Adolphe Thiers
Adolphe Thiers helped make two French regimes and destroyed the Paris Commune. Born in Marseille in 1797 to a family in reduced circumstances, he trained as a lawyer, moved to Paris in 1821, and made his name as a journalist and as the author of a ten-volume history of the Revolution. He helped found the newspaper Le National, and in July 1830 drafted the journalists' protest against Charles X's ordinances and worked to place Louis-Philippe on the throne rather than allow a republic. He served as minister of the interior and twice as prime minister under the July Monarchy, suppressing insurrections, fortifying Paris, and bringing Napoleon's remains back from St Helena. He opposed Louis-Napoleon's coup in 1851 and was briefly exiled, then returned to parliament as a critic of the Second Empire, warning against the war with Prussia in 1870. After the defeat and the empire's collapse he was elected head of the executive in February 1871 and negotiated the peace, conceding Alsace and much of Lorraine and a five-billion-franc indemnity. The attempt to remove the National Guard's cannon from Montmartre in March 1871 triggered the Paris Commune. Thiers withdrew the government to Versailles, rebuilt the army with prisoners released by Bismarck, and retook the city in the semaine sanglante of May. Between ten and twenty thousand Parisians were killed, many summarily, and thousands more were deported. He then paid off the indemnity early, ending the occupation, and shifted to supporting a conservative republic — which is why the republic survived. He was forced out in 1873 and died in 1877.
- Lived: 1797 CE – 1877 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: head_of_state, politician
