Hippolyte Passy

Biography

Resulting from a family originating in Gisors, wire of Louis-François Passy, former clerk with the exercises of the general receipt of Soissons, then general receiver of the department of Dyle (Brussels) under the First Empire, and of Helene Pauline Jacket of Aure, Hippolyte Passy was the younger brother of Antoine François Passy (1792 - 1873), politician, geologist and botanist, and the uncle of Frederic Passy (1822 - 1912), pacifist and first prize winner of the Nobel Prize of peace.

He started by embracing the military career. Admitted at the school of cavalry of Saumur in 1809, he became lieutenant of hussards in 1812 and took share in the last campaigns of Napoleon I {{er}}. He resigned after Waterloo and, hostile to the Restauration, left for the the Antilles and the Louisiana.

At sea, it lute the Richness of the nations of Adam Smith and was caught passion for the political economy. It returned to France and was withdrawn close to Gisors, where it dealt with agriculture. It also started to be interested in the policy, collaborating in the newspapers of opposition, and in particular in the National as of its creation.

Deputy under the Monarchy of July

The October 28th 1830, it was elected appointed by the large electoral college of the Département of the Eure and sat in the Left Third. He was the rapporteur of the budget of 1831. He was re-elected in the 5th electoral college of the Eure (Louviers) the July 5th 1831 and the June 21st 1834. Appointed economist of the center left, he was still rapporteur of the budget of 1832 and intervened especially on the financial questions.

He was named Minister for Finance in transitory the ministry Maret (10 - November 18th 1834). He had, so to represent itself in front of the voters who renewed his mandate the December 6th 1834 and was elected vice-president of the House of Commons, function which he preserved until in 1839, with the only interruptions resulting from its ministerial functions.

Friend of Adolphe Thiers, it defended at his sides the laws of September and became Minister the Commercial and of Public works in his first ministry (February 22nd - August 25th 1836). The March 19th 1836, its voters re-elected it (301 votes out of 319 voters).

He was opposed to the ministry Molé, which succeeded the Thiers ministry and belonged to the coalition which involved its fall. Louis-Philippe I {{er}} had a presentiment of it to form the new ministry, but it could not reach that point (V. second ministry Soult, constitution). He was re-elected in Louviers the November 4th 1837 and the March 2nd 1839.

For the election of the president of the House of Commons, the April 14th 1839, the attitude of Thiers, which had ruined all the attempts to form a government since the fall of the second ministry Molé, and which supported the candidature of Odilon Barrot, leader of the dynastic opposition, caused a dissidence at the center left to carry Passy to the presidency. Its candidature collected the voices of the ministerial center and the Doctrinaires, charmed this discord on the left. Passy was thus elected by 227 votes against 193 in Barrot.

The May 12th 1839, it was again Minister for Finance in the second ministry Soult and obtained the confirmation of its mandate of deputy the June 8th. As Minister for Finance, it presented to the Room, the February 20th 1840, the relative bill with the equipment of the duke of Nemours which was pushed back and involved the fall of the ministry (March 1st 1840).

The episode of its election to the presidency of the Room, then of its entry in the Soult ministry without the downstream of Thiers, precipitated the rupture with this last which, in 1839, made known with the king that it would agree to enter any ministerial combination in the only condition of not finding neither Passy there nor Dufaure which, according to him, had betrayed it by accepting wallets against its consent.

Re-elected like deputy the July 9th 1842, Passy became Pair of France the December 16th 1843. To the Room of the pars, it brought back the finance law. It was promoted commander of the Légion of honor the April 24th 1845. Member corresponding of the Institute of France since 1833, it had been received the July 7th 1838 with the Academy of Science morals and political in the political section of economy, with the armchair of Talleyrand.

Minister for the Second Republic

In 1848, it did not belong to the constituent Assembly, but was named Minister for Finance in the First government Odilon Barrot it (December 20th 1848 and also in the Second government Odilon Barrot until the October 31st 1849). He was opposed to the tax cut on salt and proposed, to balance the budget of 1850, a surtax on the successions and donations, a tax on the goods of mortmain, a tax of 1% on the income and the re-establishment of the tax on drinks.

The May 13rd 1849, it was elected appointed in the the Eure and the Seine and chose the Eure. It supported the presidential government until the Coup d'etat of December 2nd, 1851. It withdrew political life then and devoted to work of political, fascinating economy position against colonization, slavery, and in favor of free trade. It was one of the founders of the political Company of economy (1845).

Works

Of the aristocracy in its relationship with progress of civilization , Paris, A. Bossange, 1826, in-8
Of the Changes which have occurred in the agricultural situation of the department of the Eure since the year 1800 , Paris, Guillaumin, 1841, in-8 (extracted the Journal of the Economists )
Of the their influence and farming systems on the social economy , 1846
Of the Causes which influenced the walk of civilization in the various regions of the sphere , Paris, Impr. of Firmin-Didot brothers, 1847, in-4
Of the causes of the inequality of the richnesses , Paris, Pagnerre, 1848, in-18
Of the shapes of government and the laws which govern them , Paris, Guillaumin, 1870, in-8
political history and social sciences and , 1879

He also collaborated in the Journal of the Economists and the Revue Legislation .

Some judgments on Hippolyte Passy

The Brothers Goncourt

Mr. Hippolyte Passy is an old man bald person, some grey hair with the temples, the small, shining and sharp, large and lively eye. He is talkative with delights. He always speaks and about all. Its body is lisping, its clear word, its flow clear and in a hurry. It has on all things in the world, not of the ideas but of the concepts. It read, considering and retained much much much. It with approval without fruit of the non-specialists. Universal science with flower of brain. A great continuation and a great research, and a great assignment, independence in all, capacity, opinion, theories received, and adopted principles and kings. A society man of the Danube, dependant with all the Encyclopedias and scrambled with all the Gospels; hardly seeing in the shapes of the government but one way of corruption, tarifiant any thing: a papacy with 12 hundred and thousand francs and the delegation in 48 to 18 thousand francs with the national Workshops. Not believing neither in the men nor with the policy; but only with the figures and the political economy. Very diverse and very arranged memory, an arsenal against the illusions and devotions. An irony catch, an old smile of the Fountain statesman, against all those and all it in which and what one can accept it attached, Louis-Philippe for example, whom it calls the dad of Oliban of the thing. Extremely engoué of useful, indifferent to the remainder, art, etc, wanting to see with the Exposure of industry only the knives to 5 pennies. Baited scoffer of the faith par excellence, the religion and like all this generation of 89, whose Virgin, was the nurse, inexhaustible in voltairianisms and mischievousnesses against the government of God, her charter the Bible, and her responsible ministers. Charming talker, small spirit, holding much; friend of the paradoxes of the good sense, the theses skeptics; speaker of living room and corner of chimney, corrosive of right-hand side and left, denying the principles, reducing the men with its memories and the facts with details; more jealous to charm the attention than to charm it, of speaking to convince, to be unaware of only knowledge; dazing the beliefs, scandalmonger of the world, of God, men and things for the greatest glory of the conversation. In the middle of the ocean of skepticism from Mr. Hippolyte Passy, two or three green small islands where beliefs push. In the middle of the ruins of any faith, only upright: belief in the moral improvement of the populations and the talent of the economists.

Tocqueville

I never saw of also large talker nor who so easily comforted annoying events by exposing the causes which had produced them and the consequences which were to follow; when it had finished tracing the darkest table of the state of the businesses, it finished of an air smiling and placid while saying: “so that it is possible about no of us to save some and that we must expect a total subversion of the company. ”

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