1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Jaucourt, Arnail François, Marquis de

JAUCOURT, ARNAIL FRANÇOIS, Marquis de (1757–1852), French politician, was born on the 14th of November 1757 at Tournon (Seine-et-Marne) of a Protestant family, protected by the prince de Condé, whose regiment he entered. He adopted revolutionary ideas and became colonel of his regiment. In the Assembly, to which he was returned in 1791 by the department of Seine-et-Marne, he voted generally with the minority, and his views being obviously too moderate for his colleagues he resigned in 1792 and was soon after arrested on suspicion of being a reactionary. Mme de Staël procured his release from P. L. Manuel just before the September massacres. He accompanied Talleyrand on his mission to England, returning to France after the execution of Louis XVI. He lived in retirement until the establishment of the Consulate, when he entered the tribunate, of which he was for some time president. In 1803 he entered the senate, and next year became attached to the household of Joseph Bonaparte. Presently his imperialist views cooled, and at the Restoration he became minister of state and a peer of France. At the second Restoration he was for a brief period minister of marine, but held no further office. He devoted himself to the support of the Protestant interest in France. A member of the upper house throughout the reign of Louis Philippe, he was driven into private life by the establishment of the Second Republic, but lived to see the Coup d’état and to rally to the government of Louis Napoleon, dying in Paris on the 5th of February 1852.