Odilon Deck-beam

Biography

Resulting from a family of lawyers originating in Toulouse, wire of Jean-Andre Barrot (1753 - 1845), lawyer then magistrate who was member of the Convention but did not vote the death of the king, brother of Ferdinand Barrot and Adolphe Barrot, Odilon Barrot is initially sent to the Military academy then installed with Saint-Cyr military school, before being allowed with the Lycée Napoleon in Paris and making his right.

He is received lawyer and admitted with the bar in 1811. He works in the cabinet of a friend of his father, old conventional the Jean Mailhe, lawyer with the councils of the king and the Court of appeal. When this one is proscribed in 1814 like regicide, it obtains the exemptions necessary and succeeds to him in this office. According to Loménie, “a taste dominating for the arid areas of the strict right to an age where the passionate debates and the emotions of Court of Assizes are preferably liked revealed already this aptitude of theorist who distinguished Mr. Odilon Barrot particularly. ”

Under the Hundred Days, it raises a protest against the re-establishment of the Empire which is its first political act. “In March 1815, it told, when the government called upon the National guard of Paris, I wrote to the captain of the pomegranate company of the 4th battalion of the 11th legion, to put to me, with some friends, at his disposal. I assembled the guard in the apartments of the king, in the night of his departure. Its Majesty saw our tears and contained the dash of our enthusiasm. I am certain that this touching scene was not erased of its memory; it is engraved forever in mine. ”

Under the Second Restoration

But the Second Restoration, and particularly the white Terror, is not long in causing its disenchantment. It rejoins the rows of the opposition and becomes soon one of the influential members of the liberal party. It binds with its principal figures like Benjamin Constant, Fayette, the general Foy and several of the most famous speakers of the time and wife besides the girl of the one of them, Guillaume-Xavier Labbey de Pompières.

Protestants of a small town of midday having refused to paper the frontage of their houses for the processions of the Corpus Christi, had been condemned to a fine by the Justice of the Peace. Odilon Barrot defends them in 1818 in front of the Court of appeal and, in a plea which created sensation, lance: The law must be atheistic . It also defends Wilfrid Regnauld, implied by political resentments in a business of assassination, and pleads in the lawsuit of the Charon lieutenant-colonel.

Into 1820, being opposed to a law according to which any person could be stopped and held on a simple mandate signed by three ministers, it is translated before a court of justice, but is discharged.

Although very related to Fayette and others, it does not take any part in their projects to reverse the government, but, in 1827, it joined the association known under the name of “Aide you, the sky will help you”, where it finds Audry de Puyraveau, Béranger, Barthe, Duchâtel, Blanqui, Carrel and Guizot. He becomes the president about it and endeavors to maintain it in the ways of a peaceful and parliamentary opposition. He chairs the banquet (the famous banquet of the Vendanges of Burgundy) given by the company the 221 deputies who signed the addresses March 1830 to Charles X and threatened to answer the force by the force.

Under the monarchy of July

After the ordinances of July 26th, 1830, it joined the National guard and takes an active share with the revolution of 1830, though it did not give the signal of it and somewhat was even astonished by it. Like first secretary of the municipal commission, which settled with the town hall and constituted itself in provisional government, it receives the order to transmit to the House of Commons a protest specifying the requirements which the advanced Liberals want to impose to the new king before accepting it. It supports the idea of a Constitutional monarchy in favor of the duke of Orleans, against the Republicans, dissuading Fayette to proclaim the Republic whose presidency was offered to him by a group of young democrats taken along by Pierre Leroux.

With the marshal House and Auguste de Schonen, it is one of the three police chiefs chosen by Louis-Philippe to accompany Charles X out of France. It is very initially badly accommodated by the deposed king but ends up succeeding rather completely in its mission so that this one, in a certificate, recognizes the “attentions” and the “regards” which it had had for him and for the royal family.

