Ferry, Jules François Camille

Ferry, Jules François Camille, French statesman, born at Saint Dié in the Vosges, April 5, 1832, was admitted to the Paris bar in 1854, and speedily identified himself with the opponents of the Empire. His hostility was carried into journalism, and a series of articles in the Temps, in which he analysed the accounts of the prefect who was then rebuilding Paris, were republished as the Comptes Fantastiques d'Haussmann (1865). In 1869 he was elected to the Corps Législatif, where he voted against the war with Prussia; and during the siege of Paris by the Germans (1870-71) he played a prominent part as central mayor of the city. He was minister to Athens in 1872-73, and in 1879 became minister of Public Instruction, in which capacity he brought forward an education bill containing a clause, which was levelled at the Jesuits, shutting out members of 'unauthorised religious communities' from the schools. The clause was twice thrown out in the senate, but the expulsion of the Jesuits was effected by decrees founded on laws long since fallen into disuse, and brought about the dissolution of the ministry in September 1880. M. Ferry then formed a cabinet, which remained in office until November 1881. Again becoming premier in February 1883, he boldly embarked on a policy of 'colonial expansion,' involving a war in Madagascar, and an invasion of Tonquin, where a disaster to the French troops brought about his downfall in March 1885. He died March 17, 1893.