Jacques Pierre Charles Abbatucci

Charles Abbatucci

Jacques Pierre Charles Abbatucci (born December 21, 1791 in Zicavo , Corsica , † November 11, 1857 in Paris ) was a French politician.

Early life

Charles Abbatucci was a son of Jacques Pierre Charles Pascal Abbatucci, consul general in Venice , and a grandson of the Corsican general Jacques Pierre Abbatucci . One of his uncles, the French general Jean Charles Abbatucci , died at a young age in 1796 in Hüningen ( Alsace ).

Abbatucci came to Paris as a child and attended the Prytanée de Saint-Cyr from 1799 . One of his classmates there was Odilon Barrot , with whom he was to become a close friend. He later moved to the Lycée Napoléon . From 1808 he studied law at Pisa and returned to Corsica in 1811. There he wanted to participate in the drawing by lot that took place at the time. His family enjoyed great esteem on the island, however, and the recruits of the canton of Zicavo unanimously demanded that Abbatucci should be excluded from the military slogan and placed last on the list. The Corsican prefect Arrighi , all mayors of the canton and the like , agreed to this demand . a. so that Abbatucci did not have to do military service. In 1813 he married a Colonna de Petreto, after whose death that same year he married a Colonna d'Istria for the second time.

In 1815, after the restoration of the Bourbons , whom he had joined, Abbatucci demanded the office of sub-prefect. On March 12, 1816 he was appointed royal procurator at the Court of Sartène and on March 4, 1819 a member of the Royal Court of Bastia . He was able to put an end to a process brought on by Corsican bankers against the former Neapolitan Queen Caroline , widow of Joachim Murat , through a favorable settlement.

Political career

July Monarchy

Abbatucci began a political career after the July Revolution of 1830 . Enthusiastically, he joined the new monarch Louis-Philippe I of. Under the influence of Odilon Barrots, he became President of the Court of Justice at Orléans on September 16, 1830, and in the same year he entered the Chamber of Deputies as a member of Corsica . In April 1831 he advocated the abolition of the death penalty for members of the Bonaparte family returning to France . Instead, only the eternal banishment of the members of this sex and Charles X and his family from France was decided. As early as March 1831, he had supported a draft law that provided for a stronger representation of Corsica in the French parliament. Despite his recommendation by the former kings Jérôme and Joseph Bonaparte, he was defeated in the elections held on November 20, 1831 in the Arrondissement of Ajaccio to General Tiburce Sébastiani , who had turned from his friend to his bitter opponent.

Abbatucci submitted his candidacy in Sartène in 1834, but withdrew it again because of the negative attitude of the Corsican prefect Honoré Jourdan . Abbatucci described Abbatucci in confidential letters to the French interior minister as an ambitious man who would pay homage to republican ideals and who would vote against his patron Odilon Barrot. Abbatucci was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1836. He began contributing to the Journal du Loiret and seemed to want to gain popularity as a judge through some of his judgments.

In the elections of 1839 Abbatucci stood against the government candidate Augustin Crignon de Montigny after the first ballot in Orléans was a draw . In his election manifesto he spoke a. for freedom of the press and a real independence of parliament. The opposition parties of the Liberals and Legitimists voted for him , and he was able to prevail and win another seat in the Chamber of Deputies. Even if the validity of his election was disputed on the grounds that he did not pay the legally prescribed 500 francs in direct taxes for his campaign, the majority of the chamber followed the argument of the electoral rapporteur Ducos that Abbatucci was one of the 50 largest taxpayers in Corsica in this department and due to the charter could also be elected in any other constituency. Abbatucci became a member of the Loiret department .

In the Chamber of Deputies of 1839 Abbatucci belonged to the opposition and supported Odilon Barrot and his party. In addition to increased freedom of the press, he spoke out in favor of electoral reform. He was well-disposed towards the cabinet of Prime Minister Adolphe Thiers, which was in office from March to October 1840 , but after Guizot's return to power he again assumed the role of an opposition politician and became one of Guizot's fiercest opponents. He protested against the Dardanelles Treaty of July 13, 1841, as this was humiliating for France. In 1842 he was re-elected. As he developed into a Bonapartist, he cautiously sent condolences to Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte , who had been imprisoned after a failed coup attempt . In the Journal du Loiret he published polemical articles and wrote a series of portraits of politicians from 1842 to 1846 under the title Les Mystères dela Chambre des députés .

In 1845 Abbatucci went on an extensive campaign tour in Corsica with his friend Odilon Barrot and was re-elected as deputy the following year. In the final phase of King Louis-Philippe's government in 1847, he took part in the movement of the so-called reform banquets, which were organized by critics of the regime to circumvent the strict legal provisions governing assembly in large French cities and primarily aimed at promoting the expansion of voting rights. Abbatucci presided over the banquet held in Orléans on September 27, 1847.

February Revolution; Role during the reign of Napoleon III.