On its return it is named prefect of the Seine. Its concessions with the Parisian population and its kindness towards those which require the committal for trial of the ministers of Charles X are worth him to be compared with Pétion, which was not a praise, and frequent conflicts rise between him and the ministers Doctrinaires, Guizot and Montalivet. It is revoked in February 1831.

The October 28th 1830, it is elected appointed the Eure by the college of department, and re-elected the July 5th 1831 simultaneously in the 2nd college of the Eure (Verneuil), the 2nd college of the Aisne (Chauny) and the 2nd college of the the Low-Rhine (Strasbourg) then, successively, in 1834, 1837, 1839, 1842 and 1846. The government of Louis-Philippe was far from satisfying his desires of reform and it does not cease claiming that one “widened the bases of monarchy”, at the same time as it protests of his honesty towards the dynasty because it defends the idea of a royalty surrounded by institutions republican are, and became the chief of the dynastic Opposition (monarchists constitutional of left: party of the movement).

It fights highly the ministry Perier, is in charge of the report/ratio on the re-establishment of the divorce, writes with Cormenin, in the name of the lefts, Compte-rendu celebrates it whose democratic insurrection of the 5 and June 6th 1832 is the direct consequence and, after the defeat of the republicans, raised, though monarchist, against the reprisals and the emergency regulations. The day which follows the demonstration of June 1832 at the time of the funeral of the general Lamarque, it is indirectly made the spokesperson of the democrats in an interview with Louis Philippe, whom it lengthily reports in his Mémoires (See the article republican Insurrection in Paris in June 1832). Thereafter, in its pleadings in front of the Court of appeal in favor of one of the rioters, he asks and obtains the cancellation of the judgment pronounced by the Conseil of war, in front of which the government made submit the accused while being based on an ordinance which had put Paris in state of siege.

It defends the right of association (April 1834), asked the amnesty for the insurrectionists of Lyon and fights the laws of September vainly (1834 - 1835), constantly uniting with its claims in favor of freedom the insurance of its devotion to the constitutional monarchy.

It is also one of the principal shareholders of the newspaper of opposition the Century , launched on July 1st 1836 by Armand Dutacq, the high circulation figure of the press of the time.

“Notwithstanding all its angers with the Room, writing Eugene de Mirecourt, it maintained at the bottom its heart, for the king citizen, a sympathy full with tenderness. On his side, Louis-Philippe did not keep resentment with the chief of the left. He was not mistaken with the mobile which made it act. ”

Its opposition, as that of the deputies who follow his inspirations, disarms only during the two Thiers ministries in 1836 and 1840. It forms part of the majority then. On the other hand, he fights with force against the ministry Molé, which there succeeds in reversing at the end of two years by forming a coalition remained famous (1839). He also fights the third ministry Soult and Guizot, which is the strong man, endeavouring to bring closer the dynastic opposition, the center left and the Third Left and supporting his word and his votes all the proposals made against the ministry. He votes against the allowance Pritchard and is the author of a very great number of proposals and amendments against political corruption, the invasion of the Room by deputies civils servant, etc

Death in 1842 of the duke of Orleans, which posted liberal convictions, is a heavy blow for the party of Odilon Barrot, who consequently seeks to replace the regency of the duchess of Orleans by that of the duke of Nemours if the count de Paris has suddenly succeeded his/her grandfather.

In 1846, Barrot goes on a journey to the the Middle East, but returns in time to take share second once at the preliminaries of the revolution. Partisan of the electoral reform, it is in 1847 one of the organizers of famous “the Campagne of the banquets” for the electoral reform, which contributes to cause the revolution of 1848. He attends sixteen of these meetings and, when the government wanted to put a term at it, deposits in the name of the left a resolution of committal for trial of the ministry.

He is thus in spite of him one of the craftsmen of the fall of the royalty, because he did not envisage the force of the torrent to which its eloquence prepared the way and he always studs himself with the program of 1830. The February 24th, called too tardily to form a ministry, it tries to support the regency of the duchess of Orleans in front of the room; it tries vainly, while being shown with horse on the boulevards, to calm general effervescence and to save monarchy. but it can only note that time had passed for the half-measures.

Under the Second Republic

The popular movement having gone until the proclamation of the Republic, that Barrot had not wished, it endeavors to surround it by preserving institutions. President of the general advice of Aisne and elected official by this department with the constituent Assembly the April 23rd 1848 (4th on 14 by 107.005 votes out of 130.363 voters and 154.878 registered voters), it took this time places on the right.

He is indicated by the majority to chair the board of inquiry into the events of the May 15th and over the days of June. He takes an active share with the constitutional debates and tries to make prevail the Bicamérisme (September 27th 1848). He votes for the maintenance of the state of siege, against the abolition of the capital punishment, the incompatibility of the functions, the amendment Grévy, the right to work, for the Rateau proposal, the Expédition of Rome, against the suppression of the tax of salt and of that of drinks.

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte which has just taken its president's functions of the Republic, names it ||First ministry Odilon Deck-beam|chief of the government]] and Minister for Justice the December 20th 1848. It receives the mission of preparing important restrictions on the right of meeting, freedom of the press and of defending with the platform, against the Mountain and its speaker, Ledru-Rollin, the appropriations claimed for the forwarding of Rome. It is also on its initiative that the prohibition of the clubs is voted (March 21st 1849). After the legislative elections of May 1849, it forms a second government Its convictions Libérale S, whereas the prince-president directs himself already towards an authoritative capacity, are worth to him to be returned the October 30th 1849.

In May 1849, he is elected at the legislative assembly by the department of Aisne (68 782 votes out of 112.795 voters and 160.698 registered voters) and by that of the Seine (112 675 votes out of 281.140 voters and 378.043 registered voters). It supports there in particular the law Falloux on free teaching and the law of May 31st against the vote for all.

At the time of the Coup d'etat of 1851, which it had not provided, it belongs to the two hundred and twenty deputies who, driven out manu militari of the Palate-Bourbon, meet in the town hall of Xe district and try to accuse the Prince-President of high treason before the meeting is not stopped by the police force. Briefly imprisoned it is withdrawn from the active policy.

He is elected like free member with the Academy of Science morals and political (1855) and is devoted to studies of legislation. With the liberal Empire incarnated by Emile Ollivier, it accepts, after an interview with the Palais of Tileries with Napoleon III, the presidency of a committee extra-member of Parliament charged to study the projects of decentralization (1869). He becomes regular member of the Academy of Science morals and policies in 1870.

After the fall of the Second Empire, the National Assembly names it member of the Council of State reorganized and Thiers, chief of the executive power of the French Republic, that it supported under Louis-Philippe, entrusts of it to him the presidency (July 27th 1872) with the title of vice-president who it is the first to be carried. But its forces decline and it hardly occupied its new station during one year when it dies in Bougival.

Works

Parallel to his political activity, Odilon Barrot devotes himself to the drafting of studies legal or administrative where he affirms his hostility with centralization, the primacy of moral justice defends on social justice and is anxious to associate the citizens with the exercise of justice by the generalization of the jury. He is also the author of interesting Mémoires published after his death by his friend Prosper Duvergier de Hauranne.

Of centralization and its effects, 1870
Of the legal organization in France , 1872
posthumous Memories , preceded by a foreword of Duvergier de Hauranne, Paris, Carpenter, 1875-1876, 4 vol. in-8

Famous quotations

In connection with the Devolution of the administration: “It is the same hammer which strikes, but one shortened the handle of it. ”

Judgments

“most solemn of undecided, méditatif of unwise, happiest of ambitious, most austere of the courtiers of crowd” (Paul Thureau-Dangin)

References

Sources

Adolphe Robert and Gaston Cougny, Dictionary of the French Members of Parliament , Paris, Dourloton, 1889

External bonds

Marc Nadaux, Note on Odilon Deck-beam on www.19 {{E}} .org
Note on www.genancestral.com

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