Marc Caussidière

France state institutions Russian revolutionary democrats 1807–1861 ○ Natural causes

Revolutionary republican who seized the Paris police prefecture in February 1848 and raised the "Guard of the People"

Born in Lyon in 1807 to a family of artisans, he became a designer in the silk mills. He fought in the Lyon rising of April 1834, in which his brother died, was sentenced to detention and amnestied in 1837, then travelled for Ledru-Rollin's La Réforme and joined the Society of the Seasons. In February 1848 he fought on the barricades and seized the police prefecture, and the Provisional Government confirmed him as prefect of police. He raised a "Guard of the People" from released revolutionaries, boasting that he made order out of disorder. Elected to the Constituent Assembly for the Seine, he was dismissed after the invasion of the Assembly on 15 May, accused of complicity by inaction. Facing prosecution after the June Days he fled to London, and the High Court at Bourges sentenced him in absentia to deportation. He returned under the amnesty of 1859 and died in Paris in 1861.

Also known as: Louis Marc Caussidière