Claude-Emmanuel de Pastoret

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Claude-Emmanuel Joseph Pierre, marquis de Pastoret (1755-1840) was a French author and politician.

Pastoret was elected member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres on the strength of his "Zoroastre, Confucius et Mahomet comparés comme sectaires, legislateurs et moralistes".

He was Venerable Master of "Les Neuf Sœurs" from 1788 till 1789.

In 1790 Claude-Emannuel Pastoret --then president of the Parisian electoral body to the National Assembly--was offered the offices of Minister of Interior and Minister of Justice by the desperate King Louis XVI. He declined the honours and was elected "procureur géneral syndic du département de la Seine". It was in this capacity that he was responsible for the transformation of the église Sainte-Génevieve into a temple where the remains of great citizens of the new state were to be honoured: the Panthéon, Paris.

In the National Assembly (French Revolution) he pleaded for the abolition of slavery and the secularisation of the civil state.

Following the coup d'état of 18 Fructidor, an V (see:Directoire) Pastoret was excluded from the Council of Five Hundred (les "Cinq-Cents").

Under Napoleon's First French Empire he worked on a University career. Under Louis XVIII he was awarded a French peerage for his extensive work on the Constitutional Charter.

In 1830 he refused to vow loyalty to Louis-Philippe and was deprived of all his functions.

His written works include a "Traité des lois pénales" and an impressive "Histoire de la législation" (11 volumes)

[edit] Reference

Daniel Ligou ed, "Dictionnaire de la Franc-maçonnerie" (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1987)