Eugène Rouher

France state institutions Monarchy and royalism 1814–1884 ○ Natural causes

Bonaparte's justice minister who became the "Vice-Emperor" of the Second Empire

Born at Riom in 1814, he practised law there. Defeated as a Guizotin candidate in 1846, he became deputy for the Puy-de-Dôme in the Constituent Assembly of 1848. He sat on the right and voted against the right to work, joined the Party of Order in 1849 and called the February Revolution a "catastrophe." Minister of justice in the d'Hautpoul cabinet from 31 October 1849, he backed the law of 31 May 1850 restricting the suffrage. He was among the few told of the coup in advance, took the justice ministry again the day after it and drafted the constitution of 1852. After posts on the Council of State and as minister of agriculture, commerce and public works, he became Minister of State in 1863, the "Vice-Emperor." He fled to England when the Empire fell in 1870, then came back and led the Bonapartists until the death of the Prince Imperial in 1879.

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