Joseph Fouché
Joseph Fouché, 1st Duc d'Otrante, 1st Comte Fouché (French pronunciation: [ʒozɛf fuʃe], 21 May 1759 – 25 December 1820) was a French statesman, revolutionary, and Minister of Police under First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, who later became a subordinate of Emperor Napoleon. He was particularly known for the ferocity with which he suppressed the Lyon insurrection during the Revolution in 1793 and for being minister of police under the Directory, the Consulate, and the Empire. In 1815, he served as President of the Executive Commission, which was the provisional government of France installed after the abdication of Napoleon. In English texts, his title is often translated as Duke of Otranto.
Joseph Fouché
Office created
Office abolished
(Talleyrand as Prime Minister)
Claude Sébastien Bourguignon-Dumolard
Jean, comte Pelet de la Lozère
Jean, comte Pelet de la Lozère
21 May 1759
Le Pellerin, Kingdom of France
26 December 1820 (aged 61)
Trieste, Austrian Empire
(now Italy)
Jacobin (1789–1795)
Girondist (1792–1793)
Montagnard (1793–1794)
Thermidorian (1794–1799)
Bonapartist (1799–1814)
Youth[edit]
Fouché was born in Le Pellerin, a small village near Nantes. His mother was Marie Françoise Croizet (1720–1793), and his father was Julien Joseph Fouché (1719–1771). He was educated at the college of the Oratorians at Nantes, and showed aptitude for literary and scientific studies. Wanting to become a teacher, he was sent to an institution kept by brethren of the same order in Paris. There he made rapid progress, and was soon appointed to tutorial duties at the colleges of Niort, Saumur, Vendôme, Juilly and Arras. There he was initiated into Freemasonry at "Sophie Madeleine" lodge in 1788.[1][2] At Arras he had had some encounters with Maximilien Robespierre (and his sister Charlotte) both before the revolution and in the early days of the French Revolution (1789).[3]
In October 1790, he was transferred by the Oratorians to their college at Nantes, in an attempt to control his advocacy of revolutionary principles - however, Fouché became even more of a democrat. His talents and anti-clericalism brought him into favour with the population of Nantes, especially after he became a leading member of the local Jacobin Club. When the college of the Oratorians was dissolved in May 1792, Fouché left the Oratorians, having never taken any major vows.[3]
Directory[edit]
The ensuing movement in favour of more merciful methods of government threatened to sweep away the group of politicians who had been mainly instrumental in carrying through the coup d'état.[5] Nonetheless, largely because of Fouché's intrigues, they remained in power for a time after July. This also brought divisions in the Thermidor group, which soon became almost isolated, with Fouché spending all his energy on countering the attacks of the moderates. He was himself denounced by François Antoine de Boissy d'Anglas on 9 August 1795, which caused his arrest, but the Royalist rebellion of 13 Vendémiaire Year IV aborted his execution, and he was released in the amnesty which followed the proclamation of the Constitution of 5 Fructidor.
In the ensuing Directory government (1795–1799), Fouché remained at first in obscurity, but the relations he had with the far left, once headed by Chaumette and now by François-Noël Babeuf, helped him to rise once more. He is said to have betrayed Babeuf's plot of 1796 to the Director Paul Barras; however, later research tended to throw doubt on the assertion.[5]
His rise from poverty was slow, but in 1797 he gained an appointment dealing with military supplies, which offered considerable opportunities for making money. After first offering his services to the Royalists, whose movement was then gathering force, he again decided to support the Jacobins and Barras. In Pierre François Charles Augereau's anti-Royalist coup d'état of Fructidor 1797, Fouché offered his services to Barras, who in 1798 appointed him French ambassador to the Cisalpine Republic. In Milan, he was judged so high-handed that he was removed, but he was able for a time to hold his own and to intrigue successfully against his successor.[5]
Early in 1799, he returned to Paris, and after a brief stint as ambassador at The Hague, he became minister of police at Paris on 20 July 1799. The newly elected director, Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, wanted to curb the excesses of the Jacobins, who had recently reopened their club. Fouché closed the Jacobin Club in a daring manner, hunting down those pamphleteers and editors, whether Jacobins or Royalists, who were influential critics of the government, so that at the time of the return of general Napoleon Bonaparte from the Egyptian campaign (October 1799), the ex-Jacobin was one of the most powerful men in France.[5]
Hundred Days and Bourbon restoration[edit]
Soon Napoleon escaped from Elba and made his way in triumph to Paris. Shortly before his arrival in Paris (19 March 1815), Louis XVIII sent Fouché an offer of the ministry of police, which he declined: "It is too late; the only plan to adopt is to retreat". He then foiled an attempt by Royalists to arrest him, and on the arrival of Napoleon he received for the third time the portfolio of police. That, however, did not prevent him from entering into secret relations with the Austrian statesman Klemens Wenzel von Metternich in Vienna, his aim being to prepare for all eventualities. Meanwhile, he used all his powers to induce the emperor to democratize his rule, and he is said to have caused the insertion of the words: "the sovereignty resides in the people—it is the source of power" in the declaration of the Conseil d'État. But the autocratic tendencies of Napoleon could not be overridden, and Fouché, seeing the fall of the emperor to be imminent, took measures to expedite it and secure his own interests.[18]
In 1814, Fouché had joined the invading allies and conspired against Napoleon. However, he joined Napoléon again during his return and was police minister during the latter's short-lived reign, the Hundred Days. After Napoléon's ultimate defeat in the Battle of Waterloo, Fouché again started plotting against Napoleon and joined the opposition of the parliament. He headed the provisional government and tried to negotiate with the allies. He probably also aimed at establishing a republic with himself as head of state, with the help of some Republican freemasons.[15] These plans were never realised, and the Bourbons regained power in July 1815. And again, Fouché's services were necessary: as Talleyrand, another notorious intrigant, became the prime minister of the Kingdom of France, Fouché was named his minister of police: so he was a minister of King Louis XVIII, the brother of Louis XVI.
Ironically, Fouché had voted for the death sentence after the trial of Louis XVI. Thus, he belonged to the regicides, and ultra-royalists both within the cabinet and without could hardly tolerate him as a member of the government. Fouché, once a revolutionary using extreme terror against the Bourbon supporters, now initiated a campaign of White Terror against real and imagined enemies of the Royalist restoration (officially directed against those who had plotted and supported Napoléon's return to power). Even Prime Minister Talleyrand disapproved of such practices, including the execution of Michel Ney and compiling proscription lists of other military men and former republican politicians. Famous, or rather infamous, is the conversation between Fouché and Lazare Carnot, who had been interior minister during the Hundred Days:
Carnot: "Where should I go then, traitor?"
Fouché: "Go where you want, imbecile!"[20]
Fouché was soon relegated to the post of French ambassador in Saxony; Talleyrand himself lost his portfolio soon after, having been Prime Minister from 9 July to 26 September 1815. In 1816, the royalist authorities found Fouché's further services useless, and he was proscribed. He died in exile in Trieste in 1820.
Joseph Fouché, 1st Duc d'Otrante, was a son of Julien Joseph Fouché (1719 – 1771) and wife Marie Françoise Croizet (1720 – 1793).
By his first marriage in September 1792 to Bonne Jeanne Coiquaud (1 April 1763 – 8 October 1812), he had seven children:[21][22]
By his second marriage to Ernestine de Castellane-Majastres (5 July 1788 – 4 May 1850), he had no children.