Jules Favre


Favre, Jules

 

Born Mar. 21, 1809, in Lyon; died Jan. 28, 1880, in Versailles. French political figure; lawyer. Participant in the July Revolution of 1830.

Between 1848 and 1851, Favre was a representative first to the Constituent Assembly and then to the Legislative Assembly. From 1858 to 1870 he was a representative in the corps législatif and one of the leaders of the bourgeois Republican opposition to the Second Empire. From September 1870 to February 1871 he was minister of foreign affairs in the Government of National Defense, and from February to July 1871 he served in the Versailles government of A. Thiers. On Jan. 28, 1871, he negotiated an armistice with Prussia, the conditions of which were extremely unfavorable to France. Favre helped organize the suppression of the Paris Commune of 1871. That same year, he prepared and concluded the Treaty of Frankfurt. He became a senator in 1876.