public Education and Cults | ||
