Prosper Duvergier de Hauranne
Prosper Duvergier de Hauranne (3 August 1798 – 20 May 1881) was a French journalist and politician.
Biography
Son of Jean-Marie Duvergier de Hauranne and Victoire Quesnel, Prosper Duvergier de Hauranne was Born in Rouen. He was deputy for Sancerre in 1831 and contributed articles to the Globe, to La Revue française, and to the Revue des deux Mondes. As a writer, he befriended Stendhal and Victor Hugo; as a politician, he championed the cause of parliamentary monarchy.
After graduating from law school, he frequented literary circles and wrote a few comedies that were not very successful: Les Marineurs écossais ou une matinée (1820), M. Sensible (1821) and Le jaloux sans le savoir. He was attracted to the political world and stayed with his childhood friend Camille de Montalivet in England and Scotland in 1820 and 1821, from where they came back seduced by his political regime, as evidenced by the Lettres sur les élections anglaises et sur la situation de l’Irlande ("Letters on the English elections and on the Situation of Ireland"), which he published in 1826.
In 1827, having become the husband of the daughter of Baron Micoud d'Umons, he then divided his time between Paris and the Château d'Herry in the Cher department. Every summer, he received politicians, writers or philosophers there, including Barrot, Thiers, Guizot, Rémusat, Stendhal. Before any reformist and liberal, he fought the restoration of the Bourbons and supported the regime of Louis Philippe. He was elected deputy for Cher from 1831. But, after having first supported Louis-Philippe’s policy of repression, criticizing royal omnipotence, he approached Thiers and Guizot. In his book Des Principes du gouvernement représentatif et de leurs applications ("The Principles of Representative Government and Their Applications"), published in 1838, he formulated the famous maxim: "The king reigns and does not govern".
On account of his political views diverging from those of his friend Montalivet, the relations between the two men cooled for some time. From 1837, he was part of the opposition to Molé and Guizot. In 1848, Thiers offered him an ephemeral ministerial portfolio on the eve of the Revolution and the coming to power of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, whom he opposed, being part of the anti-republican right at the Constituent Assembly. in 1848. He protested against the recognition of the right to work by the republic, evoking "a way which leads to the destruction of society". He fought the Élysée policy at the Legislative Assembly in 1850. At the time of the coup d'état, he was arrested, locked up in Mazas and then briefly exiled.
Authorized to return to France in 1852, Duvergier de Hauranne avoided public life and devoted himself to his political writings, including a Histoire du gouvernement parlementaire en France ("History of Parliamentary Government in France"; 1857-1871). This work earned him a seat at the French Academy in 1870, succeeding the Duke of Broglie.
Two of his granddaughters successively married Charles-Louis Masson-Bachasson de Montalivet, officer and vice-president of the French Red Cross, and grandson of Count Camille de Montalivet.
Works
- Des Principes du gouvernement représentatif (1838)
- De la Politique extérieure et intérieure de la France (1841)
- De la Réforme parlementaire et de la réforme électorale (1846)
- Histoire du gouvernement parlementaire en France (10 vol.; 1857-1870)
External links
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| Preceded by | Seat 24 of the Académie française 1870-1881 |
Succeeded by Sully Prudhomme |
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