Cécile Stanislas Xavier de Girardin

Stanislas Girardin, engraving by François-Séraphin Delpech (1833)

Cécile Stanislas Xavier de Girardin (born January 19, 1762 in Lunéville , † February 26, 1827 in Paris ), Comte , was a supporter of the French Revolution , member of the National Assembly, général de brigade and prefect.

Origin and youth

Xavier de Girardin was the eldest son of René Louis de Girardin and Cécile Brigitte Adélaïde Berthelot de Baye and godchild of the abdicated Polish King Stanislaus I. Leszczyński . Xavier de Girardin was brought up by his father on his Ermenonville estate together with his siblings according to the principles of Rousseau's writings. The young man was deeply affected by the death of his maternal grandmother, and the circumstances of his sister Sophie's first marriage at the court of Versailles met with criticism. In 1780, at the age of sixteen, he joined a dragoon regiment and was soon promoted to captaincy .

Life and political career

With the publication of his Lettre de vicomte d'Ermenonville à M. Girardin had committed himself to the cause of the revolution. In 1790 he was elected to the National Assembly as representative of the Oise Department . As a member of the Legislative Assembly , he initially held to the extreme left, but then moved closer to the right, foreseeing impending anarchy, and from 1792 vigorously defended constitutional royalty. After Girardin was insulted and abused by soldiers on August 10, 1792, he publicly declared the National Assembly no longer independent and free in its decision-making. This led to his arrest by the Jacobins in early 1793 after a stay in London . Not until August 1794 was he released again.

In Tribunat Xavier de Girardin represented the interests of the Bonaparte family. In 1804 he rejoined the army. In 1806 he stayed in Italy with Joseph Bonaparte . In 1808 he went to Spain with Joseph as Général de brigade . After his return, he became prefect of the Seine-Inférieure department in 1812 , and in the Côte-d'Or department in 1819 .

Because he, at the same time elected to the Chamber by the Seine-Inférieure department , held the opposition and especially fought against the exceptional laws at the death of the Duke of Berry , he lost his position as prefect in 1820. By contrast, he kept his place in the chamber on the extreme left until 1826.

Xavier de Girardin was married to Marie France Serres (died 1855). The couple had two sons, Stanislas Xavier de Girardin (1811-1832) and Ernest Stanislas de Girardin , who like his father became a politician.

Fonts

• Promenades ou itinéraires des jardins d'Ermenonville (Paris 1788, 1811)
• Discours et opinions (Paris 1828)
• Journal et souvenirs (Paris 1828, 1834)

literature

• Jean Chrétien Ferdinand Hoefer (Ed.): Nouvelle biography générale depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours . tape 20 . Paris 1857, Sp. 689-692 .
• Jules Balteau, Michel Prévost, Roman d'Amat (eds.): Dictionnaire de biographie française . tape 16 : Gilbert – Guéroult. Letouzey et Ané, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-7063-0158-9 , Sp. 209-211 .

Web links

Commons : Stanislas de Girardin  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Literature by Cécile Stanislas Xavier de Girardin in the catalog of the SWB, Southwest German Library Association