Achilles Chaper

Achille Chaper (Pierre-Achilles-Marie Chaper) is an engineer and French politician born with Paris on May 5th, 1795 and deceased with Grenoble on July 27th, 1874.

He is the son of Barthelemy Chaper (1766-1825), general governor of the military subsistence and Antoinette Fin (1767-1849). His/her maternal grandfather, Jean-Louis Fine, are ordering regiment of Pondichéry.

Young prize winner of the open Competition, his career of engineer was marked by the improvement of the “Catalan forging mills” and the blast furnaces. In policy, Chaper occupied of many loads in the public administration, in particular of the prefectures (Tarn-et-Garonne, Gard, Coast-with Or, Loire-Inférieure, the Rhone) before being elected appointed (Orléaniste) of Coast-with Or in 1849.

Brilliant studies

It is in an easy medium that Achille is born, in the beautiful quarters of the French capital. His/her directing father finding vivres in Grenoble during the Napoleonean campaigns decides nevertheless to leave his son in pension. He follows the courses of the imperial college Bonaparte where one distinguishes very quickly at his place from exceptional intellectual capacities. In 1809, it is four times prize winner of the open Competition (Greek version, Latin version, Latin prose, versification). With the College Bonaparte, it raises its class. Young Achilles has as comrades Jean-Jacques Baude, future prefect and adviser of State, Casimir Delavigne and Eugene Scribe, futures Immortels.

He carries out then a year of rhetoric then another in class of mathematics where its results enable him to integrate the polytechnic school. Its professors are Ampère in mechanics, Gay-Lussac in chemistry, Arago in astronomy, Monge in geodesy, Jean Henri Hassenfratz in physics.

March 29th, 1814, then 18 years old, it is encircled by the Russian army with several polytechnicians at the time of the seat of the city by united. Posted with a battery of artillery, these defenders of Paris in extremis owe their safety only with the intervention of the National guard come to assist them. It becomes under lieutenant in artillery then turns over to the civil life to be devoted to the construction of lime kilns (obtaining lime starting from limestone). It carries out advanced training courses technical in ironmasters and follows the courses from the École des Mines to Paris.

The engineer of the blast furnaces

He leaves the Mines to buy the forging mills of the Pinsot (38), of which he had hitherto been difficult to draw another thing that debts for the owners. But Chaper improves the steel yields, the number of workmen increases and the engineer plans to transform the old forging mill with the Catalan woman into a blast furnace (obtaining cast iron starting from the iron ore allows which undergoes several stages at increasing temperatures to obtain an alloy Iron-Carbon then transformed into steel by decarburization). Chaper writes many reports which it sends to Paris on the operations that it wishes to undertake in addition to those that order to him the Polytechnic school. The prefect of the Isere asks for a report/ratio to him in order to build a bridge on Drac.

He works as workman in a Parisian blacksmith in order to learn work from steel then visit several factories in Alsace. In 1824, its blast furnace is built and from now on operational. It is via Camille Teisseire, notable from the Dauphine with which Chaper makes deals that Périer, owners of the foundries of Chaillot, are interested in the talent and energy of Achilles Chaper. Chaper accepts in 1827 the direction of the foundries but wishes the presence of a deputy manager (who will be English engineer Edwards) to continue to devote itself to its blast furnace. Meanwhile, Achille married Henriette Teisseire, the girl of Camille, the appointed rich person of the Isere.

The policy in spite of him

But Périer are not the only ones to have heard of the young engineer. His/her friend Jean-Jacques Baude become Secretary of State to the ministry for the Interior calls it with the prefecture of the Tarn-et-Garonne. The political experiment of Chaper was then more than restricted: it was limited to the small town hall of Pinsot where he had been elected in thanks of the new dynamism which he had insufflated with the commune. September 1st, 1830, Chaper arrives at Montauban in a department then agitated, hoping to turn over as fast as possible to its forging mills. Eighteen years later, Chaper was to always be with the service of the State. To the prefecture, he manages to calm the spirits the shortly after the fall of the king Charles X. Chaper makes the decision be likely to restore the grantings abolished since the Revolution. The central capacity prohibited whereas the subject was tackled, fearing that the people still overheated by his rebellion against the Bourbons do not break out against the re-establishment of a tax pointing out the Ancien Mode. But this re-establishment was a success, the population being conscious of its need. In Paris, the Room decided to apply measurement to all the departments to the model of the Tarn-et-Garonne.

