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Joseph Jerôme, comte Siméon (September 30, 1749 – January 19, 1842), was a French jurist and politician.
He was born at Aix. His father, Joseph Sextius Siméon (1717–1788), had been a professor of law and royal secretary for the parlement of Provence. JJ Siméon followed the same profession, but he was outlawed for his share in the federalist movement in 1793, and only returned to France after the revolution of Thermidor. In the council of the Five Hundred, of which he was now a member, he took the conservative side. In 1799, for protesting against the invasion of the chamber by PFC Augereau, he was imprisoned until the 18th Brumaire (November 9). In the Tribunate he had an important share in the preparation of the Civil Code, being rewarded by a seat in the council of state.
In 1807 he was one of the commissioners sent to organize the new Kingdom of Westphalia, and became first minister to King Jérôme. He served the Restoration as councillor of state and in the chamber of peers. In 1820 he was under-secretary of state for justice, and in the next year minister of the interior until the fall of the Richelieu ministry. A baron of the Empire and count at the second Restoration, he was admitted to the Academy of Moral and Political Science in 1832, and in 1837 he became president of the Cour des Comptes. He died in Paris, in his 93rd year.
His son, Joseph Balthasar, comte Siméon, was a diplomat.
Reference
- This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.