François Guizot

France state institutions Liberalism and republicanism 1787–1874 ○ Natural causes

Doctrinaire historian and last prime minister of the July Monarchy, who refused to widen the franchise and banned the reform banquets

Born to a bourgeois Protestant family at Nîmes in 1787 and already a noted historian, he served Louis Philippe after 1830 as minister of education (1832–1837), creating primary schools in every commune, then as ambassador to London (1840), foreign minister (1840–1847) and from 19 September 1847 prime minister. Leader of the Doctrinaires, he held fast to a franchise restricted to men of property and is said to have advised those without the vote to "enrich yourselves". His ban on the reform banquets in January 1848 set off the February Revolution; he resigned at the king's request on 23 February and escaped through Belgium to London, arriving on 3 March. He never returned to public life and spent his later years writing at Val-Richer in Normandy.

Also known as: François Pierre Guillaume Guizot · Francois Guizot