Background
Severiano de Heredia was born in Havana, Cuba, to Henri de Heredia and Beatrice Cardenas.
Severiano de Heredia was born in Havana, Cuba, to Henri de Heredia and Beatrice Cardenas.
Lycée Louis-le-Grand.
He served in the Chamber of Deputies from 1881 to 1889 and was minister of public works for the cabinet of Maurice Rouvier in 1887, where he planned and oversaw the construction of some of the finest French highways. He also made his reputation by campaigning for the abolition of slavery in Cuba and Brazil. He is believed to be a cousin of the famous French poet, José-Maria de Heredia.
At the age of 10 he was sent by his godfather, Heredia y Campuzano, to France for his education, attending the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris.
He applied for French citizenship which was granted under the Ministerial Decree of 28 September 1870. In 1871, while he was assuming the role of a conciliator, he published a political essay entitled Paix et plébiscite (Peace and referendum) in which he pleaded for a democratic end to the Franco-Prussian war.
In 1879, he was elected president of the municipal council of Paris, and in August 1881 member to the Chamber of Deputies, where he stayed until he was defeated at the election of 1889 by a Boulangist opponent. On 30 May 1887, he was appointed Minister of Public in the government of Maurice Bouvier, until 11 December 1887.
On retiring from politics he devoted himself to the history of literature.
Severiano de Heredia was also an active freemason. Initiated in 1866 in the “Étoile polaire” (North Star) lodge of Paris, he became Worshifull Master of his lodge, and then Deputy of Grand Orient of France in 1875, and President of the Masonic Orphanage. Within this framework, Severiano de Heredia took part to the first French Congress for Women"s Rights in 1878, as a French representative of the intended Committee of Initiative, at the Masonic Grand Orient.
He died at his home in Paris on 9 February 1901.
He entered politics as a radical Republican and was elected in April 1873 to be a member of the City Council of Paris, for the Ternes and Plaine-Moceau neighborhoods (17th arrondissement).