Étienne Arago

Étienne Arago ( born February 9, 1802 in Perpignan, Pyrenees- Orientales Dépt; . † 7 March 1892 in Paris) was a French writer.

Arago was the fourth and youngest son of Bonaventure Arago and his wife. His father ran the coin in Perpignan; his brothers Jacques, Jean and François.

His education was Arago et al at the College of Sorèze. During the Restoration he got a job as Préparateur chimiste ( Chemical Laboratory ) at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. Politically interested, he became the Karbonarismus very close. However, his position, he soon gave up in order to succeed as a writer can. Together with other - inter alia with Honoré de Balzac - he wrote vaudeville and comedy and founded several, mostly very short-lived literary magazines. In addition, he was able to make a name in the features section of the magazine Le Siècle under the pseudonym Jules Ferney.

In the July Revolution of 1830 Arago was involved with it, to overthrow the Bourbons. Even before he had taken in the management of the Paris Théâtre du Vaudeville and had debts sign up for lack of business acumen ten years later with about 250,000 francs bankruptcy. Until 1872, he had to repay it. The following year, 1831, he was instrumental in the founding of the newspaper La Réforme and during the February Revolution of 1848 he was entrusted as editor with the same line.

As a member of the department of Pyrénées- Orientales, he represented his country in the National Assembly; but could hardly achieve success there. After the February Revolution of 1848 escalated after the elections to the National Assembly in May 1848, the situation and it broke the June uprising. Arago sympathized with the rebels, and his arrest could escape only by curse to Belgium. There was 1851 "spa", a poem in seven parts, which is considered one of his best works.

As on December 2, 1851, the last Emperor of the French, Napoleon III. , Came by a coup d'etat, he ran successfully at the Belgian King Leopold I. expulsion Arago. This fled to Britain, where he later went to the Netherlands. Finally, Arago settled in Turin, where he lived until his pardon in 1859.

In the fall of 1859 Arago returned to France and settled in Paris. Has been controversial from Easter 1862 his historical novel " Les Bleus et les Blancs " in which he themed war in the Vendée. Even larger were the discussions about Arago, when he withdrew from the Parisian writer club in August of the same year.

When, on September 5th, 1870 Emperor Napoleon III. had been overthrown, the Provisional Government appointed ( the beginning of the third French Republic) as mayor of the city of Paris. Arago assumed this office and immediately promised elections for a new city council. Since he did not keep this promise, broke on October 31, again riots and he put this post down again.

Even his seat in the National Assembly, in which he was elected on February 8, 1871, he was after a few days again and retired into private life. It was not until 1878 he re-entered the public when he took over the office of the archivist at the École nationale supérieure des beaux -arts de Paris and held until his death.

Four weeks after his 90th birthday Étienne Arago died on 7 March 1892 in Paris and found his final resting place.

Works (selection)

• Spa. Son origine, son histoire, ses eaux minérales, ses environs et ses jeux. Brussels 1851.
• Une voix de l' exil. Poeme. Geneva 1860.
• Les Bleus et les Blancs. Paris 1862.
• L' hôtel de ville de Paris au 4 septembre et pendant le siège. Paris 1874 ( describes his time as mayor of Paris).