Joseph Lebeau

Jean Louis Joseph Lebeau ( born January 2, 1794 in Huy, † March 19, 1866 in Huy ) was a Belgian liberal statesman.

Lebeau studied law in Liège and became a lawyer in 1819. He also worked as a journalistic writer and contributed as an editor of the political journal Matthieu Länsberg along with Charles Rogier and Paul Devaux at significantly to the emergence of the union between the liberal and Catholic opposition to the government of the United Netherlands.

During the Revolution of 1830 Lebeau was a member of the National Congress and sat down heavily on the independence of Belgium in. On March 28, 1831, he was Foreign Minister in the second cabinet of Regents Surlet de Chokier. He ran the election of Prince Leopold of Saxe -Coburg as King of Belgium and was a member of the delegation that the new king should bring the election documents. In order not to be suspected of personal self-interest, he gave up his ministerial post, but was under King Leopold on October 20, 1832 Minister of Justice again. After riots in April 1834, he resigned from the ministry and became governor of Namur and 1839 envoy extraordinary Belgium to the German Confederation.

On April 18, 1840, he was again foreign minister and prime minister at the same time. As the attacks of the Catholic party in the two chambers of his ministry more violent harried, but the king refused a dissolution of the Chambers, Lebeau stepped back and with him on April 13, 1841 almost the entire Cabinet. But, as a Member and as a journalist he represented continue the principles of liberalism against the clerical party. Until the autumn of 1864 he resigned due to illness on his re-election as a deputy.