Jacques Laffitte

Biography

Jacques Laffitte was born with Bayonne in the Yrénées-Atlantiques the October 24th 1767, one of the ten children (four wire and six girls) of a modest and many family. His/her father, Pierre Laffitte († 1789) was master carpenter. After short studies, it became initially, at twelve years, apprentice carpenter near his father, then, during two years, third clerk in a notary of Bayonne, then, at fourteen years, made in a trader of this city, Mr. Formalaguès.

A career of banker

In 1788, at the age of blackjack years, it came to Paris, provided with a letter of introduction of its owner, to request a modest use of clerk in the offices of the banker Jean Frederic Perregeaux (1744 - 1808). The Perregaux Bank was to become, because of its relations with the foreigner, the bank of the Comité of Public Hello, and Perregaux, which had known to be placed suitably after the 18 brumaire, one of the financial advisers of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Laffitte had just been gotten rid of when, according to the legend, it bent down while crossing the court to collect a fallen pin with ground; struck by this gesture, the banker, who observed it, pointed out it and engaged it to hold the accounts books. Jacques Laffitte showed remarkable qualities and expressed real aptitudes for the trade of the bank. Of a flexible nature, sharp and merry, endowed with a great capacity of work and a clear spirit and Net, he knew a fast rise. Perregaux enabled him to progress and entrusted increasingly important responsibilities to him. In 1790, its salaries were increased to 3.000 francs and, in year II, it was interested for the benefits and was named assessor of the Justice of the Peace of the section of Mont Blanc (frimaire year II).

However, in nivôse year VI, he complained in Perregaux “to have lost, seems he, the confidence of owner, who leaves in a secondary employment, which 'will oblige to separate from him and to accept the offer that one makes 'associate in a house of bank”. This letter had its effect since Peregaux made of Laffitte, the February 23rd 1806, its associate in the S^té Perregaux and C^ie , with a quarter of the capital. But because of the bad health of Perregaux, a new business was made up the December 29th 1807 for one duration ten years: Perregaux, Laffitte and C^ie . Laffitte, indicated by Perregaux like its executor, held 50% of the authorized capital and became director-manager, while 25% went to Perregaux wire, silent partner and 25% with the girl of Perrégaux, silent partner. During ten years, Laffitte only managed this house which very quickly became the first bank of Paris and one of the most powerful European banks.

In May 1801, Laffitte had married Navy-Francoise Laeut (v. 1783 - 1849), girl of a trader. From this union was born an only daughter, Albine Étiennette Marguerite Laffitte († 1881).

The January 19th 1809, Laffitte became regent of the Banque de France replacing Perregaux after the death of this one. It preserved this function until in 1831. He was at the same time judge with the bankruptcy court of the the Seine (1809) and became president of the chamber of commerce (May 2nd 1810 with the May 14th 1811). The April 6th 1814, after the fall of the Empire, it was called by the provisional government with the functions of “provisional” governor of the Banque de France, which it occupied until in 1820, date on which it was replaced by Gaudin, duke of Gaète. It had elegance to refuse the treatment attached to this station.

he would have said: “I know you Mr Laffitte, I know that you do not like my government, but I hold you for an honest man. ” Laffitte on the occasion to show it while rendering service at all the successive governments. Under the First Restoration, it subscribed of its own sums of money a considerable sum to cover the expenses of the contribution of war required by the Allies and, when Napoleon unloaded isle of Elba, it got important funds with Louis XVIII. It was however in its house of bank that Napoleon, by taking the way of the exile, deposited a sum of 6 million. After Waterloo, when the provisional government asked Banque de France to lend the money necessary to the payment of postponed of balance of the imperial army, Laffitte was opposed and advanced to it the sum of 2 million necessary on its own funds. A few days later, it advanced and guarantees almost entirely the new contribution of war required by the Prussia. In 1818, it once more saved the place of Paris of a financial crisis, whereas the purse was impotent to make its liquidation: it bought for 400.000 francs of revenues and paid them, putting a term at panic.

Laffitte was then with the head of a very important fortune, evaluated with 20 to 25 franc million, which enabled him to repurchase, in 1818, the castle of Maisons to the duchess of Montebello. It also had a castle with Meudon and another with Breteuil-on-Iton in the the Eure, as well as a private mansion with Paris.

