Louis-Eugène Cavaignac

France state institutions Liberalism and republicanism 1802–1857 ○ Natural causes

Moderate republican general of the Algerian conquest who crushed the June Days and became head of the executive power in 1848

Born in Paris in 1802, the son of a member of the National Convention, he joined the July Revolution as an engineer officer and from 1832 served sixteen years in the conquest of Algeria, rising to general. In February 1848 the Provisional Government made him governor-general of Algeria; elected to the Constituent Assembly for the Lot, he became minister of war on 17 May. On 23 June the Executive Commission charged him with putting down the rising, and on 24 June the Assembly gave him dictatorial powers; with the regular army and artillery he broke the barricades of eastern Paris. He gave up the dictatorship on 28 June and was confirmed as head of the executive power, governing until December and curbing the clubs and the left-wing press. Second in the presidential election with 19.5 percent, he was arrested at the 1851 coup and died on his Sarthe estate in 1857.

Also known as: General Cavaignac