Author of the Le Chapelier Law banning guilds and workers’ combinations
On 14 June 1791 the law he moved was adopted, banning guilds and forbidding workers or employers of the same trade to combine for their common interests.
A lawyer from Rennes, he was elected to the Estates-General for the Third Estate in 1789, helped found the Breton Club, and as president of the Constituent Assembly in August 1789 presided over the night session of 4 August that abolished feudalism. On the constitutional committee he drafted much of the 1791 Constitution. The law bearing his name, adopted on 14 June 1791, banned guilds and workers’ combinations, a prohibition that lasted until 1864. In September 1791 he also presented a law restricting concerted political action by popular societies. Suspected during the Terror for his Feuillant ties, he was guillotined on 22 April 1794.
Career timeline
1789Elected to the Estates-General for the Third Estate of the sénéchaussée of Rennes; a founder of the Breton Club.
1789As president of the Constituent Assembly in August he presided over the night of 4 August; joined the constitutional committee in late September.
1791The Le Chapelier Law was adopted on 14 June; after the Champ de Mars massacre in July he left the Jacobins for the Feuillants.
1791Carried a law of 30 September restricting concerted political action by popular societies.
1794Arrested, he was guillotined in Paris on 22 April.
Aristocratic statesman who led Hungary’s delegation to the Paris peace talks in 1920 and pleaded for revising Trianon at the League
A count born in Vienna, he entered parliament in 1877 and was a leading orator for half a century. As education minister in 1906–1910 he drafted the Apponyi laws of 1907, which imposed Hungarian-language teaching on non-Hungarian schools. He led the Hungarian delegation at the Paris peace talks in January 1920 and spoke on 16 January, without changing the terms, and in March lost the regency vote to Horthy. Thereafter, as a legitimist opposition deputy and Hungary’s representative at the League of Nations, he denounced the injustice of the Trianon borders. He died in Geneva in 1933, where he had come for the Disarmament Conference.
Habsburg archduke and last field marshal of the Austro-Hungarian army who briefly declared himself regent of Hungary in August 1919
Born at Alcsút in Hungary into the Hungarian or Palatinal branch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, he entered the army in 1890, commanded a corps, an army and army groups in the First World War and on 24 October 1918 became the last field marshal of the Austro-Hungarian army. On 27 October Emperor Charles made him homo regius of Hungary, but the Aster Revolution put an end to his plans. After the fall of the Soviet Republic he became head of state in August 1919 as regent for Charles and appointed István Friedrich prime minister, but when it became clear that the Allies would not recognise a Habsburg as head of state he was forced to resign on 23 August. In the Horthy era he was president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 1936 to 1944. He left Hungary in 1944 and died in Rain, West Germany, in 1962.
Career timeline
1890Commissioned
1914–1918Corps, army and army group commander
1918Austro-Hungarian field marshal; homo regius of Hungary
1919Regent of Hungary
1927Member of the House of Magnates
1936–1944President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
