Eugène Spuller

Eugène Spuller (8 December 1835 – 28 July 1896) was a French politician and writer.

He was born at Seurre (Côte-d'Or), his father being a German who had married and settled in France. After studying law at Dijon, he went to Paris, where he was called to the bar, and became close to Léon Gambetta, collaborating with him in 1868 in the foundation of the Revue politique. He had helped Emile Ollivier in his electoral campaign in Paris in 1863, but when in 1869 Ollivier was preparing to "rally" to the empire, Spuller supported the republican candidate. During the siege of Paris he escaped from the city with Gambetta, becoming his energetic lieutenant in the provinces.

After the peace he edited his chief's Parisian organ, the République française, until in 1876 he entered the Chamber of Deputies for the department of the Seine. He was minister of foreign affairs during the brief Gambetta administration, and subsequently one of the vice-presidents of the chamber, serving on the budget commission and on a special industrial and agricultural inquiry. His Parisian constituents thought him too moderate on the clerical question, and he had to seek election in 1885 in the Côte d'Or, which in later years he represented in the Senate.

He was minister of education, religion and the fine arts in Maurice Rouvier's cabinet of 1887; minister of foreign affairs under Pierre Tirard (1889–1890), and minister of education in 1894 in the Casimir-Perier cabinet. His published works include some volumes of speeches and well-known studies of Ignatius of Loyola (1876) and of Jules Michelet (1876).

Statue of Liberty dedication

On the Fourth of July, 1884, Spuller and other members of the French Cabinet formally presented the Statue of Liberty to the United States. At this ceremony, Eugene Spuller, then serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared that the two great republics "united in the past by services rendered are united at present by a common principle, and will be united in the future by the benefits that Liberty will produce for humanity."

Following the ceremony, the statue was dismantled into numbered sections and packed in 210 wooden cases and put aboard the government steamship Idsdre, which sailed May 21, 1885, for New York City.

Death and Tomb

Spuller passed away in Dijon in 1896 following a lengthy illness. Spuller's tomb in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris is marked by a statue representing National Education, by sculptor Paul Gasq.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Political offices
Preceded by Marcelin Berthelot	Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts 1887	Succeeded by Léopold Faye
Preceded by René Goblet	Minister of Worship 1887
Preceded by René Goblet	Minister of Foreign Affairs 1889–1890	Succeeded by Alexandre Ribot
Preceded by Raymond Poincaré	Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts 1893–1894	Succeeded by Georges Leygues
	Minister of Worship 1893–1894	Succeeded by Charles Dupuy