CountHippolyte François Jaubert (28 October 1798 – 5 December 1874) was a French politician and botanist.[1][2]The standardauthor abbreviationJaub. is used to indicate this person as the author whenciting abotanical name.[3]
Jaubert was born inParis, the son of François Hippolyte Jaubert (a commissioner of theFrench Navy, killed at theBattle of the Nile in 1798) and Rosalie Mélanie Cheminade (a landowner at Givry, in the commune ofCours-les-Barres in the department ofCher, who died in 1817). He was adopted by his uncle, CountFrançois Jaubert (1758–1822),Councilor of State and governor of theBank of France under theFirst Empire. Although Jaubert was passionate about natural history, his uncle made him study law, while allowing him to study withRené Desfontaines (1750–1831) andAntoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1748–1836). He was called to the bar in 1821, but shortly afterwards his uncle died, Jaubert inheriting the title of Count[4] and an immense fortune. With this money he was able to buy large landholdings inBerry, ten blast furnaces in the departments ofNièvre andCher (where his mother's family originated), and become director of theChemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans (Paris–Orléans railway company), all the while concentrating on botany and politics.
He married Marie Boigues (died 1864), sister ofLouis Boigues, a manufacturer atImphy and founder of the town ofFourchambault. They had two children:
In 1821 Jaubert touredAuvergne andProvence with his friendVictor Jacquemont (1801–1832), studying the flora and geology of those regions. That same year, together withKarl Sigismund Kunth (1788–1850),Adolphe Brongniart (1801–1876),Adrien-Henri de Jussieu (1797–1853),Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemin (1796–1842) andAchille Richard (1794–1852), he founded the short-lived Natural History Society of Paris, which financed an expedition to Asia of several naturalists, among themPierre Martin Rémi Aucher-Éloy (1793–1838).
He joined theconseil général of Cher in 1830, and became its president. He entered national politics at the time of theJuly Revolution of 1830, and was elected six times to theChamber of Deputies of France, from 1831 to 1842. Initially close to theDoctrinaires, he quickly attached himself to prime ministerAdolphe Thiers, and served in the latter's second administration asMinister of Public Works from 1 March to 28 October 1840.
During this period, the conservative deputy forVersailles,Ovide de Rémilly, put forward an old proposal of the Left, that members of the Chamber of Deputies should be forbidden from accepting salaried public positions during their term of service. This was a proposal that Thiers himself had supported while in opposition, so to avoid a display of public hypocrisy, Thiers sent Jaubert to negotiate for its deferment. Jaubert was hostile to this reform, and wrote to a number of conservative deputies asking them to help bury the proposal. One of Jaubert's letters was leaked to the press, causing an outcry on the Left and questions in the Chamber. However, the operation was successful and the proposition was rejected by the deputies on 15 June 1840.
Following thegeneral election of 9 July 1842 Jaubert was briefly in opposition to the government, and voted against the indemnity proposed byFrançois Guizot to be paid to Britain in compensation for the imprisonment of the missionary George Pritchard inTahiti.
He was appointed to thePeerage of France on 27 November 1844.
He took no part in theRevolution of 1848, and under theSecond Empire, he withdrew from political life, devoting himself to botany and business. He was elected to theFrench Academy of Sciences in 1858, and was among the founders of theBotanical Society of France in 1854.
Following the collapse of the Second Empire in 1870 and the creation of theThird Republic, Jaubert was elected representative of Cher in theNational Assembly on 8 February 1871. From that date until his death atMontpellier in 1874, he devoted himself almost entirely to politics. He joined the Orléanist parliamentary group,Centre droit.
Using theherbarium that he collected and those of theNational Museum of Natural History, and with the help ofÉdouard Spach (1801–1879), he published hisIllustrationes plantarum orientalium ("illustrations of plants of the east"; five volumes; Roret, Paris, 1842–1857).
He was decorated Chevalier of theLégion d'honneur on 27 April 1830.
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