Jules Simon

Jules Simon
Albert, duc de Broglie
Personal details
Born	31 December 1814 Opportunist Republican (1871–1896)
Signature

Jules François Simon (French pronunciation:

.

Biography

Simon was born at

.

At this period he edited the works of

, founded the Liberté de penser, with the intention of throwing off the yoke of Cousin, but he retired when Jacques allowed the insertion of an article advocating the principles of collectivism, with which he was at no time in sympathy.

Political career from 1848 to 1871

In 1848 he represented the Côtes-du-Nord in the National Assembly, and next year entered the

Louis Napoleon

after the coup d'état was followed by his dismissal from his professorship, and he devoted himself to philosophical and political writings of a popular order. Le Devoir (1853), which was translated into modern Greek and Swedish, was followed by La Religion naturelle (1856, Eng. trans., 1887), La Liberté de conscience (1857), La Liberté politique (1859), La Liberté civile (1859), L'Ouvrière (1861), L'Ecole (1864), Le Travail (1866), L'Ouvrier de huit ans (1867) and others.

In 1863 he was returned to the Corps Législatif for the 8th circonscription of the

Garnier-Pages

. Gambetta resigned, and the ministry of the Interior, though nominally given to Arago, was really in Simon's hands.

Third Republic

Defeated in the département of the Seine, he sat for the Marne in the National Assembly, and resumed the portfolio of Education in the first cabinet of Adolphe Thiers's presidency. He advocated free primary education yet sought to conciliate the clergy by all the means in his power; but no concessions removed the hostility of Dupanloup, who presided over the commission appointed to consider his draft of an elementary education bill. The reforms he was actually able to carry out were concerned with secondary education. He encouraged the study of living languages, and limited the attention given to the making of Latin verse; he also encouraged independent methods at the École Normale, and set up a school at Rome where members of the French school of Athens should spend some time.

He retained office until a week before the fall of Thiers in 1873. He was regarded by the monarchical right as one of the most dangerous obstacles in the way of a restoration, which he did as much as any man (except perhaps the

, was summoned to form a cabinet. He replaced anti-republican functionaries in the civil service by republicans, and held his own until 3 May 1877, when he adopted a motion carried by a large majority in the Chamber inviting the cabinet to use all means for the repression of clerical agitation.

His clerical enemies then induced

.

The rejection (1880) of article 7 of

from 1890.

Works

His own accounts of some of the events in which he had been involved appear in Souvenirs du 4 septembre (1874), Le Gouvernement de M. Thiers (2 vols., 1878), in Mémoires des autres (1889), Nouveaux mémoires des autres (1891) and Les Derniers mémoires des autres (1897), while his sketch of Victor Cousin (1887) was a further contribution to contemporary history. For his personal history, the Premiers mémoires (1900) and Le Soir de ma journée (1902), edited by his son Gustave Simon, may be supplemented by Léon Séché's Figures bretonnes, Jules Simon, sa vie, son œuvre (new ed., 1898), and Georges Picot, Jules Simon: notice historique (1897); also by many references to periodical literature and collected essays in Hugo Paul Thieme's Guide bibliographique de la littérature française de 1800 à 1906 (1907).

Simon's Ministry, 12 December 1876 – 17 May 1877

• Jules Simon –
  Minister of the Interior
• Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Minister of War
• Minister of Finance
• Minister of Justice
  and Worship
• Minister of Marine and Colonies
• Minister of Public Instruction
• Albert Christophle – Minister of Public Works
• Pierre Teisserenc de Bort – Minister of Agriculture and Commerce

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Simon, Jules François". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 125.

External links

• Works by Jules Simon at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

Political offices
Preceded by Jules Dufaure	Prime Minister of France 1876–1877	Succeeded by Duc de Broglie