Auguste Louis Philippe de Saint-Chamans

Auguste Louis Philippe, vicomte de Saint-Chamans (1 May 1777 – 7 December 1860) was a French royalist politician, economist and man of letters.

Biography

Saint-Chamans descended from a noble family of the Périgord region. He was born in Paris, the oldest son of Joseph Louis vicomte de Saint-Chamans, baron de Peschier and Auguste-Céleste Pinel Dumanoir. He had three younger siblings, Louis (1779–1824), Alfred (1781–1848) and Henriette-Jeanne-Robertine (1783–1856). On July 16, 1802, he married Thérèse-Alexandrine-Zoé du Bouëxic de Pinieux (1783–1873) at the château des Condreaux.

During the Revolution, he was imprisoned as a suspect and released after the fall of Maximilien Robespierre. When Napoleon returned from Elba, Saint-Chamans published a work, with the title of An Examination of the Faults of the Late Government, in which he defended, with great boldness, the government of Louis XVIII, under pretence of pointing out the faults of it. His Review of the Session of 1817 was bitterly attacked in La Minerve by Benjamin Constant. Ferrier, on the other hand, considered his Du Système d’Impôt a "remarkable work". An early critic of Malthus' population theory, he argued against Adam Smith and the Laissez-faire school of political economy.

Overlooked under the Directory and the Empire, Saint-Chamans was made master of requests at the Conseil d'État in 1820 and State Councillor in 1827. He was deputy for the Marne from 1824 to 1827, sitting on the right and supporting the governments of the Restoration. He opposed Count of Montlosier persistent hostility to the Jesuits and the Church. In the Chamber of Deputies, Saint-Chamans lamented: "we have seen... the remnant of the Jesuits once again pursued by the remnant of the Jansenists to the joyful cries of the sad remnant of our so-called philosophes."

He wrote several economic works, political (Raoul de Valmire) and satirical novels (Le Petit-fils de l'Homme aux Quarante Écus), and even some literary reflections and criticism.

He died in Chaltrait, Marne at the age of 83.

See also

• Antoine de Rivarol
• Pierre-Sébastien Laurentie

Works

• Traité d'Économie Publique (1852)
• Des Causes et des Résultats de la Révolution de 1830 (1832)
• Aux Hommes de Bonne Foi, sur les Questions Politiques de 1830 (1830)
• De l'État des Partis dans les Chambres, et des Alliances Possibles entre Eux (1828)
• Le Croquemitaine de M.. de Montlosier, de M. de Pradt et de Bien d'Autres (1826)
• Nouvel Essai sur la Richesse des Nations (1824)
• Le Petit-fils de l'Homme aux Quarante Écus (1823; novel)
• De la Popularité (1821)
• Du Système d’Impôt Fondé sur les Principes de l’Économie Politique (1820)
• De la Loi dés Élections (1819)
• Revue de la Session de 1817 (1818)
• Sur le Budget de 1818 (1817)
• Raoul de Valmire, ou Six Mois en 1816 (1816; novel)
• L'Anti-romantique, ou Examen de Quelques Ouvrages Nouveaux (1816; literary criticism)
• Examen des Fautes du Dernier Gouvernement (1815)

External links

• Works by Auguste de Saint-Chamans at Gallica
• Works by Auguste de Saint-Chamans at Hathi Trust