Charles-Francois Lebrun (19 March 1739-16 June 1824) was Third Consul of the French Consulate from 1799 to 1804 under Napoleon Bonaparte, as well as his Arch-Treasurer and a Prince of the First French Empire.
Biography[]
Originally a lawyer and a translator before the French Revolution, Lebrun was a constitutional monarchist and a member of the Girondins during the 1790s. Lebrun aroused the suspicion of the Jacobin Club due to his views, and he was elected to the Council of Ancients of the French Directory after the Thermidorian Reaction ended his persecution by the Jacobins. In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte made him Third Consul of the French Consulate, effectively making him a nominal leader of the oligarchy. From 1805 to 1806, he served as governor of the Liguria region of northern Italy, although he disagreed with Napoleon on many of his imperialist policies. Although he was not a supporter of the Napoleonic regime, he did not back his removal from power in 1814, and he was suspended from peerage after the Bourbon Restoration in 1815. He was recalled in 1819, and he died in Saint-Mesme, France on 16 June 1824 at the age of 85.