Charles-François Lebrun

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Charles-François Lebrun, duc de Plaisance
)
Charles-François Lebrun
Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès
Preceded byRoger Ducos (as Provisional Consul)
Succeeded byRepublic abolished
Member of the Council of Five Hundred
In office
22 August 1795 – 9 November 1799
Member of the National Constituent Assembly
In office
9 July 1789 – 30 September 1791
Member of the Estates General for the Third Estate
In office
6 May 1789 – 6 June 1789
ConstituencyDourdan
Personal details
Born19 March 1739
Saint-Sauveur-Lendelin, Normandy, Kingdom of France
Died16 June 1824 (1824-06-17) (aged 85)
Sainte-Mesme, Yvelines, Kingdom of France
Resting placePère Lachaise Cemetery
SpouseAnne Delagoutte
ChildrenAnne-Charles Lebrun, 2nd duc de Plaisance
Alexander Lebrun
Sophie-Eugenie Lebrun
Auguste-Charles Lebrun
Dorothée Lebrun

Charles-François Lebrun, 1st

Napoleon I
.

Biography

Ancien Régime

Born in

Inspector General of the Domains of the Crown (1768).[1]

During the early 1760s, Lebrun became a disciple of

Montesquieu and an admirer of the British Constitution, travelling through Southern Netherlands, the Dutch Republic, and finally to the Kingdom of Great Britain (where he witnessed the debates in the London Parliament).[citation needed
]

He became one of

philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau. During the cabinet of Jacques Necker, he was consulted on several occasions, but never appointed to high office.[1]

Constituent Assembly and provincial politics

At the outbreak of the

]

After the voting of the

Lebrun retired from this position on 7 August 1792, and again retired to Dourdan. Three days later, the

French Republic by the creation of the National Convention. Lebrun further aroused the indignation of republicans when he accepted to represent Dourdan in the electoral college of Seine-et-Oise which nominated deputies to the Convention.[citation needed
]

Terror, Thermidor, and Directory

A suspect during the

representative on mission to Seine-et-Oise); the second time in June 1794 (paradoxically, on orders from the same Crassous) – threatened with the guillotine, he was saved by a relative of his who stole his record of prosecution, thus causing a delay long enough for Lebrun to be saved by the Thermidorian Reaction.[citation needed
]

In 1795, Lebrun was elected as a deputy to the French Directory's Council of Ancients and,[1] although a supporter of the House of Bourbon, he voted against prosecutions of Jacobins, and showed himself in favour of national reconciliation.[citation needed]

Consulate, Empire, and Restoration

The Three Consuls (Lebrun, right)
Histoire Naturelle, 1810 – one of the paintings recently installed in the entrance of Herengracht 40 in Amsterdam, this one with the portrait of Charles-François LeBrun, Napoleon's governor of the Netherlands
Mansion of Lebrun on Herengracht 40, Amsterdam
Tomb of Charles-François Lebrun

Lebrun was made

18 Brumaire coup in the Year VIII (9–10 November 1799; see French Consulate). In this capacity, he took an active part in Napoleon's reorganization of the national finances and in the administration of France's départements. He was made a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1803, and in 1804, he was appointed Arch-Treasurer of the French Empire. From 1805 to 1806, he was governor-general of Liguria, during which time he completed its annexation by France.[1]

He opposed Napoleon's restoration of the

duché grand-fief, extinguished in 1926.[citation needed] From 1811 to 1813, he served as governor-general of a part of the annexed Netherlands, reorganizing its départementsZuyderzée and Bouches-de-la-Meuse.[1] He was assisted by Antoine de Celles and Goswin de Stassart.[citation needed
]

Although to a certain extent opposed to the

Louis XVIII made him a Peer of France, but during the subsequent Hundred Days, he accepted from Napoleon the post of grand maître de l'Université. As a consequence, he was suspended from the House of Peers when the Bourbons returned again in 1815, but was recalled in 1819. He died five years later in Sainte-Mesme (then in Seine-et-Oise, now in Yvelines).[1]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Chisholm 1911, p. 352.

References

  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainChisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lebrun, Charles François". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 352. Endnotes:
    • Auguste-Armand de la Force
      , L'Architrésorier Lebrun (Paris, 1907)
    • M. Marie du Mesnil, Memoire sur le prince Le Brun, due de Plaisance (Paris, 1828)
    • ed. Anne-Charles Lebrun (Lebrun's son), Opinions, rapports et choix d'écrits politiques de C. F. Lebrun (1829)

External links

French nobility
Preceded by
Title Created
Duc de Plaisance
1808–1824
Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by
Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès
(Second Consul)
Succeeded by
Office abolished