Antoine Jacques Claude Joseph Boulay de la Meurthe

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Antoine Jacques Claude Joseph, comte Boulay de la Meurthe

Antoine Jacques Claude Joseph, comte Boulay de la Meurthe (born February 19, 1761 in Chaumousey , † February 4, 1840 in Paris ) was a French statesman and loyal supporter of Napoleon .

Life

Boulay de la Meurthe was the son of a wealthy farmer. His uncle, a village pastor, let him study law. In 1783 he became a parliamentary advocate at Nancy and later at Paris, where he soon earned a reputation as a lawyer and speaker. He decided to join the French Revolution and fought as a volunteer at Valmy (1792) and Wissembourg (1793) in the republican army. When he returned to Nancy sick, he became a judge there, but had to flee as a moderate during the reign of terror to avoid arrest. After the 9th Thermidor (July 27, 1794) and the associated fall of Robespierre , he returned to Nancy, where he became president of the civil tribunal, then public prosecutor. In 1797 he became a member of the Council of Five Hundred and subsequently its president twice. In this body he was first the leader of the zealous Republicans, then of the so-called constitutional middle party and, fearing the possible return of the terrorist era, spoke out against Jacobinism and the despotism of the directorate government . He played a special role in bringing down the directors Philippe-Antoine Merlin and Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux on June 18, 1799. Then he let himself be won over by Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès for his reform plan and supported Napoleon's coup d'état of 18th Brumaire VIII (November 9, 1799). With this in mind, he wrote his Essai sur les causes qui en 1649 amenèrent en Angleterre l'établissement de la république .

As first consul , Napoleon transferred various important business to Boulay de la Meurthe and offered him the Ministry of Police, which Boulay de la Meurthe turned down. On the other hand, in January 1800 he assumed the presidency of the legislative section in the State Council and as such was significantly involved in the drafting of the Civil Code . In September 1802 he received the administration of the affairs of national goods, in which matter he decided against 20,000 cases in an eight-year term. Towards the end of 1810 he resigned from his previous position in the State Council and consequently also became a member of the Privy Council. Napoleon held him in high regard and appointed him Count in April 1808 and Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor in June 1811 . In 1813 he was elected to the Regency Council, where, before Paris was handed over to the Allies, he insisted that Napoleon's wife, Emperor-Regent Marie Louise , stay with her son in the capital, that the latter call for an uprising and stay in the town hall until the Defend Napoleon's arrival for life and death.

During the first restoration of the Bourbons (1814), Boulay de la Meurthe did not take office, but after the return of Napoleon I of Elba during his reign of the Hundred Days (1815) he rejoined the Council of State as Minister of State, administered the judiciary with Cambacérès and edited the additional file. After the Battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815), as a member of the Meurthe département , he unsuccessfully recognized Napoleon II in the legislative body and then took over the judiciary in the government commission. After the second restoration of the Bourbons, he was exiled to Nancy, arrested there and taken to Germany by the Russians, where he first had to stay in Halberstadt and then in Frankfurt am Main . He was only allowed to return to France in 1819, but was no longer politically active, although he ran unsuccessfully in the parliamentary elections of 1824 and 1827. He died in Paris on February 4, 1840 at the age of just 79.

While in exile, Boulay de la Meurthe wrote the work Tableau politique des règnes de Charles II et de Jacques II , derniers rois de la maison Stuart (2 vols., The Hague 1818; 2nd edition Paris 1822), in which he was the former French directorate and indirectly criticized the renewed Bourbon government. He also wrote with others Bourrienne et ses unerurs volontaires et involontaires (2 vols., Paris 1830; German, 2 vols., Leipzig 1830), an important work for the history of Napoleon I, in which he addresses the errors in Bourriennes Mémoires sur Napoleon (10 vols., Paris 1829) sought to correct. In addition, he worked on the writing of his memoirs in the last years of his life.

His two sons Henri Georges Boulay de la Meurthe (* 1797; † 1858) and François Joseph Boulay de la Meurthe (* 1799; † 1880) were also French politicians.

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personal data
SURNAME Boulay de la Meurthe, Antoine Jacques Claude Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES La Meurthe, Antoine Jacques Claude Joseph, comte Boulay de (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French statesman
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1761
PLACE OF BIRTH Chaumousey
DATE OF DEATH February 4, 1840
Place of death Paris