Vincent-Marie Viénot, Count of Vaublanc

Who was Vincent-Marie Viénot, Count of Vaublanc?

Vincent-Marie Viénot, Count of Vaublanc was a French royalist politician, writer and artist. He was a deputy for the Seine-et-Marne département in the French Legislative Assembly, served as President of the same body, and from 26 September 1815 to 7 May 1816, he was the French Minister of the Interior.

His political career had him rubbing shoulders with Louis XVI, Napoleon Bonaparte, the Count of Artois, and finally Louis XVIII. He was banished and recalled four times by different regimes, never arrested, succeeding each time in regaining official favour. In a long and eventful career, he was successively a monarchist deputy during the Revolution and under the Directoire, an exile during the Terror, a deputy under Napoleon, Minister of the Interior to Louis XVIII and eventually, at the end of his political career, a simple ultra-royalist deputy. He is remembered now for the fiery eloquence of his speeches, and for his controversial reorganisation of the Académie française in 1816 while Minister of the Interior. He strongly favoured the motion for the enfranchisement of the slaves in the French colonies in America.