Lucien Anatole Prevost-Paradol

He was educated at the College Bourbon and entered the École Normale. In 1855 he was appointed professor of French literature at Aix. He held the post, however, barely a year, resigning it to become a leader-writer on the Journal des débats. He also wrote in the Courrier du dimanche, and for a very short time in the Presse.

His chief works are Essais de politique et de litterature (three series, 1859-1866), and Essais sur les moralistes français (1864). He was, however, rather a journalist than a writer of books, and was one of the chief opponents of the empire on the side of moderate liberalism. He underwent the usual difficulties of a journalist under that regime, and was once imprisoned. In 1865 he was elected an Academician.

The accession of Émile Ollivier to power was fatal to Prevost-Paradol, who apparently believed in the possibility of a liberal empire, and consequently accepted the appointment of envoy to the United States. This was the signal for the most unmeasured attacks on him from the republican party. He had scarcely installed himself in his post before the outbreak of war between France and Prussia occurred. He shot himself at Washington on July 19 1870, and later died.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.