Theobald Piscatory

Théobald Émile Arcambal-Piscatory (6 April 1800, Paris – 18 November 1870, Paris) was a French statesman and diplomat.

Life

Early life

A son of François Hyacinthe Arcambal, an employee of the ministry of war, and of Thérèse Rosalie Pélagie Deshayes, on 16 germinal year 7 (6 April 1800) Théobald was adopted by Antoine Pierre Piscatory and took his name.

A fervent hellenophile, Piscatory left France in 1825 to take part in the Greek War of Independence. It was in Greece that he met and befriended Kolettis, future Greek ambassador to Louis Philippe I (1835–1844), then head of the Greek government from 1844 to 1847. He returned to France on 7 August 1826 with general Fabvier.

Politician

A conservative candidate to the Chambre des députés on 5 July 1831 in the second collège of Indre-et-Loire (Tours),he gained 72 votes, as opposed to 288 by César Joseph Bacot, who was elected, and 73 to Delamardelle.

Diplomat

His diplomatic career began in 1841 - from June to September, Guizot, then French foreign minister, sent him to travel throughout Greece in order to assure the Greek leaders of French support for their cause and influence in the region, to assess Greece's progress since the arrival of Otto I and to check whether or not France should deliver the third installment of the loan it had agreed to pay Greece. It was on this trip that Piscatory renounced his former acquaintances and to prove himself as a diplomat. Guizot was satisfied by Piscatory's services and made him France's minister plenipotentiary to the king of Greece in April 1843.

A few months later, on 15 September 1843 (3 September according to the Orthodox calendar) a coup broke out in Greece, forcing Otto to promise to convene a national assembly to give Greece a constitution. Piscatory probably was not at the forefront of the movement, but still played an important role. In the days following the coup, he went to the royal palace several times and made the king listen to his advice not to renege on his promises. After a short and fruitless attempt at rapprochement with the British ambassador Edmund Lyons, Piscatory followed a policy of actively supporting Kolettis' government right from it formation onwards and managed to effectively counterbalance British influence.

He continued to satisfy his government and was made a peer of France on 21 July 1846 and a commander of the Légion d'honneur on 31 August 1846, a year in which French influence in Greece gave rise to the new and powerful instrument thanks to Piscatory's efforts and those of the French education minister the comte de Salvandy - the École française d’Athènes.

On the death of Kolettis, Piscatory asked to be recalled to France and the French government thought of moving him to another country. It thus sent him to replace comte Bresson as ambassador to Madrid on 10 December 1847. The French Revolution of 1848 stopped him taking up this post and the appointment was revoked by the provisional French government on 11 March 1848.

Second Republic

Piscatory then tried to follow a political career under the Second French Republic and was elected representative for the département of Indre-et-Loire in the Assemblée législative on 13 May 1849. He was one of the most active members of the majority, belonging to the rue de Poitiers committee, supported the Rome expedition, the Falloux law on education, the 31 May 1850 electoral law (for which he was on the planning commission) and the revision of the French constitution. He took part in the commission for public assistance and foresight, presided over by Thiers.

He was one of the representatives who gathered in the town hall of the tenth arrondissement of Paris to protest against the 2 December 1851 coup, forcing him to leave politics once and for all. He did, however, retain links with Guizot and joined him in 1867 in forming a Greek committee in support of the Cretan insurgents.

Sources

• "Théobald Piscatory", in Robert and Cougny, Dictionnaire des parlementaires français, 1889