Antonin Proust was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 and politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

.

Antonin Proust was born at Niort

Niort

Niort is a commune in the Deux-Sèvres department in western France.The Latin name of the city was Novioritum.The population of Niort is 60,486 and more than 137,000 people live in the urban area....

, Deux-Sèvres

Deux-Sèvres

Deux-Sèvres is a French département. Deux-Sèvres literally means "two Sèvres": the Sèvre Nantaise and the Sèvre Niortaise are two rivers which have their sources in the department.-History:...

. In 1864 he founded an anti-imperial journal, La Semaine hebdomadaire which appeared in Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

. He was war correspondent

War correspondent

A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...

 for Le Temps

Le Temps

Founded in 1998, Le Temps is a Swiss newspaper edited in French. Le Temps consists of a daily newspaper , several supplements , thematic special editions, a performing website and digital applications.Le Temps is the...

in the early days of the Franco-German War, but after Sedan

Battle of Sedan

The Battle of Sedan was fought during the Franco-Prussian War on 1 September 1870. It resulted in the capture of Emperor Napoleon III and large numbers of his troops and for all intents and purposes decided the war in favour of Prussia and its allies, though fighting continued under a new French...

 he returned to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, where he became secretary to Gambetta

Gambetta

Gambetta may refer to:People*Léon Gambetta , French statesman.*Schubert Gambetta , Uruguayan footballer*Diego Gambetta, Italian sociologistOther uses*Gambetta...

 and superintended the refugees in Paris. He entered the Chamber as deputy for his native town in 1876, taking his seat on the left. In Gambetta's cabinet (1881–1882) he was minister of the fine arts, and in the Chamber of Deputies

Chamber of Deputies of France

Chamber of Deputies was the name given to several parliamentary bodies in France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:* 1814–1848 during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy, the Chamber of Deputies was the Lower chamber of the French Parliament, elected by census suffrage.*...

 he was regularly commissioned to draw up the budget for the fine arts, after the separate department had ceased to exist. Prosecuted in connection with the Panama scandals

Panama scandals

The Panama scandals was a corruption affair that broke out in the French Third Republic in 1892, linked to the building of the Panama Canal...

, he was acquitted in 1893. From this time he lived in the closest retirement. On the 20th of March 1905 he shot himself in the head, dying of the wound two days later.