Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire
Encyclopedia
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
philosopher, 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...
, statesman, and possible illegitimate son of Napoleon I of France
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
.
Biography
Jules was born in Paris. Marie Belloc Lowndes, in the second volume of her autobiography Where Love and Friendship Dwelt (1943), made claims regarding his paternity. He was reportedly ashamed of and did not talk about it. Lowndes did not say who his mother was.In his early years he worked for the Ministry of Finance (1825–1828), and was an active journalist. From 1826 to 1830 he opposed the policies of Charles X of France
Charles X of France
Charles X was known for most of his life as the Comte d'Artois before he reigned as King of France and of Navarre from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. A younger brother to Kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported the latter in exile and eventually succeeded him...
in Le Globe
Le Globe
Le Globe was a French newspaper, published between 1824 and 1832, created with the goal of publishing Romantic creations. It was established by Pierre Leroux. After 1828, the paper became political and Liberal in tone....
. At the revolution of 1830
July Revolution
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution or in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X of France, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown...
he signed the protestation of the journalists on 28 July 1830.
After 1830, he contributed to different newspapers, Le Constitutionnel, Le National and the Courrier français until 1833, when he gave up politics in order to devote himself to the history of ancient philosophy, undertaking a translation of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, which occupied him the greater part of his life. The reputation he gained from this work won him the chair of ancient philosophy at the Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
(1838) and a seat at the Academy of Moral and Political Science (1839).
After the revolution of 1848 he was elected as a republican deputy
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.*...
from the département of Seine-et-Oise
Seine-et-Oise
Seine-et-Oise was a département of France encompassing the western, northern, and southern parts of the metropolitan area of Paris. Its préfecture was Versailles and its official number was 78. Seine-et-Oise was abolished in 1968....
. He was named by the Minister of Public Instruction, Carnot
Hippolyte Carnot
Lazare Hippolyte Carnot was a French statesman.- Early life :Lazare was the younger brother of the founder of thermodynamics Sadi Carnot and second son of the revolutionary politician Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot, who also served in the government of Napoleon. He was born at Saint-Omer,...
, head of the commission preparing the draft for the education reforms. However, after Carnot's resignation and replacement by Alfred de Falloux, the commission was dissolved. Nevertheless, Barthélémy-Saint-Hilaire deposed to the National Assembly the report and the propositions written by the Commission, which were ignored. After the May 1849 legislative election
French legislative election, 1849
French legislative elections were held on 13 May 1849. Voters elected the first National Assembly of the Second Republic.The conservative Parti de l'Ordre won an overall majority of 450 seats.The Parti de l'Ordre was a bourgeois, traditionalist, and conservative party opposed to the Presidency of...
, won by the conservative Parti de l'Ordre
Parti de l'Ordre
The Parti de l'Ordre was a French Orleanist and Legitimist conservative political party that existed during the Second Republic....
, he was however re-elected and named again as a member of the parliamentary commission on education. During three years, he thus played an important role during the debates leading to the adoption of the Falloux Laws
Falloux Laws
The Falloux Laws were voted during the French Second Republic and promulgated on 15 March 1850 and in 1851, following the presidential election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in December 1848 and the May 1849 legislative elections that gave a majority to the conservative Parti de l'Ordre. Named for...
in 1850-1851, which greatly increased the clergy's influence on education, to the dismay of Republicans such as Saint-Hilaire.
He was obliged to withdraw after the December 1851 coup d'état
French coup of 1851
The French coup d'état on 2 December 1851, staged by Prince Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte , ended in the successful dissolution of the French National Assembly, as well as the subsequent re-establishment of the French Empire the next year...
of Louis Napoleon
Napoleon III of France
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte...
. In 1855 he went as member of the international commission to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
to report on the possibility of the proposed Suez canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
, and by the articles which he wrote he contributed largely to making the project popular in France.
Elected deputy again in 1869, he joined the opposition to the Second Empire
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...
, and in 1871 bent all his efforts to the election of Thiers
Adolphe Thiers
Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers was a French politician and historian. was a prime minister under King Louis-Philippe of France. Following the overthrow of the Second Empire he again came to prominence as the French leader who suppressed the revolutionary Paris Commune of 1871...
as President of the Republic, acting afterwards as his secretary. Appointed senator for life
Senator for life
A senator for life is a member of the senate or equivalent upper chamber of a legislature who has life tenure. , 7 Italian Senators out of 322, 4 out of the 47 Burundian Senators and all members of the British House of Lords have lifetime tenure...
in 1875, he took his place among the moderate republicans (aka Opportunist Republicans
Opportunist Republicans
The Opportunist Republicans , also known as the Moderates , were a faction of French Republicans who believed, after the proclamation of the Third Republic in 1870, that the regime could only be consolidated by successive phases...
