Background
Nicolas Anne Theodule Changarnier was born on the 26th of April, 1793 in Autun, Arrondissement of Autun, France.
military officer politician senator
Nicolas Anne Theodule Changarnier was born on the 26th of April, 1793 in Autun, Arrondissement of Autun, France.
Nicolas Anne Theodule Changarnier served for a short time in the bodyguard of Louis XVIII, and entered the line as a lieutenant in January 1815. In 1830 he entered the Royal Guard and was sent to Africa, where he took part in the Mascara expedition. Promoted commandant in 1835, he distinguished himself under Marshal Clauzel in the campaign against Ahmed Pasha, bey of Constantine, and became lieutenant-colonel in 1837.
In 1847 Nicolas Anne Theodule Changarnier held the Algiers divisional command. He visited France early ~fl 1848, assisted the provisional government to establish order, and returned to Africa in May to succeed General Cavaignac in the government of Algeria. He was speedily recalled on his election to the general assembly for the Seine département, and received the command of the National Guard of Paris, to which was added soon afterwards that of the troops in Paris, altogether nearly 100,000 men.
Nicolas Anne Theodule Changarnier held a high place and exercised great influence in the complicated politics of the next two years (for much more on Changarnier's activities during this time, see Karl Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte). He ran for president in the election of 1848, but came in dead last with less than ten thousand votes out of ten times that many. He returned to France after the general amnesty, and resided in his estate in the department of Saône-et-Loire.
At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 he held no command, but was present with the headquarters, and afterwards with Bazaine in Metz. He was employed on an unsuccessful mission to Prince Frederick Charles, commanding the German army which besieged Metz, and on the capitulation became a prisoner of war. At the armistice he returned to Paris, and in 1871 was elected to the National Assembly by four departments, and sat for the Somme.
When the comte de Chambord refused the compromise, he moved the resolution to extend the executive power for ten years to Marshal MacMahon. He was elected a life senator in 1875.
Nicolas Anne Theodule Changarnier took an active part in politics, defended the conduct of Marshal Bazaine, and served on the committee which elaborated the monarchical constitution.