Jacques Laffitte (24 October 1767 – 26 May 1844) was Prime Minister of France from 2 November 1830 to 13 March 1831, succeeding Jules de Polignac and preceding Casimir Pierre Perier. He was a leading Orleanist during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy.
Biography[]
Jacques Laffitte was born in Bayonne, France on 24 October 1767, the son of a master carpenter. He became a bank director in 1807, and his bank became one of the wealthiest companies of the Bourbon Restoration era. Laffitte was an important figure in the development of new banking techniques during the early stages of industrialization in France, and he served in the Chamber of Deputies as a liberal royalist for much of the period. Laffitte came to advocate for the ouster of King Charles X of France after he dissolved the Chamber of Peers and restricted press freedom, playing a decisive role in the July Revolution of 1830. This revolution brought Louis Philippe I to the throne in the place of the absolutist Charles X, and Laffitte served as King Louis Philippe's President of the Council of Ministers and Finance Minister from 2 November 1830 to 13 March 1831, serving as the de facto Prime Minister of France. After a brief ministry of 131 days, Casimir Pierre Perier's faction of Orleanists came to power, leaving office discredited politically and financially ruined. He would later rebuild his finances, but his bank did not outlive Laffitte by long; just four years after Laffitte's death in 1844, the French Revolution of 1848 ruined his investment bank.