Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin

Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin (; 2 February 1807 – 31 December 1874) was a French lawyer, politician and one of the leaders of the French Revolution of 1848. Youth The grandson of Nicolas Philippe Ledru, the celebrated quack doctor known as "Comus" under Louis XV and Louis XVI, Ledru-Rollin was born in Paris. He had just begun to practice at the Parisian bar before the Revolution of July 1830 and was retained for the Republican defence in most of the great political trials of the next ten years. In 1838, he bought for 330,000 francs Désiré Dalloz's place in the Court of Cassation. He was elected deputy for Le Mans in 1841 with little opposition; but the violence of his electoral speeches led to his being tried at Angers and sentenced to four months' imprisonment and a fine, against which he appealed successfully on a technical point. Under Louis Philippe he made large contributions to French jurisprudence, editing the Journal du palais, 1791–1837 (27 you., 1837) and 1837–1847 (17 vols.), with a commentary Repertoire général de la jurisprudence française (8 vols., 1843–1848), the introduction to which was written by himself. His later writings were political in character. See Ledru-Rollin, ses discours et ses écrits politiques (2 vols., Paris, 1879), edited by his widow. Politics He made a rich and romantic marriage in 1843 and, in 1846, disposed of his charge at the Court of Cassation to give his time entirely to politics. He was now the recognized leader of the working-men of France. He had more authority in the country than in the Chamber, where the violence of his oratory diminished its effect. He asserted that the fortifications of Paris were directed against liberty, not against foreign invasion, and he stigmatized the law of regency (1842) as an audacious usurpation.