French politician and writer.
He developed political views more liberal than those of his aristocratic parents, and, being brought up for a career in law, he published in 1820 a pamphlet on trial by jury. He was an active journalist, showing in philosophy and literature the influence of Victor Cousin. He signed the journalists’ protest against the Ordinances of July 1830, and in the following October was elected deputy for Haute Garonne.
Becoming a doctrinaire, he supported most of those measures of restriction on popular liberty which made the July monarchy unpopular with French Radicals. In 1836, he became for a short time undersecretary of state for the interior. He then became an ally of Adolphe Thiers, and in 1840 held the ministry of the interior for a brief period. In the same year he became an Academician. For the rest of Louis Philippe’s reign he was in opposition until he joined Thiers in his attempt at a ministry in the spring of 1848. During this time Rémusat constantly spoke in the chair here, but was still more active in literature, especially on philosophical subjects, the most remarkable of his works being his book on Pierre Abélard (2 vols., 1845). In 1848 he was elected, and in 1849 re-elected, for Haute Garonne, and voted with the Conservative side. He had to leave France after the coup d’état; nor did he re-enter political life during the Second Empire until 1869, when he founded a moderate opposition journal at Toulouse. In 1871, he refused the Vienna embassy offered him by Thiers, but in August he was appointed minister of foreign affairs in succession to Jules Favre. Although minister he was not a deputy, and on standing for Paris in September 1873 he was beaten by Désiré Barodet. A month later he was elected (having already resigned with Thiers) for Haute Garonne by a great majority.
He died in Paris on 6 June 1875.
Link to Wikipedia biography