Jules Simon: Difference between revisions

{{Use dmy dates|date=OctoberSeptember 20112021}}

| name = Jules Simon

|order office =38th [[Prime Minister of France]]

|term_end term_start =17 May12 December 18771876

|successor president = =[[Albert, ducPatrice de BroglieMacMahon]]

|death_place birth_place = [[ParisLorient]]

'''Jules François Simon''' ({{IPA-fr|ʒyl simɔ̃}}; 31 December 1814<ref name='birthdate'>{{cite news|title=Jules Simon|date=1 December 2009|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/545192/Jules-Francois-Simon|accessdateaccess-date=1 December 2009}}</ref> – 8 June 1896) was a French statesman and philosopher, and one of the leaderleaders of the [[Opportunist Republicans|Moderate Republicans]] factionin the [[Third French Republic]].

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]].

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.

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 {{lang|fra|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 [[comte de Chambord]] himself) to prevent, but by the extreme left he was distrusted for his moderate views, and Gambetta never forgave his victory at Bordeaux. In 1875, he became a member of the [[Académie françaiseFrançaise]] and a [[senatorSenator for life (France)|life senator]], and in 1876, on the resignation of [[Jules Dufaure]], 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 [[Marie Edme Patrice Maurice de MacMahonMac-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.

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. {{lang|fra|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'' (I9001900) and ''Le Soir de ma journée'' (1902), edited by his son Gustave Simon, may be supplemented by [[LeonLéon SecheSéché]]'s ''Figures bretonnes, Jules Simon, sa vie, son œuvre'' (new ed., 1898), and G[[Georges Picot]], ''Jules Simon: notice historique'' (1897); also by many references to periodical literature and collected essays in [[Hugo PPaul Thieme]]'s ''Guide bibliographique de la litt.littérature française de 1800 aà 1906'' (1907).

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[[Category:PeoplePoliticians from Lorient]]

[[Category:French Lifelife Senatorssenators]]

[[Category:Members of the Académie françaiseFrançaise]]