JEAN

See also:

• ETIENNE, CHARLES GUILLAUME (1778-1845)

ETIENNE

See also:

• MARIE

MARIE

See also:

• JEAN ETIENNE MARIE PORTALIS (1746-1807)

PORTALIS (1746-1807)  , French jurist, came of a bourgeois family, and was born at Bausset in Provence on the 1st of April 1746 . He was educated by the Oratorians at their schools in Toulon and Marseilles, and then went to the university of Aix; while a student there he published his first two works, Observations sur Emile in 1763 and Des Prejuges in 1764 . In 1765 he became an avocat at the parlement of Aix, and soon obtained so great a reputation that he was instructed by the duc de Choiseul in 1770 to draw up the decree authorizing the marriage of Protestants . From 1778 to 1781 he was one of the four assessors or administrators of Provence . In November 1793, after the republic had been proclaimed, he came to Paris and was thrown into prison, being the brother-in-law of Joseph Jerome Simeon, the leader of the Federalists in Provence . He was soon removed through the influence of B. de V . Barere to a maison de saute, where he remained till the fall of Robespierre . On being released he practised as a lawyer in Paris; and in 1795 he was elected by the capital to the Conseil des Anciens, becoming a leader of the moderate party opposed to the directory . As a leader of the moderates he was proscribed at the coup d'etat of Fructidor, but, unlike General Charles Pichegru and the marquis de Barbe-Marbois, he managed to escape to Switzerland, and did not return till Bonaparte became First Consul . Bonaparte made him a conseiller d'etat in r800, and then charged him, with F, D . Tronchet, Bigot de Preameneu, and Jacques de Maleville, to draw up the Code Civil . Of this commission he was the most industrious member, and many of the most important titles, notably those on marriage and heirship, are his work .

In 18or he was placed in

charge of the department of cultes or public worship, and in that capacity had the chief share in drawing up the provisions of the Concordat . In 1803 he became a member of the Institute, in 1804 minister of public worship, and in 1805 a knight grand cross of the Legion of Honour . He soon after became totally blind; and after an operation he died at Paris on the 25th of August 1807 . The work of Portalis appears in the Code Napoleon, but see also Frederick Portalis's Documents, rap ports, et travaux inedits stir le Code Civil (1844) and Sur le Concordat (1845); for his life, see the biography in the edition of his Oeuvres by F . Portalis (1823) and Rene Lavolee, Portalis, sa vie et ses oeuvres, (Paris, 1869) . His son, JOSEPH MARIE PORTALIS (1778-1858), entered the diplomatic service, and obtaining the favour of Louis XVIII. filled many important offices . He was under-secretary of state for the ministry of justice, first president of the court of caseation, minister for foreign affairs, and in 1851 a member of the senate .