Jules Grévy

François Paul Jules Grévy (French pronunciation: ​[ʒyl ɡʁevi]; 15 August 1807 – 9 September 1891) was a President of the French Third Republic and one of the leaders of the Opportunist Republicans faction. Given that his predecessors were monarchists who tried without success to restore the French monarchy, Grévy is seen as the first real republican President of France.

Biography

Born at Mont-sous-Vaudrey in the Jura Mountains, he became an advocate in 1837, and, having steadily maintained republican principles under the Orléans monarchy, was elected by his native department to the Constituent Assembly of 1848. Foreseeing that Louis Bonaparte would be elected president by the people, he proposed to vest the chief authority in a president of the Council elected and removable by the Assembly, or in other words, to suppress the Presidency of the Republic. After the coup d'état this proposition gained Grévy a reputation for sagacity, and upon his return to public life in 1868 he took a prominent place in the Republican party.