Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Barrot, Victorin Ferdinand
BARROT, Victorin Ferdinand, a brother of the late M. Odilon Barrot, and an advocate by profession, born at Paris, Jan. 10, 1806. became a member of the Chamber of Deputies in 1845. He first attracted attention by his skill in dealing with the affairs of Algeria; and on the fall of Louis Philippe, in 1848, was elected to represent that colony in the Constituent Assembly. Having acted as counsel for Louis Napoleon in the legal proceedings that arose from the attempts upon Strasburg and Boulogne, that prince, on his election to the Presidency, made him his secretary, and he acted as one of his ministers from October, 1849, to March, 1850. He was then appointed Ambassador at Turin, a post he held till the famous coup d'état, which inaugurated the Second Empire. Under the new régime, he was successively appointed a Councillor of State and a Senator, but he did not take a very prominent part in either capacity. M. Ferdinand Barrot was made Commander of the Legion of Honour, Dec. 8, 1852, and Grand Referendary of the French Senate in Jan. 1867. The events of Sept. 1870 caused him to disappear from the political arena, but he came forward as the official and Bonapartist candidate for the arrondissement of Courbevoie in 1877, when he was defeated by the Republican candidate, M. Emile Deschanel. At the close of the same year, however, he was chosen a Senator for life, in the place of M. Pierre Lanfrey.