Fouche, born near Nantes, is formed at the Oratory which he later became a professor. In 1788, installed in Arras, he met Robespierre it lacks to marry the sister. Elected to the Convention, he takes the side of the Montagnards; mediocre orator, he does not vote unless the king's death. He then approaches the Paris Commune he adopts radical ideas. In Nievre, as representative mission, it applies the de-Christianization. In Lyon, he executed the insurgents took up arms in hand to the gun: it is responsible for the massacre without having participated directly. Recalled to Paris in 1794 by Robespierre, Fouche soon opposes the Incorruptible, who nevertheless has strong advantages. Threatened, it plays an important role in the opposition coalition that will eventually bring down Robespierre on 9 Thermidor.
In reaction following the fall of Robespierre, Fouche saves little head. Exiled at the beginning of Management, he plays flies, and sent to Milan in 1798 and then in the Batavian Republic the following year. We finally called the Minister of General Police. Position created in 1796 by the Management Board and has had many owners. The Department has the means but lack a steady hand; it will Fouché. Although it is the army which remains the main force keeping the order-or disorder. Fouche, who wants to stop the Revolution, beware of neo-Jacobins and royalists, supported Bonaparte in the coup of Brumaire. However, in 1800, in spite of the struggle against royalist spy networks, it does not hesitate to approach Talleyrand while circulating the rumor of the death of Napoleon at Marengo. Napoleon also created the police headquarters, theoretically subject to Fouche, in the department of the Seine, but which in reality will look to pose as a rival.
Fouche, who does not let himself be surprised by the assassination attempts against the Jacobin Bonaparte, however, is taken by surprise by the explosion of the Rue Saint-Nicaise. Fouche police yet established the royalist track, which does not prevent the minister to leave to clean up the Jacobins environments. He opposed Napoleon on the Concordat and the consulate for life. Bonaparte took advantage of the Peace of Amiens in 1802 to thank his minister who nevertheless becoming senator Aix-en-Provence. It is Real and Savary, head of the elite gendarmerie, who are responsible for the kidnapping and execution of the Duc d'Enghien. Napoleon, however, gets rid of the first and Fouche recalled in July 1804 he has understood the lesson and calls for the empire, assistant prominently at the coronation. Fouche reorganizes the police spins its web on all the territories occupied by France. The commissioners are becoming increasingly important. The police are yet inexpensive, though Fouche theoretically has the gendarmerie and other personal sidelines as secret agents. The war takes place policies especially with the Prefecture: Dubois, Réal successor, dismantles the first conspiracy of General Malet in 1808, but Fouche reacts by beheading the rest of the royalist networks linked to the Vendée.
This is Fouche that overcomes the Count of Antraygues and English consul Drake. However, since the Consulate, he is careful to spare the émigrés. The police struggle more or less effectively against crime. Counterfeiters are ruthlessly hunted down. Efficacy rates for the illegal measures and corruption, due to lack of funding. Fouche is reserved about the intervention in Spain, unlike Talleyrand. When it doubt, a reconciliation is performed in December 1808 between the two men: one speaks of Murat to replace Napoleon. It returns to Paris in January 1809 dismissed Talleyrand but keeps Fouche. In the absence of Napoleon went to fight in Austria, it is Fouche who assumes power, against the English landing at Walcheren recalling Bernadotte, which earned him in August 1909 the title of Duke of Otranto. But Napoleon replaced again in 1810 by Savary, true bass works. Fouche withdraws in Ferrières but it soon directed him to go into exile, and he left for Naples.
Returning to France in September 1811 Fouche navigates between Ferrières and Aix. The fire at the Austrian Embassy in December 1810 led to the disgrace of Dubois. Savary is ridiculed by the second conspiracy of General Malet, in October 1812, during the Russian campaign. Napoleon finally recalled in July 1813 as governor of the Illyrian provinces. Fouche attempts to establish the defense, to rally the population, reorganized the administration. In reality, he knows the game lost and hardly oppose the advance of the Austrians. It attempts to circumvent Murat, without success. It lacks the First Restoration orchestrated in particular by its rival Talleyrand. Despite goodwill gestures, the Bourbons distrust him, and Fouche leads a simple life in Ferrières, monitoring plots, including the army, against the king. Appointed minister of police by Napoleon happening in the Tuileries in March 1815 Fouche does not abandon his diplomatic pretensions, keeps contacts with the royalists and the English. It was he who this time after Waterloo grows abdication. Louis XVIII confirmed in office in July: become indispensable, Fouche is at his peak. But in September, the victim of a cabal of Decazes, prefect of police that he underestimated Fouche is appointed Plenipotentiary in Saxony. Exiled if escrimant writing with Chateaubriand, Fouche wins Prague in 1816 and Linz in 1818, and finally to Trieste in November 1819 after learning that the regicides are placed under the ban by the sovereign. He died December 26, 1820.
Fouche he was a great statesman? Jean Tulard think it has mainly benefited weaknesses or errors of his opponents, Robespierre and Napoleon. It weighs awkwardly on events. It is nevertheless associated with the police around which already building many myths. In reality, he fears its development, although it has a lot of power. Its reputation is built on the elucidation of the explosion of the Rue Saint-Nicaise. Fouche is caught out several times. But it does not approve the use of torture and dislikes repression, as if trying to forget his past revolutionary. Fouche, in fact, wants to work in high political and diplomatic spheres, inaction gnaws, exile it is fatal. Talleyrand and Fouche are associated in disapproval: the second coming of the bourgeois, uneasy and reassures cultivates family values, does not let buy up its funds, the opposite of his rival, but both are two facets Napoleonic intrigue.
