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| death_date = {{death date and age|1896|6|8|1814|12|31|df=y}}
| death_place = Paris
| party = [[Moderate Republicans (France, 1848–1870)|Moderate Republican]] (
| signature = Unterschrift Jules Simon (1814-1896).png
}}
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==Biography==
Simon was born at [[Lorient]]. His father was a linen-draper from [[Lorraine (province)|Lorraine]], who renounced Protestantism before his second marriage with a Catholic [[Brittany|Breton]]. Jules Simon was the son of this second marriage. The family name was Suisse, which Simon dropped in favour of his third forename. By considerable sacrifice he was enabled to attend a seminary at [[Vannes]], and worked briefly as usher in a school before, in 1833, he became a student at the [[École Normale Supérieure]] in [[Paris, France|Paris]]. There he came in contact with [[Victor Cousin]], who sent him to [[Caen]] and then to [[Versailles, Yvelines|Versailles]] to teach philosophy. He helped Cousin, without receiving any recognition, in his translations from [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]], and in 1839 became his deputy in the chair of philosophy at the [[University of Paris]], with the meagre salary of 83 francs per month. He also lectured on the [[history of philosophy]] at the [[École normale supérieure (Paris)|École Normale Supérieure]].
At this period he edited the works of [[Nicolas Malebranche]] (2 vols, 1842), of [[René Descartes]] (1842), [[Jacques Benigne Bossuet|Bossuet]] (1842) and of [[Antoine Arnauld]] (1843), and in 1844–1845 appeared the two volumes of his ''Histoire de l'école d'Alexandrie''. He became a regular contributor to the ''[[Revue des deux mondes]]'', and in 1847, with [[Amédée Jacques]] and [[Émile Saisset]], 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.
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In 1848 he represented the Côtes-du-Nord in the National Assembly, and next year entered the [[Conseil d'État (France)|Council of State]], but was retired on account of his republican opinions. His refusal to take the oath of allegiance to the government of [[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 [[Seine (département)|Seine]] ''[[département]]'', and supported "les Cinq" (Darimon, [[Jules Favre|Favre]], Hénon, [[Émile Ollivier|Ollivier]] and [[Ernest Picard|Picard]]) in their opposition to the government. He became minister of instruction in the [[Government of National Defense]] on 5 September 1870. After the capitulation of Paris in January 1871 he was sent down to [[Bordeaux]] to prevent the resistance of [[Léon Gambetta]] to the peace. But at Bordeaux, Gambetta, who had issued a proclamation excluding from the elections those who had been officials under the Empire, was all-powerful. Pretending to dispute Jules Simon's credentials, he issued orders for his arrest. Meanwhile, Simon had found means of communication with Paris, and on 6 February was reinforced by [[Eugène Pelletan]], [[Emmanuel Arago|E. Arago]] and [[Etienne Joseph Louis Garnier-Pages|Garnier-Pages]]. Gambetta resigned, and the ministry of the Interior, though nominally given to Arago, was really in Simon's hands.
== Third Republic ==
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Defeated in the département of the Seine<!-- which elections? February 1871? -->, he sat for the [[Marne (department)|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 [[Félix Dupanloup|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
His clerical enemies then induced [[Patrice Maurice de Mac-Mahon|Marshal MacMahon]] to take advantage of a vote on the press law carried in Jules Simon's absence from the Chamber to write him a letter regretting that he no longer preserved his influence in the Chamber, and thus practically demanding his resignation. His resignation in response to this act of the president, known as the "[[Seize Mai]]", which he might have resisted by an appeal to the Chamber, proved his ruin, and he never again held office. He justified his action by his fear of providing an opportunity for a ''coup d'état'' on the part of the Marshal. However, the May 1877 crisis eventually ended in MacMahon's demise and in the victory of the Republicans over the monarchist [[Orleanist]]s and [[Legitimist]]s.
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