Adolphe Billault

Portrait of Adolphe Billault by Charles-Louis Bazin

Adolphe Augustin Marie Billault (born November 12, 1805 in Vannes , Morbihan department , † October 13, 1863 in Basse-Goulaine , Loire-Atlantique department ) was a French lawyer and statesman.

Life

Adolphe Billault studied law in Rennes and settled as a lawyer in Nantes , where he quickly gained a reputation and was a member of the local council from 1830. In 1830 he married Françoise Bourgault-Ducoudray, daughter of the President of the Chamber of Commerce of Nantes, Guillaume Bourgault-Ducoudray, who owned the Grézillières estate in Basse-Goulaine. Billault inherited part of this property and had a castle built here. He and his wife had two daughters.

In 1833 Billault became a member of the General Council of the Loire-Inférieure department and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in November 1837 . Here he joined the opposition and attacked the government measures in a powerful speech, especially election bribery, the right of search in relation to the slave trade and the Pritchardian compensation issue. In 1838 he became secretary of the commission charged with studying the railway question, then legal advisor to the Duke of Aumale and, on March 1, 1840, Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Agriculture in the cabinet of Adolphe Thiers . As such, he defended the fortifications of Paris and drafted a trade treaty with Holland. After the overthrow of the ministry on October 29, 1840, he became a lawyer in Paris and rejoined the opposition in the Chamber of Deputies, but then approached the ministerial party and even allied with it on the Spanish marriage issue.

After the February Revolution of 1848 , Billault was elected to the Constituent Assembly in the Loire-Inférieure department on April 23, 1848. Here he adhered to the moderate-democratic party and voted for the exile of the Orléans and against the two-chamber system. He joined President Louis Napoleon (later Napoleon III ) at this time , but did not make it into the Legislative Assembly at the time. As an advocate at the Paris Court of Justice, he remained loyal to the democratic cause and opposed the law of May 31, 1850 restricting universal suffrage. When the president restored universal suffrage, Billault was repeatedly named as a candidate for ministerial.

After the coup of Napoleon III. of December 2, 1851 Billault was elected on February 29, 1852 as a member of Saint-Girons ( Département Ariège ) in the legislative body, Napoleon III made him president. appointed. As such, he was a major tool in the restoration of the Empire . On June 23, 1854 he became Interior Minister in place of Persigny's and on December 4, 1854 Senator . He was appointed Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor on August 15, 1857. After Felice Orsini's assassination attempt on the emperor (January 14, 1858), Billault had to cede the Ministry of the Interior to General Espinasse on February 8, 1858 , but replaced his second successor, the Duke of Padua , on November 1, 1859. He handed over the Ministry of the Interior to Persigny on December 5, 1860, became a minister without portfolio and as such had to defend the emperor's policy in the legislative body, a task which he accomplished with great skill. Entrusted to the newly formed State Ministry on June 23, 1863, he worked in particular to weaken the von Thiers opposition. He died suddenly on October 13, 1863 at the age of 58 in his castle Grézillières near Nantes, in poor health from the constant parliamentary struggles. In addition to Eugène Rouher and Pierre Jules Baroche , he belonged under Napoleon III. to the most parliamentarily skilled Bonapartist statesmen. In September 1867 his statue was placed in front of the Nantes Palace of Justice.

A. Huet published Billault's pleadings and political speeches as Œuvres de Monsieur Billault, précédées d'une notice biographique (2 vols., Paris 1864).

literature

• Adolphe Billault . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 2, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 953.

Web links

• Biography of Adolphe Billault on the website of the Assemblée nationale (French)