Pierre Claude Francois Daunou

Pierre Claude François Daunou was a French statesman, theorist of liberalism, and historian. He was educated at the local school of the Oratorians, and joined the order in 1777. He taught in various seminaries until 1787, when he was ordained a priest. During the French Revolution, he supported the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and was elected to the National Convention by the Pas-de-Calais département. He associated himself with the moderate Girondins and opposed the death sentence for King Louis XVI. He was imprisoned for almost a year after the fall of his party in 1793. He returned to the convention in 1794 and was the principal author of the Constitution of the Year III that established the Directory in 1795. He also drew up the plans for the Institut de France and was elected as the first president of the Council of Five Hundred. He was sent to Rome in 1798 to organize the Roman Republic and returned to France in 1799. He prepared the Constitution of the Year VIII that established the Consulate under Napoleon Bonaparte. He supported Napoleon against Pope Pius VII and wrote a treatise on the temporal power of the papacy in 1809. He was appointed as the nation's archivist in 1807 and held that position until his death in 1840. He also contributed a volume to the Histoire littéraire de la France and published more than twenty volumes of lectures he delivered at the Collège de France, where he held the chair of history and ethics from 1812 to 1839.¹