COUNT JACQUES

See also:

• CLAUDE, JEAN (1619-1687)

CLAUDE

See also:

• COUNT JACQUES CLAUDE BEUGNOT (1761—1835)

BEUGNOT (1761—1835)  , French politician, was born at Bar-sur-Aube . A magistrate under the old regime, he was elected deputy to the Legislative Assembly (1791), then to the Convention . He was involved in the proscription of the Girondists and imprisoned until the 9th Thermidor . He next entered into relations with the family of Bonaparte, and in 1799, after the 18th Brumaire, again entered politics, becoming successively prefect of the lower Seine, councillor of state, and finance minister to Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia . In 18o8 Beugnot, who had mean-while been appointed administrator of the duchy of Berg-Cleves, received the cross of officer of the Legion of Honour with the title of count . He returned to France in 1813, after the battle of Leipzig, and was made prefect of the department of Nord . In 1814 he was a member of the provisional government as minister of the interior; and by Louis XVIII. he was named director-general of police and afterwards minister of marine . He followed Louis to Ghent during the Hundred Days, and became r1 one of his confidants . He contributed to draw up Louis's charter, and in his memoirs boasted of having furnished the text of the proclamation addressed by the king to the French people before his return to France; but it is known now that it was another text that was adopted . Lacking the support of the ultra-royalists, he was given the title of minister of state without portfolio, which was equivalent to a retirement . Elected deputy, he attached himself to the moderate party, and defended the liberty of the press . In 1831 Louis Philippe made him a peer of France and director-general of manufactures and commerce .

He died on the 24th of

June 1835 . His son, AUGUSTE ARTHUR BEUGNOT (1797–1865), was an historian and scholar, who published an Essai sur les institutions de Saint Louis (1821), Histoire de la destruction du paganisme en occident (2 vols., 1885), and edited the Olim of the parlement of Paris, the Assizes of Jerusalem, and the Coutumes de Beauvoisis of Philippe de Beaumanoir . He was a member of the chamber of peers under Louis Philippe, and opposed Villemain's plan for freedom of education . After 1848 he maintained the same role, acting as reporter of the loi Falloux . He retired from public life after the coup d'etat of Napoleon III., and died on the 15th of March 1865 . The Memoires of J . C . Beugnot were published by his grandson, Count Albert Beugnot (2nd ed., Paris, 1868) ; see H . Wallon, Eloges academiques (1882); and E . Dejean, Un Prefet du Consulat: J . C . Beugnot (Paris, 1907) .

BEUL$,

CHARLES ERNEST (1826–1874), French archaeologist and politician, was born at Saumur on the 29th of June 1826 . He was educated at the Ecole Normale, and after having held the professorship of rhetoric at Moulins for a year, was sent to Athens in 1851 as one of the professors in the I cole Francaise there . He had the good fortune to discover the propylaea of the Acropolis, and his work, L'Acropole d' Athenes (2nd ed., 1863), was published by order of the minister of public instruction . On his return to France, promotion and distinctions followed rapidly upon his first successes . He was made doctor of letters, chevalier of the Legion of Honour, professor of archaeology at the Bibliotheque Imperiale, member of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and perpetual secretary of the Academic des Beaux-Arts . He took great interest in political affairs, with which the last few years of his life were entirely occupied . Elected a member of the National Assembly in 1871, he zealously supported the Orleanist party . In May–November 1873 he was minister of the interior in the Broglie ministry . He died by his own hand on the 4th of April 1874 . His other important works are: Etudes sur he Peloponnese (2nd ed., 1875); Les Monnaies d'Athenes (1858); L'Architecture au siecle de Pisistrate (186o); Fouilles a Carthage (1861) . Beule was also the author of high-class popular works on artistic and historical subjects: Histoire de fart grec avant Pericles (2nd ed., 187o);; Le Proces des Cesars (1867-187o, in four parts; Auguste, sa famine et ses amis; Tibere et l'heritage d'Auguste; Le Sang de Germanicus; Titus et sa dynastie) . See Ideville, Monsieur Beule, Souvenirs personnels (1874) .