), and from 23 September 1880 to 14 November 1881 was minister of foreign affairs in the cabinet of Jules Ferry
Jules Ferry
Jules François Camille Ferry was a French statesman and republican. He was a promoter of laicism and colonial expansion.- Early life :Born in Saint-Dié, in the Vosges département, France, he studied law, and was called to the bar at Paris in 1854, but soon went into politics, contributing to...
. The most important event of his administration was the annexation of Tunis
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....
under the form of a French protectorate
Protectorate
In history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity...
, which he actively promoted.
In 1882 the village of St. Hilaire, Minnesota
St. Hilaire, Minnesota
St. Hilaire is a city in section 6 of River Falls Township in Pennington County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 279 at the 2010 census.-History:...
, in the United States, was named in his honor.
He died in 1895. His principal works, besides the translation of Aristotle and a number of studies connected with the same subject, are Des Védas (1854), Du Bouddhisme (1856) and Mahomet et le Coran (1865).
Works
- De la Logique d’Aristote. – Paris : Ladrange, 1838
- Ouverture du cours de philosophie grecque et latine. – Paris : H. Fournier, 1838
- De l’École d’Alexandrie : rapport à l’Académie des sciences morales et politiques, précédé d’un Essai sur la méthode des Alexandrins et le mysticisme. L’ouvrage contient en complément une traduction des morceaux choisis de Plotin. – Paris : Ladrange, 1845
- De la vraie Démocratie. – Paris : Pagnerre, 1849
- Des Védas. – Paris : B. Duprat, 1854 online
- Rapport concernant les mémoires envoyés pour concourir au prix de philosophie : proposé en 1848 et à décerner en 1853, sur la comparaison de la philosophie morale et politique de Platon et d’Aristote avec les doctrines des plus grands philosophes modernes sur les mêmes matières, au nom de la section de philosophie. Discours lu à l’Académie des sciences morales et politiques, dans la séance du 14 mai 1853. – Paris : Firmin Didot, 1854
- Du Bouddhisme. – Paris : B. Duprat, 1855 online
- Lettres sur L’Égypte. – Paris : Michel Lévy frères, 1856 online
- Le Boudha et sa religion. – Paris : Didier, 1860
- Rapport fait au nom de la section de philosophie sur le concours relatif à la question du Beau. – Paris : Firmin Didot, 1862
- Mahomet et le Coran : précédé d’une Introduction sur les devoirs mutuels de la philosophie et de la religion. Le livre connaît un second tirage la même année. – Paris : Didier, 1865
- Du Boudhisme et de sa littérature à Ceylan et en Birmanie. – Hamburg, 1866
- De la Métaphysique : Introduction à la métaphysique d’Aristote. – Paris : Germer Baillière, 1879
- Le Christianisme et le boudhisme : trois lettres addressées à M. l’abbé Deschamps, la 1ère à l’occasion d’une publication de M. Deschamps, ayant pour titre Le Boudhisme et l’apologétique chrétienne ; la 2e en réponse à l’envoi d’une étude biblique du même auteur ayant pour titre La Découverte du livre de la loi et la théorie du coup d’état d’après les derniers travaux ; la 3e qui confirme les deux précédentes et en autorise la publication. – Paris : Ernest Laroux, 1880 online
- L’Inde anglaise, son état actuel, son avenir : précédé d’une introduction sur l’Angleterre et la Russie. – Hamburg, 1887
- La Philosophie dans ses rapports avec les sciences et la religion. – Paris : F. Alcan, 1889 online
- Étude sur François Bacon : suivie du Rapport à l’Académie des sciences morales et politiques, sur le concours ouvert pour le prix Bordin. – Paris : F. Alcan, 1890
- Aristote et l’histoire de la Constitution athénienne. – Paris : Administration des deux revues, 1891 online
- . – Paris : Hachette, 1892 online
- Traduction générale d’Aristote. Table alphabétique des matières. – Paris : F. Alcan, 1892
- Socrate et Platon, ou le Platonisme. – Chartres : Durand, 1896
Translations
- Pensées de Marc-Aurèle. – Paris : G. Baillière, 1876 online
- Physique d'Aristote ou Leçons sur les principes généraux de la nature. – Paris : Ladrange : A. Durand, 1862 Volume I, Volume II
- Politique d'Aristote. – Paris : Ladrange, 1874 online
- Psychologie d'Aristote: Opuscules (Parva Naturalia), Paris: Dumont, 1847 online