A political career

The May 8th 1815, Jacques Laffitte was elected representing trade with the Room of the Hundred Days by the department of the Seine. He abstained from speaking with the platform and voted with the liberal constitutional party.

An opponent active and respected with the Restoration

Re-elected as deputy of the Seine by the college of department the October 4th 1816, Laffitte took place consequently on the left and specialized in the financial matters, making remarkable speeches whose government made the greatest case, though the speaker sat on the benches of the opposition. Thus, when the duke of Richelieu created a commission of finances to avoid the shortage of the treasure, Louis XVIII indicated Laffitte to form part of it. He decided then against the system of the compulsory loans, the mortgage bonds and pushed back, in a general way, any system of taxes and social security deduction likely to attack public confidence.

Re-elected appointed the September 20th 1817, it took again place in the opposition and was announced by its heat to defend the Freedom of the press. Tireless defender of public freedoms, it blamed with the platform the bloody repression of the riots, voted against the new electoral system, and vainly claimed the expression of a formal wish, in an address with the king, for the maintenance of the legislation in force. In 1825, it inaugurated the subscription for the children of the general Foy by a gift of 50.000 francs.

Its mandate of deputy was renewed to him by the voters of the 2nd district of Paris the May 9th 1822. It then developed with the platform remarkable made a statement on political situation and financial of the country, decided with force against the Expédition of Spain (1823), but supported the ministry Villèle in its operation of reduction of the revenues. It justified its adhesion with this measurement, which was highly blamed by his/her political friends, by its concern of reducing the loads of the people. The elections of the February 25th 1824, it failed of little in the 2nd district of Paris, but it was returned to the Room, the March 29th 1827, by the 3rd district of the the Low-Pyrenees (Bayonne). He was re-elected with the general elections of the November 17th according to, at the same time in the 2nd district of Paris and the college of department of the Low-Pyrenees.

After the dissolution of the national guard of Paris, Laffitte was made the interpreter of the most advanced fraction parliamentary opposition by claiming the committal for trial of the ministers. The January 26th 1828, it gave his/her Albine daughter in marriage to Napoleon Joseph Ney (1803 - 1857), prince of Moskowa, wire of the marshal Ney, and this alliance flattered the popular feeling and contributed to reconcile the middle-class to him.

He was still re-elected the July 12th 1830 in the 3rd district of the Low-Pyrenees after having fought of all his forces the ministry Polignac.

A decisive role during the Revolution of 1830

Without showing itself openly hostile with the elder branch of the house of Bourbon, Laffitte was one of the first to think of placing, if necessary, the crown on the head of the duke of Orleans. During several years, he cherished this project and endeavoured to advance it, in particular by recruiting partisans with the prince. It was thus perfectly prepared to play a decisive part at the time of the “Glorious Three” by taking the head of parliamentary resistance. Its influence at this time made it call the “Warwick French” and honor, like the English historical character, “maker of king”.

The July 28th 1830, hardly sunken of its property of Breteuil-on-Iton, it was the first to be engaged of the steps near the duke of Orleans. With the Palais Royal, it contacted the secretary of the commands of the duke, Oudard, which transmitted to Louis-Philippe, with Neuilly, a message promising to the prince that Laffitte would work for him without compromising it, but recommending to him “not to compromise itself while being made take in the nets of Saint-Cloud”. It was one of the signatories of the protest of the deputies, adopted the day before, against the Ordonnances of July, at the moment when sometimes happened of Saint-Cloud the order to stop it.

At midday, it was with the number of the deputies who found themselves at Pierre-François Audry de Puyraveau, and, with the generals Mouton and Gerard, the deputies Mauguin and Casimir Perier, it went at the beginning of afternoon to the Palais of Tileries to require of the marshal Marmont, duke of Raguse, to stop the bloodshed. In front of the refusal of Marmont, Laffitte lined up without reserve on the side of the rioters and made of his hotel the general headquarter of the insurrection, without anything to neglect to ensure success of them.

In the morning of the July 29th, Laffitte sent Oudard to Neuilly to say to the duke of Orleans which it was urgent that it gave an opinion and joins together at his place appointed and journalists. It is at this meeting which was decided the creation of a provisional municipal commission rather than of a true provisional government. He refused to form part of it, preferring to reserve itself for a national role.

