Joseph Fouché, duc d’Otrante

Joseph Fouché, duc d’Otrante (born May 21, 1759?, Le Pellerin, near Nantes, France—died December 25, 1820, Trieste) was a French statesman and organizer of the police, whose efficiency and opportunism enabled him to serve every government from 1792 to 1815.

Fouché was educated by the Oratorians at Nantes and Paris but was not ordained a priest. In 1791 the Oratorian order was dissolved and Fouché became principal of their college at Nantes, joining the local Jacobin club and becoming its president. On September 16, 1792, he was elected deputy to the Convention where he sided first with the Girondins. At Louis XVI’s trial he voted for the King’s death; thereafter he grew closer to the Montagnards.

After war was declared on England (February 1793) Fouché was sent on several missions to ensure the loyalty of the provinces. In October he was sent to Lyon to punish that city for rebelling against the Convention. The rebels were executed by the guillotine or by mass shootings (mitraillades), and beautiful buildings were destroyed. Fouché’s role cannot be denied, but nonetheless, when the majority of the Committee of Public Safety, under pressure from Robespierre, began to criticize the massacres and “dechristianization,” Fouché too supported moderation. After the execution of the Hébertists, he was recalled to the Convention (April 1794). In June he became president of the Jacobin society but abandoned it after Robespierre’s attacks and amassed a hostile coalition that contributed to Robespierre’s fall in July. Under the Directory (1795–99) Fouché was a Jacobin. After the coup d’etat of September 4, 1797, had excluded the royalists from legislative councils, he was made an envoy to Milan and then to The Hague.

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On July 20, 1799, he became minister of police and warmly supported Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup d’etat of 18 Brumaire (November 9, 1799). Thereafter he also organized the secret police. However, in August 1802 his ministry was suppressed because of his efforts to prevent the Senate from making Bonaparte consul for life. Fouché’s departure from office disorganized the police, and the ministry was reestablished for him after his support of the Senate’s proclamation of the empire. He was made count of the Empire (1808) and duc d’Otrante (1809). In June 1809 he became minister of the interior as well as of the police.

The prolonged wars and especially the Spanish rebellion made Fouché doubt the solidity of the empire, and from 1807 he began to intrigue, mainly with the royalists and with England. In July 1809, Fouché, on his own authority, ordered a levy of the national guard throughout France. This annoyed Napoleon, especially as the Parisian guard chose his enemies as leaders; and, when Fouché was denounced, Napoleon dismissed him in October. He was, however, made governor of the Roman states, but before leaving France his negotiations with England were discovered and he was disgraced. He lived at Aix-en-Provence for three years. In order to get him out of France, Napoleon made him governor of the Illyrian Provinces (1812), and after the occupation of these provinces by the Austrians, he was sent on a mission to Naples in which he seems to have played a double game with Napoleon and Joachim Murat, king of Naples.

After Napoleon’s fall, Fouché returned to Paris in April 1814 but was ignored by Louis XVIII, against whom he therefore intrigued. When he was finally offered the Ministry of Police he refused, although he accepted it from Napoleon on his return from Elba. During the Hundred Days, Fouché recommended liberalism to Napoleon and kept on good terms with Louis XVIII and Austria. After Waterloo he made Napoleon agree to a second abdication and was elected president of a provisional government. Louis XVIII made him minister of police, but the ultraroyalists soon forced his resignation and he became minister plenipotentiary to Dresden. He was proscribed as a regicide on January 5, 1816. He then lived in Prague, Linz, and Trieste.