Clément François Victor Gabriel Prunelle

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Caricature by Daumier, as M. Prune

Clément François Victor Gabriel Prunelle , also Gabriel Prunelle and Victor Prunelle, (born June 22, 1777 in La Tour-du-Pin , † August 19, 1853 in Vichy ) was a French doctor and politician. He was mayor of Lyon .

Life

Prunelle, the son of a doctor, studied medicine in Montpellier and Paris from 1794, graduating as a doctor of medicine in 1799. In the following year he was ordered as a doctor to Napoleon's Egypt expedition because the plague had broken out there. He was interned by the English in Malta on the way there. Prunelle was able to escape and returned to Paris via Spain, where he worked as a military doctor under Napoleon. For example, he was the chief military doctor in the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 (he and his people hid the injured, cared for them and assisted the surgeon Larrey ). In 1806 he became a doctor at the Val-de-Grace Military Hospital. He was also active in literary circles in Paris, among other things he popularized the philosophy of German idealism (Kant, Fichte, Schelling) in France and was also frequently in Montpellier. He was well educated and read Homer in the original Greek, for example. From 1796 to 1807 he was librarian at the medical faculty in Montpellier and from 1807 professor of forensic medicine in Montpellier, after which he gave up his military career. Under his direction, the Medical Library of Montpellier was able to build up a large collection of books, manuscripts and incunabula , mainly from monasteries, private collections and emigrants (650 medieval manuscripts, 59 of them from the Carolingian period, more than 100,000 books that were printed before the 19th century including 300 incunabula). Most of this happened from 1802 to 1806 on behalf of the Interior Minister Jean-Antoine Chaptal (for whom three other scholars also confiscated books and manuscripts). He also acquired the collection of Cardinal Albani (which also contained valuable Italian manuscripts). In Montpellier he also gave lectures on the history of medicine.

After Napoleon's defeat, he lost his professorship in 1819. He went to Lyon, where he established himself as a doctor and was very successful in the city's wealthy citizens. In 1822 he married the daughter of a silk manufacturer in Lyon. He was also active in liberal political circles and co-founded a magazine Le Précurseur. During the July Revolution of 1830 he became mayor of Lyon. At the same time, he was elected to the National Assembly as a deputy for the Isère department in 1830, where, however, he increasingly distanced himself from his liberal beginnings and followed the conservative turn of the citizen king Louis Philippe . In 1831 a workers' uprising took place in Lyon (the silk industry workers, the Canutes ), and when he was involved in the crackdown as mayor, he was the target of attacks by his liberal comrades (and caricatures such as Honoré de Daumier) . Prunelle commuted between Paris and Lyon and was active in legislating for the National Assembly. In 1835 he gave up his post as mayor of Lyon. In 1839 he was not re-elected as a member of La Tour-du-Pin. But he remained on the city council of Lyon until 1848. From 1833 he was inspector of the mineral springs in Vichy. From 1848 to 1853 he was mayor of Vichy . When he died, he left behind a mountain of debt of 200,000 francs.

In 1831 he became a Knight of the Legion of Honor. He refused the officer degree of the Legion of Honor, as did the King's offer in 1845 to become Peer of France.

In 1835 he became a corresponding member of the Académie des Sciences .

Stendhal portrayed him in Lucien Leuwen as Docteur du Poirier. A street in Lyon is named after him.

literature

  • Jules Guiart: Le docteur Gabriel Prunelle, médecin consultant à Lyon et maire de Lyon, Cahiers lyonnais d'histoire de la médecine, No. 4, October 1956.
  • Maurice Gontard: Vichy: l'irrésistible ascension, 1800–1870, Nonette: Ed. Créer, 1998, pp. 79f

Web links

Commons : Victor Prunelle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ↑ Information on Clément François Victor Gabriel Prunelle in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France .
  2. ↑ Chaptal had been his chemistry professor in Montpellier
personal data
SURNAME Prunelle, Clément François Victor Gabriel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Prunelle, Gabriel; Prunelle, Victor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French doctor and politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 22, 1777
PLACE OF BIRTH La Tour-du-Pin
DATE OF DEATH August 19, 1853
Place of death Vichy