The July 30th, it was him which took the initiative to make propose to the duke of Orleans the general lieutenancy of the kingdom: this title was officially conferred to the prince the evening even, in a meeting of the deputies held with the Palate-Bourbon. At dawn, with the assistance of Thiers and the benevolent complicity of Talleyrand which, for some time put on the duke of Orleans to save the Constitutional monarchy, Laffitte directed the operation in favor of Louis-Philippe. He accepted at his place the three writers of the National : Thiers, Mignet, Carrel. It did not fear the threat Bonapartist, because the duke of Reichstadt is in Austria and the near total of the dignitaries of the Empire had adopted monarchy, but it feared that with the ceaseless arrival of the duke of Mortemart, that Charles X had just named president of the Council to replace prince de Polignac, the deputies do not let themselves allure by a Régence together with proclamation of the grandson of Charles X, the duke of Bordeaux, under the name of Henri V. to take this solution speed, they decided to proclaim without awaiting the duke of Orleans: written by Thiers and Mignet, the text was printed in the form of poster in the workshops of the National and was placarded everywhere in Paris so that the Parisian ones discover it with their alarm clock.

The July 31st, Laffitte chaired a new parliamentary meeting, and obtained the drafting of an address which the Room in body went to carry to the Palais Royal. Extremely far from joining itself the republic, that the entourage of Fayette had still the hope to see proclaiming with the assistance of the general, Laffitte could skilfully counter this risk while advising in Louis-Philippe to go to the town hall to receive there the oiling of the “hero of the two worlds”. Wounded with the leg, it accompanied the procession by the duke of Orleans carried in a chair by two Savoyard, and the passers by could notice the assignment of familiarity and benevolence with which Louis-Philippe discussed with him while walking on.

The August 3rd, the House of Commons elects as president Casimir Perier, but this one left Laffitte, arrived in second position and elected official vice-president, to exert this function in its place. It was thus under its presidency that the throne was declared vacant, that the Charter was modified and the decreed royalty with Louis-Philippe. The August 7th, Laffitte lute with the new king the declaration of the Room and the constitutional act and, the August 9th, it governed the meeting during which the king of the French lent oath.

In 1830, Laffite also financed the newspaper the National and founded the cabin “the three days” with the East of Paris, from which it was the worthy one.

Governmental responsibilities

The August 11th 1830, Jacques Laffitte entered like minister without portfolio the first ministry for the reign of Louis-Philippe I {{er}}. Because of this nomination, it had to be represented in front of its voters who renewed their confidence to him the October 21st 1830. This heteroclite team, deprived of president of the Council, was not long in dislocating itself under the internal effect of the tuggings between party of the order and party of the movement (V. Political parties under the monarchy of July). Laffite was offered then to coordinate the ministers with the quality of President of the Council, which involved the immediate resignation of doctrinary the Guizot and Broglie.

Louis-Philippe took Laffitte with the word by charging it with forming the new ministry: “If the chief must be Mr. Laffitte, says it to the duke of Broglie, I authorize to it provided that it is charged itself to choose his colleagues, and I prevent in advance that, not sharing his opinion, I could not promise to him to lend help to him. ” Whereas the expiry approached the Procès of the ministers of Charles X, claimed by the left, the king intended to raise the republican and liberal mortgage. He entrusted to the ambassador of England, Lord Stuart off Rothesay, “which he has two more medicines to take”, i.e. Jacques Laffitte (liberal) and Odilon Barrot (republican).

Laffitte, on its side, with an unquestionable naivety, believed Louis-Philippe sincerely in favor of the movement whereas, much nearer to the Doctrinaires and their theory of the “quasi-legitimacy” of the new royalty, it defied democratic spirit and agitation that it showed it to maintain. Close friend of the king of the French, Laffitte thought moreover that this one nourished for him a true sympathy because it overpowered it public marks of friendship.

The ministry was made up the November 2nd after protracted negotiations and of interminable councils of the ministers (V. Gouvernement of Jacques Laffitte). Laffitte was president of the Council and Minister for Finance.

Emblematic figure of the left the movement , Laffitte wanted to see evolving the mode resulting from the Glorious Three towards the Parlementarisme, and ultimately to the Démocratie. For that, he did not intend to oppose the revolutionary forces which continued to agitate the country. This policy agreed to its temperament: obsessed by its own popularity, Laffitte is kept to compromise it by repressive measurements. But it was not appropriate at all to the king, who, while posting with the president of the Council a friendship of frontage, worked in writing pad to discredit it.

The task of Laffitte was all the more difficult because the Procès of the ministers of Charles X (15 - December 21st 1830), which it organized with the Minister of Interior Department the count de Montalivet, where the defendants were condemned to perpetual detention, caused a riot. The cabinet was constrained to take repressive and preserving measures which alienated soon the left to him, without him to reconcile for as much the line: law conferring to the king the direct nomination of the municipalities, law on the press, maintenance of the poll tax to 300 francs, law on the civil list, resignation of Fayette of the national guard, disorders of the February 14th 1831, which involved the departure of the prefect of police, Jean-Jacques Baude, and of the prefect of the Seine, Odilon Barrot… Autant of events which returned the position of impossible Laffitte as well with respect to the opinion as with respect to the king.

The March 8th 1831, Joseph Mérilhou resigned of the ministry, considering it insufficiently favorable to the movement. The Government was confronted with a permanent agitation and an quasi-insurrectionary situation in Paris, and did not do almost anything to try to restore the order. Louis-Philippe thought of the constitution of a new ministry and envisaged to call eminent representing party of the order in the person of Casimir Perier. But au préalable, the king was to precipitate the fall of Laffitte. This one did not suspect nothing, plugged by the protests of friendship of Louis-Philippe, who did not hesitate to declare to him: “There is only one impossible thing between us, it is that we are not always together. ”

The Italian businesses were the pretext of separation. The marshal House, of his embassy of Vienna, had sent a note, arrived to Paris the March 4th, in which it indicated that the Austria was on the point of intervening militarily to repress the Italian insurrection. This prospect did not displease in Louis-Philippe, who did not see without concern two wire of Louis Bonaparte - Napoleon Louis Bonaparte and Louis Napoleon Bonaparte - fighting in the rows of the Italian insurrectionists. When the Foreign Minister, the general Sébastiani, transmitted the note of the Maison marshal to him, Louis-Philippe prohibits to him to communicate it to Laffitte (naturally favorable to the Italian insurrectionists) which taught from it to the existence in the National from the March 8th. Laffitte, made indignant, required explanations of Sébastiani which had to acknowledge that it had acted on order of the king. The president of the Council precipitated then at this one, to which it exposed its projects of military intervention in Italy. Louis-Philippe, pretending to cut off itself behind his prerogatives from constitutional monarch, invited it to make deliberate on this question the Council of Ministers, which meets the following day March 9th. Laffitte developed its program to with it, but he was unanimously repudiated by his colleagues, whose majority had already negotiated their places in the future cabinet. It any more but did not remain to tear off its resignation to him, than it put the bad one thanks to giving besides. The March 13rd 1831, it yielded the place to the Gouvernement Casimir Perier.

A constant opposition to Louis-Philippe

The resignation of Laffitte reconciled it with the opposition, in the rows of which it returned to sit at the Room. He was re-elected appointed in Bayonne the July 5th 1831 and, the same day, in the 2nd district of Paris. He chose Bayonne and was replaced in Paris by Mr. Lefebvre. One needed only one vote of them so that it succeeded Casimir Perier with the presidency of the Room, where it was beaten by Amédée Girod of Ain the 1831. Sitting on the left, it fought all the ministries which followed one another the capacity. It signed the report 1832 and formed part, the June 6th, with François Arago and Odilon Barrot, of the delegation which went to the Palais Tileries to urge the king to give to her government a more popular direction. The June 21st 1834, it was beaten in Bayonne and in the 2nd district of Paris, but it was elected in the Loire-Inférieure (Bridge-Rousseau), in the Seine-Lower (Rouen) and in the Vendée (the Bourbon-Vendée). It was again beaten in the 2nd district of Paris the November 4th 1837, but was elected the February 8th 1838 in 6th, where a seat had been released by François Arago, who had chosen Perpignan. He was then successively re-elected the March 2nd 1839 in the 3rd college of Seine-Lower (Rouen), the July 9th 1842 in the same district.

With the length of these successive legislatures, Laffitte did not cease voting with the dynastic opposition and was shown very concerned about be made forgive the contest which it had lent, at one time, with the establishment of the monarchy of July. He declared: “I request forgiveness God and the men to have contributed to the revolution of July. ” In a political banquet in Rouen, he also says: “If I were the truest partisan of the new royalty, I am not however creditor of his rise; because in a also serious circumstance, I live only the general interest”. In 1844, president as oldest member to the opening of the parliamentary session, it made a speech, disturbed by the hostile interruptions of the centers, in which it insisted on the need for holding the “promises” of the Revolution of July.

Serious reverse of fortune

Paradoxically, the come to power of Louis-Philippe, that Laffitte so much had wished and so much contributed to prepare, marked for this last the beginning of a series of political and personal reverses.

The policy had involved it with important expenditure. Moreover, its bank had lent to industrialists or at real estate companies which had gone bankrupt and had not been able to refund it. To try to restore its business, it had to sell to the king, for ten million, its forest of Breteuil, one of the jewels of its inheritance, but in spite of that, when it left the government, it was almost ruined and its political adversaries scoffed “Jacques the Bankruptcy”, wanting to see in its incapacity to manage its fortune that to lead the country. It was in the obligation to liquidate its bank the January 28th 1831. He did not escape the bankruptcy that thanks to an advance authorized by Banque de France and guarantee on his own goods. His wife was even brought to sell her diamonds.

The advance from which it profited gave him a time which enabled him to organize the sale of its Parisian private mansion (1833), as well as part of the park of its field of Maisons. Its private mansion was preserved to him by a national subscription.

In 1833, it carried out the parcelling out of the large park of the Château of Houses on the model of the English landscape allotments. It made Houses a city made up of country houses generally acquired by the Parisian fortunate ones belonging to the mediums of the businesses and the spectacle and attracted by an important publicity campaign. Laffitte made demolish the stables of the castle in order to recover of them the stones for the construction of the villas of the park. Encouraged by his son-in-law the prince of Moskowa and its nephew Charles Laffitte, it organized in Maisons the first horse-races.

In 1836, its finished liquidation, it succeeds in creating a new bank of businesses to the capital of 20 million thanks to the system of the mixed liability company, the general Case of the trade and industry J. Laffitte and C^ie. The company, intended to finance the development of the industrial companies, prototype of the investment banks which took their rise in second half of the 19th century, had only one poor success, and it fell completely after death from Laffitte. Its fortune, divided by five to six, was then estimated at 4 million.

Jacques Laffitte died in Paris the May 26th 1844, of a lung disease, at the 77 years age. More than 20.000 people pressed themselves with its funerals. Speeches were made on its tomb by Pierre Laffitte, Arago, Garnier Pagès, Visinet, Philippe Dupin and by a student. He is buried with the Cimetière of the Father-Lachaise.

Residences

1810 : 27, Street of Gramont, Paris (2 {{E}} district)
1815: 9, then 11, rue du Montblanc (become again in 1816 Street of the Roadway of Antin), Paris (9 {{E}} district)
1822: 19 (today 27), street of Artois (become in 1830, of alive sound, the Street Laffitte), with the angle of the Street of Provence, Paris (9 {{E}} district)

Judgments

“It did not have great manners, but pleasant manners, the tone posed and scoffer of an arguer of comedy, facility in all, more facility than of kindness, a vanity that the least spite made impertinent, and the carefree optimism of a man spoiled by fortune. He disarmed the most severe judges by a rather gracious good-naturedness; but it irritated most patient by its self-conceit and its thoughtlessness. ” (Charles de Rémusat)

“If he points out Necker by his formation, his optimism inébranlable and his intoxication of popularity, Laffitte does not have of it the retreat and the intelligence. ” (Benoit Yvert, COp cit. , p. 97)

Works

Memories of Laffitte (1767-1844) , published by Paul Duchon, Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1932

References

See too

Government of Jacques Laffitte

External bonds

Marc Allégret, “Jacques Laffitte”, Re-examined Napoleonean Memory , n° 438,2002, on www.napoleon.org
Jacques Marec, “Jacques Laffitte, Banker and politician (1767-1844)”, Site of the Company of the Friends of the Castle of Houses
Biographical note of Jacques Laffitte, extract of the work Ministers for Finance of the French revolution to the Second Empire , Committee for the economic and financial history of France, 2007,624 p, (ISBN 978-2-11-094807-6).

Sources

Benoit Yvert (to dir.), Prime Ministers and presidents of the Council since 1815. History and dictionary reasoned , Paris, Perrin, 2002 - ISBN 2-262-01354-3

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