French Bonapartist statesman, born at Riom, where he became a barrister; entered the Constituent Assembly in 1848, and in the following year became Minister of Justice; was more or less in office during the next 20 years; he became President of the Senate in 1869; fled to England on the fall of the Empire; later on re-entered the National Assembly, and vigorously defended the ex-emperor Napoleon III. (1814-1884).