Louis-Eugène Cavaignac (French: [lwi øʒɛn kavɛɲak]; 15 October 1802 – 28 October 1857) was a French general and politician who served as head of the executive power of France from June to December 1848, during the French Second Republic.
Born in Paris to a prominent family, Cavaignac was educated for a military career. Shortly after returning from service in the Morea expedition he took part in the July Revolution, and in 1832 was sent to Algeria, at the start of the French invasion, where he served with distinction for the next 16 years. He started his political career following the French Revolution of 1848 and the establishment of the Second Republic, being elected member of the National Assembly, and soon became one of the leaders of the Moderate Republicans.
As Minister of War in the French provisional government, Cavaignac was tasked with putting down the June Days uprising, a revolt by Parisian workers against the National Assembly, and for this was temporarily given emergency powers. After suppressing the insurrection he renounced his dictatorial powers, and was subsequently confirmed by the National Assembly as the provisional "Chief of the Executive Power" of France, governing for nearly six months until the 1848 presidential election, in which he ran but lost to Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. He continued to serve as a representative in the National Assembly until its dissolution by the president during the 1851 coup d'état, and afterwards retired into private life.
Cavaignac was born in Paris on 15 October 1802, the second and last child of Jean-Baptiste Cavaignac (1762–1829) and Julie-Marie de Corancez (1780–1849), who were married in 1797. His elder brother was the republican activist and journalist Éléonore-Louis Godefroi Cavaignac. At the time of his birth, his father was the mayor of Saint-Sauveur, and previously during the French Revolution had been a Jacobin member of the National Convention, where he voted for the execution of Louis XVI. His mother was the member of a wealthy family, prominent in the liberal intellectual circles of Paris, being the daughter of Guillaume Olivier de Corancez, founder of the Journal de Paris and a friend of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Through his mother, Cavaignac was a great-grandson of the Genevan encyclopédiste Jean Romilly. He and his brother were raised in accordance with the principles established in Rousseau's Emile, or On Education.
Cavaignac entered the École Polytechnique in 1820, then two years left to continue his studies in Metz. Having finished his military education, he joined the Royal Army as a sub-lieutenant of the 2nd regiment of military engineers. Promoted to lieutenant in 1826, he served between 1828 and 1829 in the Morea expedition, the French intervention in the Greek War of Independence. In 1830, upon the outbreak of the July Revolution, Cavaignac, who was stationed in Arras, became one of the first officers to join the revolt against the Bourbon monarchy. He was then promoted to captain in October 1830, under the new July Monarchy.
In 1831, Cavaignac was removed from active duty in consequence of his declared republicanism, after he responded negatively to his colonel when questioned if he would obey orders to fight an eventual republican insurrection. He was recalled in 1832 and deployed with the Army of Africa, to serve in the invasion of Algeria. In the first years of the campaign he saw action at Oran (1833), Mascara (1834) and Tlemcen (1836), which earned him praise from his commanding officer, Thomas Bugeaud, who described Cavaignac as "an instructed officer", whose "high capabilities" made him "ready for great things". In April 1837 he was given command of a battalion of zouaves, and later won special distinction in his fifteen months' command of the exposed garrison of Tlemcen, a command for which he was selected by Marshal Clauzel, and in the defence of Cherchell in 1840.
In his biography of Cavaignac, Hippolyte Castille remarked that "those who had known general Cavaignac in the battlefield knew what intelligence and energy he deployed in action". Almost every step of his promotion was gained on the field of battle. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in June 1840, to colonel in August 1841, and to maréchal de camp in 1844, the latter on the request of Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale himself, son of King Louis Philippe. As he rose through the ranks in Algeria, Cavaignac's correspondence with the republicans in France became increasingly rare. In the last years of the July Monarchy, Cavaignac was appointed governor of the province of Oran, replacing general Lamoricière.
Following the February 1848 Revolution and the creation of the Republic, Cavaignac was promoted to general of division and was appointed Governor General of Algeria by the French provisional government, succeeding the Duke of Aumale. On 20 March he was offered the office of Minister of War, but refused it in a letter addressed to the provisional government from Algiers, on 27 March. About a month later, Cavaignac returned to France to take his seat as a representative of Lot to the constituent National Assembly, after being the most voted in that department on the 1848 legislative election.
Cavaignac arrived in Paris on 17 May 1848, and on the same day accepted from the Executive Commission the Ministry of War he had previously refused. At the National Assembly he sat among the Moderate Republicans, and there, at the 10 June session, he engaged in a debate with the Bonapartist deputy Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès, which started a lasting antagonism between the general and Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte.
On 23 June, the Executive Commission put Cavaignac in charge of suppressing an armed workers' insurrection in eastern Paris, which would become known as the June Days. By 24 June, the insurgents posed such a threat that the National Assembly gave Cavaignac dictatorial powers, and disbanded the Executive Committee. Cavaignac viewed the insurrection as a military issue above all else, and thus relied on the regular army with assistance from the National Guard, and did not hesitate to use cannons to break through barricades. When his troops advanced in three strong columns every inch of ground was disputed, and government troops were frequently repulsed, requiring reinforcement by fresh regiments, until he forced his way to the Place de la Bastille and crushed the insurrection at its headquarters. By 26 June the uprising had been put down.
In the view of Cavaignac and other Moderate Republicans in government, the young Republic had just been saved. He had suppressed the revolt with strong determination, but took time in preparing to attack. At the time Alphonse de Lamartine even suspected Cavaignac of having deliberately chosen to delay the government's response, allowing the early protests on 23 June to grow, so that his ultimate victory over the insurgents would be more decisive.
After defeating the insurrection, Cavaignac presented himself before the National Assembly and announced his intention to renounce the dictatorial powers delegated to him, which he did on 28 June. The parliament therefore confirmed him in power as Chief of the Executive Power (Chef du pouvoir exécutif). As a committed Republican, Cavaignac strove as head of state of France to secure the democratic institutions recently achieved with the February Revolution, and selected the members of his cabinet accordingly. Many government ministers were also connected to the newspaper Le National, the press of the Moderate Republican majority of the National Assembly.
In his early government, Cavaignac imposed control over political clubs and suppressed the left-wing press, which he deemed responsible for inciting the armed insurrection of June. He temporarily prohibited the publication of eleven newspapers, including Le Père Duchêne, named after the 1790s radical publication. He would later, in August, indefinitely ban Le Père Duchêne along with three other journals for being "instruments of civil war and not of liberty".