The talent of Chaper was to be put again at contribution in the Gard where it is named on November 17th, 1830. It decides there to reinforce its collaboration with the Army rather than the National guard, too revolutionary and carried with its taste. November 22nd, 1831, his/her uncle by alliance, Casimir Périer the fact of naming prefect in Coast-in Or where it will remain in station during nine years. The situation is agitated in Dijon than it was it in Montauban or Nimes, which enables him to be devoted again to Sciences of the Industry whose processes impassioned it. It draws up the geological map of its department, is interested in the rivers, decides the construction of various stoppings. Its managed are grateful for its equitable management. The name of the prefect is engraved besides in Dijon on the Darcy place while he asks for the construction of a lunatic asylum, today hospital of the Carthusian monks. The General advice of the Gold Coasts pays homage to several occasions to him and rents the “ administrator careful, wise, impartial, educated, the variety of his knowledge, his tested zeal, his rare activity, his love of the public property, the order, the freedom, the peace which give to the department of the Gold Coast the greatest hopes of a constant prosperity as long as it will be with the head of his administration. ”

Chaper meets the king Louis-Philippe Ier in April 1836 without that not modifying in a major way the course of its career. June 5th, 1840, it leaves Dijon for Nantes (the Loire-Inféreure) then is named on July 24th, 1847 with the prefecture of the Rhone, second posts more coveted after Paris. It is with the prefecture Lyon when the Revolution of February 1848 bursts. Chaper must face the revolutionists who go down from the hill of theRusset-red one. Its Henriette wife, woman excessively pious woman, known as to her daughter “ let us confess itself, after we will not fear more anything. ” But while in Paris the king flees, Chaper is only found, refuses to recognize the Republic. It is thus alone which it leaves the Prefecture by the large entry, refusing to flee. It faces the hostile crowd which lets it nevertheless pass, respectful in front of her determination to remain at its station.

The former prefect obstinately refuses to join himself the Republic, but agrees to sit at the House of Commons when he is elected by the inhabitants of the Gold Coast on May 13rd, 1849. Faithful to Orleans, he votes with the monarchist majority. In the capacity as deputy, he is opposed to the coup d'etat of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte of December 2nd, 1851. Achille Chaper goes with other deputies in the count Napoleon Daru, vice-president of the Parliament. The deputies wish to meet as a Parliament with the Palais Bourbon whose access their is defended, they are torn off from their benches without care. The deputies meet then in the town hall of X° district, déchoient the president Bonaparte and ask the High court to judge it. But the people do not move with the advertisement of the coup d'etat and only the deputies of which much, whose Chaper, had disapproved the Second Republic well only find from now on to defend it. The Minister for the war named less than two months before in preparation for the coup d'etat, the marshal Armand Jacques Leroy of Saint-Arnaud, nap to stop the deputies refusing to leave the places. Chaper is these, it is made prisoner and is at once imprisoned with the Mount-Valérien.

After the policy

For Louis-Napoleon, the coup d'etat is a success, null resistance is not opposed and large deputies does not represent any danger. Chaper turns over in Isere where it built on the ground inherited Camille Teisseire the Château of Poisat. It leads a life to the variation of the policy, becomes president of the Company of Statistics of Isere, of the trade unions of Drac and Romanche, the inspection committee of the forging mills of Allevard. It remains during these years a friend of the duchess from Orleans to which it returns visit to Lausanne, it also meets the Queen there. It forms part during summer 1863 of the subscribers to the assistance in Poland then invaded by Russia. In the same way, it is one of the subscribers to the opening of Suez Canal. When Chaper dies, this one is mayor of Poisat and high-ranking dignitary of the Légion of Honor of which it received the title of commander on April 30th, 1843 by Louis-Philippe Ier

Eugene Chaper, his son, was an eminent scholar whose library most important ever was undoubtedly joined together out of ground of Dauphine. Berthe Chaper, his/her daughter, marries Paul Thibaud (political), prosecutor, lawyer, preserving general adviser of the Isere.

Sources

OF PAZZIS Henry, Origins and descent of the family Périer , volume III, regional editions of the West, Mayenne, 1995

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