Joseph Fouché

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Joseph Fouché
Signature Joseph Fouché.PNG

Joseph Fouché (born May 21, 1759 in Le Pellerin , near Nantes , † December 26, 1820 in Trieste ) was a French politician during the Revolution and Minister of Police in the Empire and the Restoration . In 1809 he was appointed duc d'Otrante ( Duke of Otranto ).

Youth and beginning of political activity

Fouché was born the son of a merchant marine captain and attended the oratorian seminary in Nantes. He entered the order temporarily, but received only minor orders . Fouché later taught logic in Vendôme and was a physics teacher in Arras in 1788 . Here he met Maximilien de Robespierre and his sister Charlotte (1760-1834) know. When the French Revolution broke out , he settled in Nantes again and became a member of the Society of Friends of the Constitution (Société des amis de la Constitution).

Revolution time

In 1792 he was elected to the Convention as a member of the Loire-Atlantique department and joined the radical mountain party . On January 17, 1793, Fouché voted for the execution of Louis XVI. (1754-1793). Since he did not make a particular appearance as a speaker, “he preferred to be elected to the committees and commissions, where one can gain insight into the circumstances and influence what is happening in the shadows” ( Stefan Zweig ).

On March 8, 1793 he was appointed rapporteur on the nationalization of all educational institutions. In the same month he was commissioned to raise recruits in the Mayenne department and in his home department. He was then sent first to Nantes, then to the départements of the center to suppress royalism and moderate republican sentiments and to organize armed forces against the uprising in the Vendée , and later against an uprising in Lyon . In the Nièvre department , he called on the priests to marry, forbade any religious act outside the churches and ordered the destruction of the crosses and the Stations of the Cross.

In November 1793 he was sent to Lyon with Collot d'Herbois and Couthon , because the city had distinguished itself through a monarchist uprising. Together they should prevent another attempt at a counter-revolution there. The troops of the National Convention proceeded with all severity. Among other things, the houses of all "opponents of the revolution" were demolished. A commission headed by Fouché was responsible for around 1,600 death sentences. Fouché was later also called "Mitrailleur de Lyon" ("Butcher of Lyon"). The city was now also known as Ville sans Nom or Ville Affranchie .

Since Fouché supported the atheistic direction of the Hébertists , he came into conflict with Robespierre. One of the triggers was certainly the election of Fouché as president of the Jacobin Club in May 1794. Robespierre then attacked him as an atheist , called him the "head of the conspiracy" (June 10, 1794) and had him expelled from the Jacobin Club.

Robespierre's fall

In fact, in the background, Fouché was the mastermind who tried to bring together the various parts of the opposition to Robespierre: On 9th Thermidor (July 27, 1794) he worked with Collot d'Herbois, Tallien and Barère in the fall and subsequent execution of Robespierre . He was not officially involved in the events, did not return to the convent until the 10th Thermidor and took his old place with the mountain party.

The direction of the new government did not suit Fouché, however: the proximity of the Directory to the jeunesse dorée and the corrupt army suppliers appeared as a shift to the right and a betrayal of the ideals of the revolution. He allied himself with Gracchus Babeuf , a socialist agitator and journalist. Under his leadership there was an unsuccessful uprising of the 12th Germinal (March 1, 1795). Babeuf was executed and his backer Fouché was arrested on the orders of the convent in August 1795, but released by the general amnesty following the Vendémiaire uprising by virtue of the decree of the 3rd Brumaires of year IV (October 25, 1795). For a while he lived secluded and poor in the valley of Montmorency .

Fouché was involved in the coup d'état of the 18th Fructidor (September 4, 1797), because of which the previous opinion leader of the Board of Directors , Carnot , had to flee and Paul de Barras was able to take power. Probably out of gratitude, Barras then procured him the appointment as envoy to the Cisalpine Republic . But since he tried to overthrow the constitution here in partnership with General Brune , he was recalled after a few days, sent to The Hague in 1799 and appointed Minister of Police by Barras and Sieyès in September .

Police Minister under Bonaparte

Fouché in the Minister of Police's dress uniform, painting by Claude Marie Dubufe

In this role he supported Napoleon Bonaparte in the coup d'état of the 18th Brumaire VIII and made himself indispensable for the First Consul Bonaparte in the following period . He organized an extensive system of espionage across all classes of society, not excluding the First Consul's family, and entertained it mainly with the proceeds of the gaming lease, whereby he also enriched himself. When Fouché opposed the granting of the lifelong consulate to Napoleon and proposed to the Senate to limit the term of office to ten years, Napoleon abolished the police ministry in September 1802; as compensation, Fouché received the Senatorie von Aix and half of the police reserve fund he had collected, around 2,400,000 francs.

After Napoleon was crowned emperor in 1804, he again needed a capable police minister and therefore re-established the police ministry. The clumsiness of his successors in the police administration gave Fouché on July 10, 1804 again the ministerial post. In 1808 he was appointed Count of the Empire and after the successful defense of Antwerp in 1809 he was appointed Duke of Otranto with a considerable endowment of property. Since he resisted the emperor's incessant wars of conquest and conducted secret negotiations with England on his own initiative, he fell out of favor with Napoleon and was deposed again on June 3, 1810.

Fouché burned or hid all the important papers of his ministry to embarrass his successor Savary . When the emperor tried to hold him accountable, Fouché fled to Tuscany and hid there for a while. Due to the intercession of Elisa Bonaparte , he was allowed to go first to his property in Aix, and in 1811 he was allowed to return to Paris.

As Napoleon mistrusted him, Fouché was first transferred to Ljubljana in 1813 as Governor General of the Illyrian Provinces , then to Rome and finally to Naples as the French envoy . Nevertheless, he managed to conspire against the emperor, whom he wanted to replace with a reign of Marie Louise , his wife and mother of the heir to the throne Napoleon II .

After Napoleon's abdication and the reinstatement of the Bourbons in 1814, Fouché immediately joined them.

The 100 days

Even during Joseph Fouché officially the returned King Louis XVIII. supported, the activities for the return of Napoleon from Elba were tacitly promoted by him.

The emperor returned to Paris needed allies, but many former generals and ministers refused to heed his call; Talleyrand stayed in Vienna . For his own safety, Napoleon felt compelled to hand over the police ministry to Fouché. This began - probably in the certainty that this rule would not last long - immediately with the liberals within, with Louis XVIII. to conspire in Ghent and with Metternich in order to protect himself in all cases.

On June 23, 1815, after Napoleon's abdication, appointed chairman of the provisional government by the Chamber, Fouché prepared the second restoration of the Bourbons.

Police Minister of the Monarchists

He also became the police minister of the new government and, through the ordinance of July 26, 1815, ostracized some of the complicit in Napoleon's return. But no party, neither monarchists nor republicans , trusted him anymore, and he was attacked from all sides. For a while he managed to stay in office, but when regicide was particularly violently attacked by the royalists , Louis XVIII saw himself. compelled to dismiss him in September 1815 and send him to Dresden as a French ambassador .

death

Affected by the exile decree of January 12, 1816 against the regicide, Fouché emigrated to Austria and, with Metternich's tolerance, was allowed to settle first in Prague and then in Linz . There he dealt with the writing of defensive papers about his past and allegedly also his memoirs .

Because of a breast disease, the Austrian government allowed him to move to Trieste with its mild Mediterranean climate. Fouché died here in 1820 and was buried in the local cathedral . He left his children with a fortune of 14 million francs, a gigantic fortune at the time, which were granted to him for his silence .

family

Joseph Fouché married Bonne-Jeanne Coignaud in 1792.

Children:

  • Nièvre Fouché (1793–1794)
  • Joseph-Liberté Fouché (1796–1862), 2nd Duke of Otranto
  • Armand Fouché (1800–1878), 3rd Duke of Otranto
  • Athanase Fouché (1801–1886), 4th Duke of Otranto
  • Joséphine-Ludmille Fouché (1803-1893)

Fonts

Fouché wrote a large number of political pamphlets, the most important of which are:

  • Réflexions sur le jugement de Louis Capet (1793)
  • Réflexions sur l'éducation publique (1793)
  • Report et projet de loi relatif aux collèges (1793)
  • Report on the situation of Communes Affranchies (1794)
  • Lettre aux préfets concernant les prêtres, etc. (1801)

literature

German

  • Louis Madelin , Fouche. The man whom even Napoleon feared. Heyne, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-453-03035-4 (see also below, French)
  • Joseph Fouché: Memories of Joseph Fouché - Police Minister Napoleon I. Julius Hoffmann, Stuttgart 1920, new edition: Comino, Berlin 2020, ISBN 978-3-945831-23-6 (see also below, French)
  • Rolf Schneider : The letters of Joseph F. Katzengraben, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-910178-21-9
  • Stefan Zweig : Joseph Fouché. Portrait of a political man. Insel, Leipzig 1929 ( E-Text ) - contrary assessment by Louis Madelin, s. u.
  • Paul Elgers: In the shadow of Napoleon. Joseph Fouché, the master of intrigue. Greifenverlag, Rudolstadt 2010, ISBN 978-3-86939-170-0
  • Clemens Klünemann: Greed for recognition. JF and the strings of power. In: Documents - Documents , Bonn am Rhein, No. 1/2010 pp. 77-80, ISSN  0012-5172

French

  • Louis Madelin: Fouché. Diss. Phil., Paris 1901; (German see above); again in 2 volumes 1923, 1947, 1960, 1975 and:
    • Volume 1: Fouché 1759-1820. De la revolution a l'empire. Nouveau Monde Éd., Series: Biography. Paris 2002, ISBN 2-84736-003-4
    • Volume 2: Fouché 1759-1820. Ministre de la police. Nouveau Monde Éd., Biblio Napoleon series, Paris 2002, 2010, ISBN 2-84736-501-X
  • Joseph Fouché: Mémoires de Joseph Fouché, duc d'Otrante. Imp. Nationale, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-11-081106-4 (based in part on Fouche's notes, probably compiled by Alphonse de Beauchamp )
  • Ernest Daudet : La Police et les Chouans sous le Consulat et l'Empire. 1800-1815. Plon, Paris 1895
  • Pierre M. Desmarest: Témoignages historiques, ou 15 ans de haute police sous Napoleon. Slatkine-Megariotis, Geneva 1977
  • Edouard Guillon: Les complots militaires sous le Consulat et l'Empire. Plon, Paris 1894
  • Ernest Picard: Bonaparte et Moreau. L'entente initiale, les premiers dissentiments, la rupture. Plon, Paris 1905
  • Gilbert A. Thierry: Conspirateurs et gens de police. Le complot de libelles. Colin, Paris 1903
  • Henri Welschinger: Le Duc d'Enghien. L'énlèvement d'Ettenheim et l'exécution de Vincennes. Plon, Paris, 1913

Movies

  • Police Minister 1759–1820 Joseph Fouché (1970), TV production, directed by Michael Mansfeld , with Ferdy Mayne as Police Minister Joseph Fouché

Web links

Commons : Joseph Fouché  - collection of images, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
Emmanuel Cretet de Champmol Minister of the Interior of France
June 29, 1809–1. October 1809
Jean-Pierre Bachasson de Montalivet
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on February 28, 2006 .