Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pagès Explained

Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pagès
Order:9th
Office:List of mayors of ParisMayor of Paris
Term Start:24 February 1848
Term End:5 March 1848
Predecessor:Office established (Jean-Baptiste Fleuriot-Lescot was mayor in 1794)
Successor:Armand Marrast
Birth Date:16 February 1803
Birth Place:Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), France
Death Place:Paris, France
Order2:Minister of Finance
Provisional Government of the French Republic
Term Start2:5 March 1848
Term End2:11 May 1848
President2:Jacques-Charles Dupont de l'Eure
Predecessor2:Office established
Successor2:Charles Duclerc
Order3:Minister without Portfolio
Government of National Defense
Term Start3:1870
Term End3:1871
President3:Louis Jules Trochu

Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pagès (16 February 1803  - 31 October 1878) was a French politician and active freemason[1] who fought on the barricades during the revolution of July.

Garnier-Pagès was born in Marseille. He served as a member of the Provisional Government of 1848 under Jacques-Charles Dupont de l'Eure as well as Mayor of Paris from February to March 1848, and then a member of the Government of National Defense (1870-1871) under Louis Jules Trochu as a minister without portfolio.

He was a keen promoter of reform and was a leading spirit in the affair of the reform banquet fixed for 22 February 1848. He was a member of the provisional government of 1848, and was named mayor of Paris. On 5 March 1848, he was made minister of finance and incurred great unpopularity by the imposition of additional taxes. A surtax of 45 percent was implemented what came to be known as "the forty-five centimes".[2] 1 member of the Constituent Assembly and of the Executive Commission, he was also instrumental in the creation of the nationwide network of comptoirs d'escompte.

Under the Empire he was conspicuous in the Republican opposition and opposed the war with Prussia, and after the fall of Napoleon III became a member of the Government of National Defence. Unsuccessful at the elections for the National Assembly (8 February 1871), he retired into private life. He wrote Histoire de la revolution de 1848 (1860–1862); Histoire de la commission executive (1869–1872); and L'Opposition et l'empire (1872). He died in Paris, aged 75.

Notes and References

  1. Dictionnaire universel de la Franc-Maçonnerie, page 311 (Marc de Jode, Monique Cara and Jean-Marc Cara, ed. Larousse, 2011)
  2. Fasel, George. 1974. “The Wrong Revolution: French Republicanism in 1848.” French Historical Studies 8 (4): 654–54. doi:10.2307/285857