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Jean-Étienne-Marie Portalis (April 1, 1746 - August 25, 1807), was a French jurist and politician in time of the French Revolution and the First Empire.
He was born at Bausset in Provence, to a bourgeois family. He was educated by the Oratorians at their schools in Toulon and Marseille, and then went to the University of Aix; as a student there, he published his first two works, Observations sur Emile in 1763 and Des Prjugs in 1764. In 1765 he became an avocat at the parlement of Aix, and soon obtained so great a reputation that he was instructed by the duc de Choiseul in 1770 to draw up the decree authorizing the marriage of Protestants.
From 1778 to 1781 Portalis was one of the four assessors or administrators of Provence. In November 1793, after the French Republic had been proclaimed, he came to Paris and was thrown into prison for being the brother-in-law of Joseph Jérôme, comte Siméon, the leader of the Federalists in Provence. He was soon released, through the influence of B de V Barre, to a maison de santé, where he remained till the fall of Robespierre.
On being released he practised as a lawyer in Paris; and in 1795 he was elected by the capital to the Conseil des Anciens, becoming a leader of the moderate party opposed to the directory. As a leader of the moderates he was proscribed at the coup d'état of 18 Fructidor Year V, but, unlike General Charles Pichegru and François, marquis de Barbé-Marbois, he managed to escape to Switzerland, and did not return till Napoleon Bonaparte became First Consul.
Bonaparte made him a conseiller d'état in 1800, and then charged him, with FD Tronchet, Bigot de Prameneu, and Jacques de Maleville, to draw up the Code Civil. Of this commission he was the most industrious member, and many of the most important titles, notably those on marriage and heirship, are his work. In 1801 he was placed in charge of the department of cultes or public worship, and in that capacity had the chief share in drawing up the provisions of the Concordat. In 1803 he became a member of the Institute, in 1804 minister of public worship, and in 1805 a knight grand cross of the Legion of Honour. He soon after became totally blind; and after an operation he died at Paris.
The work of Portalis appears in the Code Napoleon, Ecrits et discours juridiques et politiques(1988), Discours préliminaire du premier projet de code civil (one of the most impressive legal work), but see also Frederick Portalis's Documents, rapports, et travaux inédits sur Ie Code Civil (1844) and Sur le Concordat (1845); for his life, see the biography in the edition of his Oeuvres by F. Portalis (1823) and René Lavole, Portalis, sa vie et ses œuvres (Paris, 1869).
His son, Joseph Marie Portalis was a diplomat and statesman.
| Preceded by: Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste de Choiseul-Gouffier | Seat 25 Académie française | Succeeded by: Pierre Laujon |