Léon Pittet

Léon Pittet

Léon Pittet (born April 11, 1806 in Gruyères , † April 29, 1858 in Friborg in Üechtland ) was a Swiss politician and State Councilor of the canton of Friborg .

Life

Pittet was Roman Catholic and acquired the citizenship of the city of Freiburg on October 5, 1827. His parents were Pierre-Joseph-Vincent Pittet, hat maker and judge at the district court of Gruyères, and Anne-Marie nee. Murith from Gruyères. He married Marie-Françoise Dupré. Their eldest daughter, Adèle, married the entrepreneur Jules Daler, founder of the Daler Hospital.

After attending the St. Michael College , he studied law with Professor Jean-François-Marcellin Bussard . In 1831 he became a clerk at the Gruyères district court, and in 1833 administrator in the land registry of the Gruyères district . From 1834 he worked as a notary, in 1846 he became a clerk for the orphans' management in his region. Léon Pittet was a staunch supporter of the revolution and the regeneration of 1830. As a result, he was convinced by the radical ideas, as he was hostile to clericalism, the Jesuits and the Sonderbund . He was a councilor and then Ammann von Gruyères (1838–1841). From 1837 to 1856 he was a Gruyère deputy in the Grand Council, with the exception of 1847, since he took part in the uprising against the conservative authorities and the Sonderbund on January 6 of that year.

Member and Vice President of the Provisional Government from November 1847, he headed the Justice Department. Elected to the Council of State on March 8, 1848 (second member with 57 of 62 votes), he kept this direction until June 1849, when he replaced the late Pierre Landerset in the finance department; he headed it until his resignation in 1854. As Justice Director, he was the initiator of the law of May 26, 1848 on the judicial system. At the head of finance he was responsible for the law of March 12, 1850 on the administration of the public budget, the law of May 14, 1850 on stamp duties and the law of December 3, 1853 on the establishment of a mortgage bank. He was a member of the supervisory board of the Kantonalbank and headed the mortgage bank from 1854 to 1858.

Pittet, who can be described as a strong personality, good administrator and statesman with extensive economic work, presided over the Council of State in 1849 and 1852. In 1854 he was re-elected to head the government, but declined because he left the Executive wanted to withdraw. Initially an irreconcilable radical, Pittet more and more moderated his views under the pressure of government responsibility and the unclear political situation in the canton. He was the spokesman for the moderate radicals in the government and opposed Julien Schaller's extremist faction . In the parliamentary elections in 1851 he ran successfully for the National Council , of which he was a member for the next three years.

After his resignation from the government (1854) Pittet worked as a notary in Freiburg and continued to exercise his banking responsibilities. He sat in the capital's school gentlemen's chamber (1849–1858) and presided over the notarial chamber. He died on April 29, 1858 at the age of 52.

literature

• Georges Andrey , John Clerc, Jean-Pierre Dorand et Nicolas Gex: The Freiburg Council of State: 1848–2011. History, organization, members . Editions La Sarine, Freiburg 2012, ISBN 978-2-88355-153-4 .

Web links

• François Genoud / SK: Pittet, Léon. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .