Adolphe Thiers

Thiers rose as a liberal firebrand during the Bourbon Restoration, writing a ten-volume history of the French Revolution that was a political act in itself. He helped engineer the July Revolution of 1830 that put Louis Philippe on the throne, served as prime minister in 1836 and 1840, dedicated the Arc de Triomphe, and arranged Napoleon's return from Saint-Helena. After backing then opposing Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, he was arrested and expelled when Napoleon III seized power. He returned as a critic, opposed the Franco-Prussian War, then negotiated its end after France's defeat. In March 1871, when the Paris Commune took the capital, Thiers ordered the army's suppression of it. The National Assembly named him president that August; he secured the early departure of German occupiers, then resigned in May 1873, squeezed between monarchists and republican radicals. When he died four years later, Victor Hugo and Léon Gambetta led the procession.