Antoine Jacques Claude Joseph, comte Boulay de la Meurthe

Who was Antoine Jacques Claude Joseph, comte Boulay de la Meurthe?

Antoine Jacques Claude Joseph, comte Boulay de la Meurthe, was a French politician and magistrate, son of an agricultural labourer, born at Chamousey.

Called to the bar at Nancy in 1783, he presently went to Paris, where he rapidly acquired a reputation as a lawyer and a speaker. He supported the revolutionary cause in Lorraine, and fought at Valmy and Wissembourg in the republican army. But his moderate principles brought suspicion on him, and during the Terror he had to go into hiding.

He represented La Meurthe in the Council of Five Hundred, of which he was twice president, but his views developed steadily in the conservative direction. Fearing a possible renewal of the Terror, he became an active member of the plot for the overthrow of the Directory in November 1799. He was rewarded by the presidency of the legislative commission formed by Napoleon to draw up the new constitution; and as president of the legislative section of the council of state he examined and revised the draft of the civil code.

In eight years of hard work as director of a special land commission he settled the titles of land acquired by the French nation at the Revolution, and placed on an unassailable basis the rights of the proprietors who had bought this land from the government. He received the grand cross of the Legion of Honour and the title of count, was a member of Napoleon's privy council, but was never in high favour at court.