Hercule Comte de Serre

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hercule Comte de Serre

Pierre François Hercule Comte de Serre (born March 12, 1776 in Pagny-sur-Moselle , † July 21, 1824 in Castellammare di Stabia ) was a lawyer and politician .

Live and act

Hercule Comte des Serre belonged to a noble family from Lorraine . During the French Revolution he emigrated to Germany and joined the emigre army of Louis V Joseph de Bourbon , which operated for a long time from German territory. In 1802 he went back to France, where he studied law. He then worked as a lawyer in Metz . Napoléon Bonaparte appointed de Serre in early 1811 as Attorney General of the Imperial Court of Justice in Metz. A little later he named him President of the cour impériale based in Hamburg , where the headquarters of the Départements des Bouches de l'Elbe was.

The Hamburg Court of Justice , opened on August 20, 1811, had two civil chambers, of which de Serre headed the first himself. The second chamber was headed by Johann Heinrich Bartels . The court also had a criminal prosecution chamber with a corresponding appeals chamber. On September 20, de Serre took over as president of the newly opened jury court, and in 1812 also the new extraordinary court for crimes endangering the state without an appeal body.

De Serre, who did not speak out explicitly for Napoleon and was considered a supporter of Romanticism, wanted to "Germanize" himself in Hamburg. He cooperated on friendly terms with Ambrosius Hubertus Eduard Eichhorn, who came from Trier and worked in Hamburg as the Imperial Attorney General. De Serre corresponded in writing and privately with superiors and colleagues in France. He pointed out that the principles of the French legal system such as equality before the law, oral and open negotiations and citizen-friendly public peace courts at the cantonal level with a strict separation of powers were cautiously received in northern Germany. According to Helmut Coing , they did not want to switch directly from the German to the French legal system.

During the French period in Hamburg, de Serre had little time to introduce the French legal system in Hamburg. Eighteen months after his arrival, Friedrich Karl von Tettenborn and his troops conquered the city from the French. De Serre left the city during the invasion in March 1813 and returned two months later after the soldiers withdrew. Due to the political circumstances and the siege, he only took over responsibility for civil justice. The other offices were held by Louis-Nicolas Davout and the Belgian François-Joseph Beyts.

In September 1813, de Serre left Hamburg to go on vacation. When the court holidays ended in November of the same year, he was no longer able to enter the Hanseatic city due to the state of siege. He went back to Paris and continued his legal career. In 1815 he worked as president of the court in Colmar , from 1817 to 1818 as member of parliament and president, from 1818 to 1821 as minister of justice and then until 1822 as envoy in Naples.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Serre, Hercule Comte de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Serre, Pierre François Hercule Comte de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Lawyer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1776
PLACE OF BIRTH Pagny-sur-Moselle
DATE OF DEATH July 21, 1824
Place of death Castellammare di Stabia