Henri-Auguste-Georges de La Rochejaquelein

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Henri-Auguste-Georges de La Rochejaquelein in 1865

Henri-Auguste-Georges du Vergier, Marquis de La Rochejaquelein (born September 28, 1805 at Citran Castle near Avensan ( Gironde department ), † January 7, 1867 in Le Pecq near Paris ) was a French military and politician.

Life

Ancestry and Military Career

Henri-Auguste-Georges du Vergier, Marquis de La Rochejaquelein was the eldest son of the French general Louis du Vergier de La Rochejaquelein and his wife, née Marie-Louise-Victoire de Donnissan . He was already at the age of ten on August 17, 1815 because of the merits of his family by Louis XVIII. raised to peer of France . The king gave him the motto Vendée, Bordeaux, Vendèe for the coat of arms and in 1817 , on behalf of the Prussian officers, the envoy Count von der Goltz presented him with a magnificent sword as a token of admiration for the traditional loyalty and bravery of his family. From 1822 he attended the Saint-Cyr military school , which he left as a lieutenant in the 18th regiment of hunters on horseback , whereupon he took part in the campaign in Spain in 1823 . In 1828 he advanced to the position of officer of the royal equestrian guard and wanted to be used in the Morea expedition , but his request was refused. In that year he joined the Russian service as a volunteer and fought during the campaign against the Turks under Diebitsch in the Balkans. In 1829 he returned to his home country and married a wealthy Parisian from a middle-class family.

Life during the July Monarchy

When the July Revolution of 1830 broke out, Rochejaquelein refused to take the oath of the new government and renounced his peerage without ever having sat in the peerage chamber because of his too young age . In the uprising of the Vendée of 1832 he played a very subordinate role, excluded from any participation in the uprising. The government sentenced him to death in absentia, but he was soon acquitted and withdrew to his estates in western France. Here he devoted himself to industrial undertakings, albeit with little advantage; in particular, he favored making the Loire navigable . In 1838 he intended to set up a newspaper with Puibusque and Berryer , but disagreements with Berryer were an obstacle to the implementation of the project. In 1841 he found himself embroiled in the affair sparked by the publication of letters from Ida Saint-Elme in the newspaper La France .

On July 9, 1842, Rochejaquelein was sent to the Chamber of Deputies by the voters of the Ploërmel district ( Département Morbihan ) , where he sat at the extreme right. He did his best to achieve his ideal, namely to reconcile the legitimist ideas with the principle of popular sovereignty . This brought him into disrepute among the legitimists. Mainly he took part in the negotiations on army recruitment, prison reform, electoral reform and the salt tax; he always agreed with the opposition.

In December 1843 Rochejaquelein took part in the “pilgrimage” to the Count of Chambord in Belgrave Square in London , in order to express his recognition to this grandson of King Charles X as a pretender to the French throne, dubbed “Henry V” by the legitimists , but was received coldly, as his political views had, as I said, aroused displeasure among supporters of pure legitimacy in recent years. He left London in an irritable mood. François Guizot branded him as “Branded” because of his visit there, as did all the other Legitimists who appeared in Belgrave Square. He submitted his dismissal on January 24, 1844 in order to face the vote of the voters, was sent back to the Chamber of Deputies by them on March 2, 1844 and remained there as a member of parliament.

In 1844 Rochejaquelein's writings Considérations sur l'impôt du sel and Opinion sur le projet relatif à la réforme des prisons appeared . The Duke of Doudeauville said of him: “He is a colossus of honor and moral strength; his word is mighty because it comes from the soul. You hear him with fire and almost with enthusiasm because he is the man of progress; because he has understood how to join the interests of the country by defending his rights and freedoms ... "

Rochejaquelein attacked the government in 1845 on the occasion of the discussions about the budget. On August 1, 1846, he was re-elected as a member of parliament, spoke again about electoral reform and the religious congregations and continued his fight against the Guizot ministry.

