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Antoine Francois Claude, Comte Ferrand

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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ANTOINE FRANCOIS CLAUDE, COMTE FERRAND (1751-1825), French statesman and political writer, was born in Paris on the 4th of July 1751, and became a member of the parlement of Paris at eighteen. He left France with the first party of emigrants, and attached himself to the prince of Conde; later he was a member of the council of regency formed by the comte de Provence after the death of Louis XVI. He lived at Regensburg until 1801, when he returned to France, though he still sought to serve the royalist cause. In 1814 Ferrand was made minister of state and postmaster-general. He countersigned the act of sequestration of Napoleon's property, and introduced a bill for the restoration of the property of the emigrants, establishing a distinction, since become famous, between royalists of la ligne droite and those of la ligne courbe. At the second restoration Ferrand was again for a short time postmastergeneral. He was also made a peer of France, member of the privy council, grand-officer and secretary of the orders of Saint Michel and the Saint Esprit, and in 1816 member of the Academy, He continued his active support of ultra-royalist views until his death, which took place in Paris on the 17th of January 1825.

Besides a large number of political pamphlets, Ferrand is the author of L'Esprit de l'histoire, ou Lettres d'un pere a son fils sur la. maniere d'etudier l'histoire (4 vols., 1802), which reached seven editions, the last number in 1826 having prefixed to it a biographical sketch of the author by his nephew Hericart de Thury; Eloge historique de Madame Elisabeth de France (1814); Ouvres dramatiques (1817); Theorie des revolutions rapprochee des evenements qui en ont ete l'origine, le developpement, ou la suite (4 vols., 1817); and Histoire des trois demembrements de la Pologne, pour faire suite a l'Histoire de l'anarchie de Pologne par Rulhiere (3 vols., 1820).