LEON

See also:

• VICTOR
• VICTOR, GAIUS JULIUS (4th cent. A.D.)
• VICTOR, SEXTUS AURELIUS

VICTOR AUGUSTE

See also:

• BOURGEOIS
• LEON VICTOR AUGUSTE BOURGEOIS (1851– )

BOURGEOIS (1851– )  , French statesman, was born at Paris on the 21st of May 1851, and was educated for the law . After holding a subordinate office (1876) in the department of public works, he became successively prefect of the Tarn (1882) and the Haute-Garonne (1885), and then returned to Paris to enter the ministry of the interior . He became prefect of police in November 1887, at the criticalmoment of President Grevy's resignation . In the following year he entered the chamber, being elected deputy for the Marne, in opposition to General Boulanger, and joined the radical left . He was under-secretary for home affairs in the Floquet ministry of 1888, and resigned with it in 1889, being then returned to the chamber for Reims . In the Tirard ministry, which succeeded, he was minister of the interior, and subsequently, on the 18th of March 1890, minister of public instruction in the cabinet of M. de Freycinet, a post for which he had qualified himself by the attention he had given to educational matters . In this capacity he was responsible in 1890 for some important reforms in secondary education . He retained his office in M . Loubet's cabinet in 1892, and was minister of justice under M . Ribot at the end of that year, when the Panama scandals were making the office one of peculiar difficulty . He energetically pressed the Panama prosecution, so much so that he was accused of having put wrongful pressure on the wife of one of the defendants in order to procure evidence . To meet the charge he resigned in March 1893, but again took office, and only retired with the rest of the Freycinet ministry .

In November 1895 he himself formed a cabinet of a pronouncedly radical type, the

main interest of which was attached to its fall, as the result of a constitutional crisis arising from the persistent refusal of the senate to vote supply . The Bourgeois ministry appeared to consider that popular opinion would enable them to override what they claimed to be an unconstitutional action on the part of the upper house; but the public was indifferent and the senate triumphed . The blow was undoubtedly damaging to M . Bourgeois's career as an homme de gouvernement . As minister of public instruction in the Brisson cabinet of 1898 he organized courses for adults in primary education . After this short ministry he represented his country with dignity and effect at the Hague peace congress, and in 1903 was nominated a member of the permanent court of arbitration . He held somewhat aloof from the political struggles of the Waldeck-Rousseau and Combes ministries, travelling consider-ably in foreign countries . In 1902 and 1903 he was elected president of the chamber . In 1905 he replaced the duc d'Audiffret-Pasquier as senator for the department of Marne, and in May 1906 became minister of foreign affairs in the Sarrien cabinet . He was responsible for the direction of French diplomacy in the conference at Algeciras .