Political role during the Second French Republic

After the February Revolution of 1848 and the associated overthrow of Louis-Philippe I , Rochejacquelein was one of the first legitimists to recognize the new republic . He offered his services to Odilon Barrot and the Provisional Government and declared for himself and for the whole of the Vendée to respect the facts. He asked for the floor after Barrot, told the Chamber that it was not entitled to decide on the lot of France, but rather called for an appeal to the assembled nation to have the decision made. Although not a Republican, he worked tirelessly for the new republic, appearing a lot in the Parisian clubs, especially in the one for freedom of elections and the National Assembly, which the legitimists appalled him terribly. Even so, he received only 25,684 votes in the elections to the Constituent Assembly in Paris and fell through; however, the Morbihan department brought him through on April 23, 1848 as the fourth of its twelve deputies. He returned to his right-wing position and was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Among other things, he voted against the banishment of the House of Orléans , for the decree against political clubs, for the prosecution of Louis Blanc , against that of Marc Caussidière , against the abolition of the death penalty , against a general amnesty and against the abolition of the beverage tax . Occasionally he would vote with the left; so he was with them against the deposit of the journals, for the amendment of Jules Grévy (which would not have provided for a direct general election of the President of the Republic, but was rejected on October 7, 1848) and for the abolition of the salt tax .

In December 1848, the Gazette de France supported Rochejaquelein's candidacy in the presidential election, which was unsuccessful. On May 13, 1849 he was elected to the legislature as the third of his now ten deputies in the Morbihan department and founded the Association générale de patronage et de mutualité au profit des classes ouvrières to support the workers . In the Legislative Assembly he held up the banner of the legitimate monarchy with fresh courage to the shaken republican institutions and even proposed that the people should be called to vote “yes” or “no” for republic or monarchy. But with the openness to universal suffrage which it showed, he further alienated himself from the strict legitimists. He was present at the legitimist congresses in Ems in 1849 and in Wiesbaden in August 1850 , but the Count of Chambord condemned the direction he advocated to silence and opposed his divine right to the national one. The offended Marquis left Wiesbaden without saying goodbye to the Count of Chambord. He had long sincerely championed the cause of the Legitimists, but now, deeply bitterly, renounced it. On July 19, 1851, he voted against the constitutional revision, was re-established in September by the Gazette de France as the only possible legitimist candidate for the presidency for 1852 and in November 1851 was one of the 15 members of the electoral law committee.

Later political career under Napoleon III. and death

Rochejaquelein protested on December 3, 1851 against the coup of Napoleon III the day before . , but soon joined this. As President of the General Council of the Vendée, he took the oath of the new government and took after Napoleon III's accession to the throne. on December 31, 1852 a seat in the Senate and on June 14, 1856 the Officer's Cross of the Legion of Honor . This conversion, which was inestimable to the emperor for the sake of the name Rochejaquelein, was never forgiven him by the legitimist nobility or the peasants of the Vendée, although he always kept his opinion and, as a brilliant, effective speaker in the Senate, the most ardent devotion to the cause of the Pope on the Italian and Roman question and even against the policy of Napoleon III. opposed sharply. In the Senate, where he often had to report as a committee member, he made important speeches on the Syrian expedition, the Poland question, the press, the electoral law and the education system. On February 27, 1861, in a speech, he sharply attacked Viktor Emanuel II's presumption of office and was called to order. Already ill, the Marquis fought with bold words the demoralization and marketability of the French press and thus caused a stir, but died in the meantime on January 7, 1867 at the age of 61 in Le Pecq near Paris.

His son Julien-Gaston du Vergier de La Rochejaquelein (1833-1897) also embarked on a political career.

Other works

  • À Monsieur de Lamennais , 1848
  • Situation de la France , 1849
  • Trois Questions soumises à la nation , 1850
  • À mon pays , 1850
  • La France en 1853 , 1853
  • Question du jour , 1856
  • La Suspension d'armes , 1859
  • La Politique nationale et le droit des gens , 1860
  • Un Schisme et l'honneur , 1861
  • L'Unité de l'Italie est-elle un danger pour la France? , 1862
  • La France avant la Pologne , 1863
  • La Convention du 15 septembre est-elle la révolution? , 1864
  • La Guerre générale devant l'opinion , 1866
  • La France et la paix , 1866

literature

personal data
SURNAME La Rochejaquelein, Henri-Auguste-Georges de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES La Rochejaquelein, Henri-Auguste-Georges du Vergier Marquis de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French military and politician
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1805
PLACE OF BIRTH Citran Castle ( Gironde Department )
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 1867
Place of death Le Pecq near Paris