On February 22, 1848, Abbatucci was among the signatories of the demand to indict the Guizot Ministry. As a result of the February Revolution of 1848 , Louis-Philippe abdicated on February 24 of this year. On the same day Abbatucci and Odilon Barrot spoke in vain for the reign of the widowed Duchess of Orléans . After the proclamation of the Second French Republic , Abbatucci joined the provisional government and was on March 2, 1848 Councilor of the Court of Appeal in Paris and on the following March 27th, Councilor of the Court of Cassation.

In the elections for the constituent assembly held in April 1848, Abbatucci was put up as a candidate in both the Loiret and Corsica departments. In Corsica he spoke out in favor of the unity of the island, which was then divided into two rival departments. As a result, he was re-elected to the constituency for Loiret, as well as for Corsica, but only because of the cancellation of the election of Louis Blanc due to certain irregularities. He decided, however, to appear as a deputy for Loiret. He also became President of the Legislative Commission.

Although Abbatucci opted for the banishment of the Orléans dynasty on May 26, 1848 , he often voted with the right in the constituent assembly. On August 26, 1848, he voted for the prosecution of the socialist politician Louis Blanc for his involvement in the failed attempt on May 15, 1848 to blow up the National Assembly. In addition, he voted on September 1 for the reinstatement of guilty custody , on September 2 for maintaining the state of siege during the deliberations on the new republican constitution, on September 18 against the abolition of the death penalty , on September 25 against a progressive one Taxation and on October 7, 1848 against the amendment by Jules Grévy to the constitution, which provided for the election and removal of the President of the Republic by the National Assembly and was rejected by a majority.

Since the constitution, promulgated on November 4, 1848, declared the office of representative of the people to be incompatible with any paid public function exercised at the same time, Abbatucci resigned his office as a councilor and remained a deputy. He zealously supported Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's candidacy for president, and in fact, on December 10, 1848, he was elected by a large majority directly by the people by popular vote.

Abbatucci himself achieved his election as deputy of the Loiret department in the legislative national assembly on May 13, 1849. He became president of the commission which was supposed to examine the proposals for the decrees to be made in the event of the dissolution of the National Guard (May 11, 1849), as well as of the commission which had to work out a new draft law for the judiciary (June 11, 1849).

Two days after the Prince-President's coup d'état on December 2, 1851, Abbatucci, who was completely devoted to him, became a member of the so-called advisory assembly replacing the dissolved National Assembly , until he succeeded Eugène Rouher as Minister of Justice on January 22, 1852 took over. In this position, which he would hold until his death, Abbatucci headed the confiscation of the property of the Orléans dynasty and signed the decree on January 24, 1852 to reinstate the titles of nobility and in March 1852 the legislative decree that the retirement age for judges in courts of law first instance to 70 years and for those of the Court of Cassation to 75 years. This resulted in a rejuvenation and a comprehensive renewal of the judiciary, which now mainly included persons loyal to the regime with legal training.

In August 1852 Abbatucci, one of the most reactionary ministers of Napoleon III. belonged to, member of the general councils of Loiret and Corsica and on August 14 of the same year, interim Minister of Finance. The under the name Napoleon III. Louis Napoleón Bonaparte, who was promoted to emperor, made Abbatucci senator on December 2, 1852, and six days later commander of the Legion of Honor. On August 12, 1853, Abbatucci became a Grand Officer of this Order of Merit and on December 30, 1855, rose to its highest class, the Grand Cross.

Abbatucci always protected his compatriots, the Corsicans, with great intensity, and he was very lenient towards instigators of blood revenge. On May 8, 1855, he led the unveiling of a statue of Joan of Arc in Orléans and the opening of the newly restored town hall there.

Charles Abbatucci died on November 11, 1857 in Paris of complications from an internal abscess . After a solemn funeral, at which Minister of State Achille Fould gave a speech, Abbatucci's body was transferred to Corsica, where it arrived in Ajaccio on December 10th and was buried two days later in Zicavo. Of his sons, Jean Charles (* March 25, 1816; † January 29, 1885) and Paul Séverin (* June 1, 1821; † June 22, 1888) proposed a political, and Antoine Dominique (* January 4, 1818; † 26 January 1878) started a military career.

literature

• A. Auzoux: Abbatucci (Jacques-Pierre-Charles) . In: Dictionnaire de biographie française (DBF). Volume 1, 1932, Col. 68-71.
• Abbatucci, Jacques-Pierre-Charles. In: Adolphe Robert, Edgar Bourloton, Gaston Cougny (eds.): Dictionnaire des parlementaires français de 1789 à 1889. Volume 1, 1889, p. 3f.
• Jean de La Rocca: Abbatucci, sa vie, comme magistrat, comme député et comme homme d'État, ses opinions sur les événements et les hommes célèbres de notre époque. Paris 1858

Remarks

1. ↑ Abbatucci's biographer Jean de La Rocca gives Abbatucci's date of birth December 21, 1792 (A. Auzoux: Abbatucci (Jacques-Pierre-Charles) . In: Dictionnaire de biographie française (DBF). Volume 1, 1932, Col. 68) .