Joseph Fouché (1759–1820)

French statesman. Tutor at a number of Catholic colleges before the French Revolution. Leading member of the Jacobin club in Nantes. Deputy to the National Convention for the Lower Loire, 1792. As a commissioner of the republic, led the suppression of the counter-revolution in Brittany, la Vandée, Lyons, and Nièvre. Ambassador to the Cisalpine republic, 1798; to the Hague, 1799. Minister of police, 1799–1802, 1804–10, and 1815. Duke of Otranto, 1808. Governor of Rome, 1810. President of the provisional government after the final defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte.