Champagny, Jean Baptiste Nompere De
CHAMPAGNY, JEAN BAPTISTE NOMPERE DE (1756-1834), French politician, was born at Roanne, and entered the navy in 1774. He fought through the war in America and resigned in 1787. Elected deputy by the noblesse of Forex to the states-general in 1789, he went over to the third estate on the 21st of June and collaborated in the work of the Constituent Assembly, especially occupying himself with the reorganization of the navy. A political career seems to have attracted him little; he remained in private life from 1791 to 1799, when Napoleon named him member of the council of state. From July 1801 to August 1804 he was ambassador of France at Vienna, and directed with great intelligence the incessant negotiations between the two courts. In August 1804 Napoleon made him minister of the interior, and in this position, which he held for three years, he proved an administrator of the first order. In addition to the ordinary charges of his office, he had to direct the recruitment of the army, organize the industrial exhibition of 1808, and to complete the public works undertaken in Paris and throughout France. He was devoted to Napoleon, on whom he lavished adulation in his speeches. In August 1807 the emperor chose him to succeed Talleyrand as minister for foreign affairs. He directed the annexation of the Papal States in April 1808, worked to secure the abdication of Charles IV. of Spain in May 1808, negotiated the peace of Vienna (1809) and the marriage of Napoleon. In April 1811 a quarrel with the emperor led to his retirement, and he obtained the sinecure office of intendant general of the crown. In 1814, after the abdication, the empress sent him on a fruitless mission to the emperor of Austria. Then he went over to the Bourbons. During the Hundred Days he again joined Napoleon. This led to his exclusion by Louis XVIII., but in 1819 he recovered his dignity of peer. He died in Paris in 1834. He had three sons who became men of distinction. François (1804-1882) was a well-known author, who was made a member of the French Academy in 1869. His great work was a history of the Roman empire, in three parts, (1) Les Césars (1841-1843, 4 vols.), (2) Les Antonins (1863, 3 vols.), (3) Les Césars du IIIe siècle (1870, 3 vols.). Napoléon (1806-1872) published a Traité de la police municipale in 4 volumes (1844-1861), and was a deputy in the Corps Législatif from 1852 to 1870. Jérome Paul (1809-1886) was also deputy in the Corps Législatif from 1853 to 1870, and was made honorary chamberlain in 1859. He worked at the official publication of the correspondence of Napoleon I.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
