Jean Louis Boigues

Jean Louis Boigues was born on 25 April 1784 in Lascelle, Cantal.[1] The Boigues family seems to have moved from Catalonia to France in the 17th century.[2] His parents were Pierre Boigues (1755–1820) and Catherine Brousse (1764–1848).[3] His father was a rich Parisian iron merchant.[4][lower-alpha 1] His family married into newly wealthy aristocratic families. Marie Boigues, sister of Louis Boigues, married Count Hippolyte Jaubert. Jaubert was the nephew and adopted son of Francois Jaubert, a wealthy and powerful regent of the Bank of France.[2] Another sister, Gabrielle Boigues (1788–1855), married Claude Hochet on 5 September 1807, when Hochet was secretary of the Contentious Affairs Committee.[4] In July 1825 Louis Boigues married Claudine Françoise Montanier (1785–1864).[5]

Boigues became an iron merchant and army contractor based in Paris. He collaborated with the engineer Georges Dufaud, who had studied metallurgy in Wales and in 1818 set up a forge using Welsh techniques at Trézy in the Nivernais.[6] Dufaud was the son of an Ancien Régime ironmaster and a pioneer of ironmaking using coal. Boigues supplied the money and commercial connections.[2] Boigues bought the forge in 1820 and moved it to Fourchambault on the Loire below Nevers.[6] The Fourchambault ironworks used coke-blast smelting process.[2] Dufaud continued to manage the forge. Their plan was to combine the new approach to refining iron using coal with the more conventional approach using charcoal practiced in Berry.[6]

Over the ensuing 15 years Boiges, Dufaud and their partners developed Fourchambault into a major center of metallurgy.[6] They bought ten blast furnaces in the region around Fourchambault and existing ironworks that included a sheet metal plant at Imphy and a nail factory at Cosne.[7] Émile Martin, Dufaud's son-in-law, built a foundry near the Fourchambault forge.[8] In the 1820s the Boigues and other partners in Fourchambault such as Dufaud and Martin were heavily involved in promoting railways.[8]

In 1836 the brothers Adolphe and Eugène Schneider acquired the iron works at Le Creusot with investments by François Alexandre Seillière and Louis Boigues.[9] Adolphe had married Valerie Aignan, stepdaughter of Louis Boigues.[10] When Boigues died in 1838 the Fourchambault enterprise was reorganized as a societé en commandite, a limited partnership controlled by the heirs of Boigues and Dufaud. The Société Boigues & Cie soon began a major expansion to meet growing demand from railways.[8] Claude Hochet's son Jules Hochet became manager of the iron foundry of the Société Boigues & Cie.[11]

Boigues was a knight of the Legion of Honour when he ran for election to the legislature in 1828.[12] He was deputy from 21 April 1828 to 16 May 1830 for the Nièvre department as candidate of the Liberal opposition.[1] He sat in the left center, defended the Charter and voted against the ministry of Jules de Polignac.[12] Under the July Monarchy he was elected deputy for Nièvre on 23 June 1830 and sat with the center left. He was reelected on 5 July 1831, 21 June 1834 and 4 November 1837, sitting with the government majority.[1] He took part in the condemnation of the La Tribune newspaper.[12]

Jean Louis Boigues died on 14 November 1838 in Fourchambault, Nièvre.[1]