Frédéric-Alexandre de Chambrier
Frédéric-Alexandre de Chambrier (5 October 1785 – 21 October 1856) was a Neuchâtel political figure under the Ancien Régime.
Contents
Biography
Frédéric-Alexandre de Chambrier was born in Bevaix, the son of State Councillor Frédéric de Chambrier and Jeanne Marie Mercier. His brother Alexandre was mayor of Valangin and also a State Councillor. Due to the death of his mother, he was raised from the age of twelve by his relative Jean-Pierre de Chambrier d'Oleyres. He first lived in Turin in 1797, then at the academy of Geneva from 1803 to 1804. In 1810, he initiated the creation of the Chambre d'assurance contre les incendies and, three years later, of the Caisse d'Épargne, which he later chaired.
He was a State Councillor from 1813 until the republican revolution of March 1, 1848, which put an end to the reign of the King of Prussia over the Principality of Neuchâtel. In 1814, he proposed the unusual double status of principality-canton, which lasted until the revolution of 1848, and participated in the process of reconstituting the Confederation of the XXII cantons after the Napoleonic period. At the same time, he sat at the General Audiences between 1814 and 1831 and represented the canton on several occasions at the Federal Diet between 1821 and 1837. In 1836, he became president of the Conseil d'État, which he held until 1848. From 1846 onwards, he was the head of the Société d'émulation patriotique and remained so until 1850. That year he decided not to oppose the 1848 Revolution with arms. In 1856, he opposed the failed coup d'état of the royalists.
He died on 21 October 1856 in Corcelles-Cormondrèche.
Works
- Les Suisses délibèrent sur le sort de Neuchâtel...: ne saurons-nous pas en décider nous-mêmes? (1830)
- Histoire de Neuchâtel et Valangin: jusqu'à l'avénement de la maison de Prusse (1840)
- Réformes capitales que le peuple neuchâtelois a droit de demander au Grand-Conseil de 1852 (1852)
References
- Guy de Chambrier, Biographies Neuchâteloises, Tome 2. Hauterive, Neuchâtel: Editions Gilles Attinger (1998)
