Napoléon Aubin (9 November 1812 – 12 June 1890), christened Aimé-Nicolas, was born from a Swiss family inChêne-Bougeries, a district ofGeneva, at the time a territory of France. He was a journalist, writer, publisher, scientist, musician and lithographer.

Little is known about the youth of Napoléon Aubin. He left school when he was about 16.^[1] The son of Pierre Louis Charles Aubin and Elisabeth Escuyer, he emigrated to New York in 1829 where he was to be a pastor inBiddeford,Maine. In 1835 he moved toMontreal, and then again toQuebec City, later that year.^[2] Aubin served as editor for numerous newspapers and magazines, includingLe Canadien,L'Ami du peuple,de l'ordre et des lois (Law and Order), andLa Tribune. In 1865, he launched the paperLes veillées du père Bonsens. A satirist, he wrote works in support of thePatriote movement, publishing his stories inLe Fantasque, a magazine he himself founded. He spent 53 days in prison for publishing a poem byJoseph-Guillaume Barthe,Aux exilés politiques canadiens. Aubin considered himself a liberal and a democrat, and in line withÉtienne Parent, chose not participate in theRebellion of 1837. In 1847, he publishedManifeste adressé au peuple du Canada par le Comité constitutionnel de la réforme et du progrès (A Manifesto Addressed to the People of Canada by the Constitutional Committee for Reform and Progress), where he supported the ideas ofLouis-Joseph Papineau. Notably, while on a trip to the U.S. he metUlysses S. Grant, where they discussed the possibility of a union between Canada and the United States.

Aubin was married to Marie Luce Emilie in 1841, and had a son, Eugénie Aubin, who was born in 1853. In 1866, Aubin returned to Montreal in 1866, where he became a member of the Canadian Institute of Montreal in 1869. From 1875 until his death in 1890, he served as Honorary Consul to Switzerland in Montreal. A Calvinist by faith, his funeral was conducted by a Presbyterian minister.

Citations

• Jean-Paul Tremblay,Aimé-Nicolas dit Napoléon Aubin, sa vie et son œuvre, thèse de doctorat, Laval: Laval University Press, 1965.
• Jean-Paul Tremblay,À la recherche de Napoléon Aubin, Laval: Laval University Press, 1969.
• Mario Brassard and Marilène Gill (editors),Contes et récits, Paroisse Notre-Dame-Des-Neiges [Quebec]: Éditions Trois-Pistoles 2002.

• Works by Napoléon Aubin atLibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

• 1812 births
• 1890 deaths
• People from Chêne-Bougeries
• Swiss Calvinist and Reformed Christians
• Swiss emigrants to Canada
• Canadian newspaper journalists
• Canadian chemists
• 19th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights
• 19th-century Canadian journalists
• Canadian male journalists
• French-language Canadian dramatists and playwrights
• Canadian male dramatists and playwrights
• 19th-century Canadian male writers
• Members of the Institut canadien de Montréal
• Journalists from Montreal
• Writers from Quebec City
• 19th-century Calvinist and Reformed Christians
• Scientists from Montreal
• Writers from Montreal
• Swiss chemists
• 19th-century Canadian scientists

• CS1: long volume value
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles with LibriVox links