Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin (; 2 February 1807 – 31 December 1874) was a
French lawyer, politician and one of the leaders of the
French Revolution of 1848.
Youth
The grandson of
Nicolas Philippe Ledru, the celebrated quack doctor known as "Comus" under
Louis XV and
Louis XVI, Ledru-Rollin was born in Paris. He had just begun to practice at the Parisian bar before the
Revolution of July 1830 and was retained for the Republican defence in most of the great political trials of the next ten years. In 1838, he bought for 330,000 francs
Désiré Dalloz
Désiré Dalloz (12 August 1795 – 12 January 1869) was a French jurist, politician and publisher.
Life
Born in Septmoncel, Jura, he pursued the profession of an advocate. He was admitted to the bar of the Cour royale in 1817, and practiced ...
's place in the Court of Cassation. He was elected deputy for
Le Mans
Le Mans (, ) is a city in northwestern France on the Sarthe River where it meets the Huisne. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le ...
in 1841 with little opposition; but the violence of his electoral speeches led to his being tried at
Angers
Angers (, , ) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Anjou until the French Revolution. The inhabitants of both the city and the prov ...
and sentenced to four months' imprisonment and a fine, against which he appealed successfully on a technical point.
Under
Louis Philippe he made large contributions to French jurisprudence, editing the ''Journal du palais, 1791–1837'' (27 you., 1837) and 1837–1847 (17 vols.), with a commentary ''Repertoire général de la jurisprudence française'' (8 vols., 1843–1848), the introduction to which was written by himself. His later writings were political in character. See ''Ledru-Rollin, ses discours et ses écrits politiques'' (2 vols., Paris, 1879), edited by his widow.
Politics
He made a rich and romantic marriage in 1843 and, in 1846, disposed of his charge at the Court of Cassation to give his time entirely to politics. He was now the recognized leader of the working-men of France. He had more authority in the country than in the Chamber, where the violence of his oratory diminished its effect. He asserted that the fortifications of Paris were directed against liberty, not against foreign invasion, and he stigmatized the law of regency (1842) as an audacious usurpation.
Neither from official
liberalism nor from the press did he receive support; even the republican ''National'' was opposed to him because of his championship of labour. He therefore founded ''La Réforme'', in which to advance his propaganda. Between Ledru-Rollin and
Odilon Barrot
Camille Hyacinthe Odilon Barrot (; 19 July 1791 – 6 August 1873) was a French politician who was briefly head of the council of ministers under President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in 1848–49.
Early life
Barrot was born at Villefort, Lozè ...
with the other chiefs of the "dynastic Left" there were acute differences, hardly dissimulated even during the temporary alliance which produced the campaign of the banquets.
1848
It was the speeches of Ledru-Rollin and
Louis Blanc at working-men's banquets in
Lille
Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the No ...
,
Dijon
Dijon (, , ) (dated)
* it, Digione
* la, Diviō or
* lmo, Digion is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population of 156,920.
The earlie ...
and
Chalons that heralded the
revolution of 1848. Ledru-Rollin prevented the appointment of the duchess of Orleans as regent in 1848. He and
Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine (; 21 October 179028 February 1869), was a French author, poet, and statesman who was instrumental in the foundation of the Second Republic and the continuation of the Tricolore as the flag of France. ...
held the tribune in the Chamber of Deputies until the Parisian populace stopped serious discussion by invading the Chamber. He was minister of the interior in the provisional government, and was also a member of the executive committee appointed by the Constituent Assembly, from which
Louis Blanc and the extremists were excluded. At the
crisis of 15 May, he definitively sided with Lamartine and the party of order against the
proletariat
The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philo ...
.
Henceforward his position was a difficult one. He never regained his influence with the working classes, who considered they had been betrayed; but to his short ministry belongs the credit of the establishment of a working system of universal suffrage. At the
presidential election in December he was put forward as the
Socialist candidate, but secured only 370,000 votes. Ledru-Rollin led
the Mountain, a republican grouping, to the
1849 legislative election, and secured 25% of the vote. His opposition to the policy of President
Louis Napoleon, especially his Roman policy, led to his moving the impeachment of the president and his ministers. The motion was defeated, and the next day (13 June 1849) he headed what he called a peaceful demonstration, and his enemies armed insurrection.
Exile and final years
Ledru-Rollin himself escaped to London where he joined the executive of the revolutionary committee of Europe, with
Lajos Kossuth
Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva (, hu, udvardi és kossuthfalvi Kossuth Lajos, sk, Ľudovít Košút, anglicised as Louis Kossuth; 19 September 1802 – 20 March 1894) was a Hungarian nobleman, lawyer, journalist, polit ...
and
Giuseppe Mazzini
Giuseppe Mazzini (, , ; 22 June 1805 – 10 March 1872) was an Italian politician, journalist, and activist for the unification of Italy (Risorgimento) and spearhead of the Italian revolutionary movement. His efforts helped bring about the i ...
among his colleagues. He was accused of complicity in an obscure attempt (1857) against the life of
Napoleon III of France, and condemned in his absence to deportation.
Émile Ollivier
Olivier Émile Ollivier (; 2 July 182520 August 1913) was a French statesman. Starting as an avid republican opposed to Emperor Napoleon III, he pushed the Emperor toward liberal reforms and in turn came increasingly into Napoleon's grip. He en ...
removed the exceptions from the general amnesty in 1870, and Ledru-Rollin returned to France after twenty years of exile. Though elected in 1871 in three departments he refused to sit in the National Assembly, and took no serious part in politics until 1874 when he was returned to the Assembly as member for
Vaucluse.
Ledru-Rollin died in
Fontenay-aux-Roses
Fontenay-aux-Roses () is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.
In 1880 a girls school École Normale Supérieure was opened in the town. It was one of the most prestigious of Paris and ...
.
There is currently an avenue as well as a
Paris Métro station named
Ledru-Rollin.
Quote
Some variation of the following is often attributed to Ledru-Rollin:
* "There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader."
* "There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them"
* "''Eh! je suis leur chef, il fallait bien les suivre.''" "Ah well! I am their leader, I really ought to follow them!"
The quote is probably
apocryphal
Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...
.
[Suzy Platt, ed. ''Respectfully quoted: a dictionary of quotations'' (Barnes & Noble, 1993), p. 194.]
Notes
References
*
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ledru-Rollin, Alexandre Auguste
1807 births
1874 deaths
19th-century heads of state of France
Politicians from Paris
The Mountain (1849) politicians
Heads of state of France
French interior ministers
Members of the 5th Chamber of Deputies of the July Monarchy
Members of the 6th Chamber of Deputies of the July Monarchy
Members of the 7th Chamber of Deputies of the July Monarchy
Members of the 1848 Constituent Assembly
Members of the National Legislative Assembly of the French Second Republic
Members of the National Assembly (1871)
French people of the Revolutions of 1848
French republicans
Forty-Eighters
Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery