Ferry Jules Francois

Ferry, Jules Francois, a French statesman, was born in the Vosges in 1832. He was called to the Paris bar in 1854, and in politics opposed the Court party. He wrote in the Temps, where appeared his Comptes Fantastiques d'Haussmann. In 1869 he was a member of the Corps Legislatif, and voted against the war. During the siege of Paris he was a member of the Government of National Defence, and in 1872 he was appointed Minister to the Court of Athens. In 1879 as Minister of Public Instruction he was instrumental in the exrpulsion of the Jesuits; and he was Prime Minister in 1880-81, and again in 1883-85. It was he who established the French protectorate in Tunis in 1881; and in his second Mihistry the war in Madagascar and Tonquin led to the fall of his Cabinet and his own retirement from public life. In 1893 he returned to favour and was elected President of the Senate, but he died after holding the office for a few weeks only.