Pierre-Clément de Laussat

Laussat was born in the town of Pau. After serving as receveur général des finances in Pau and Bayonne from 1784 to 1789,[1] he was imprisoned during the Terror, but was released and recruited in the armée des Pyrénées. On April 17, 1797, he was elected to the Council of Ancients. After the coup of 18 Brumaire, he entered the Tribunat on December 25, 1798.[2]

Laussat's proclamation regarding the restoration of Louisiana to France (27 March 1803)

He was appointed by Napoleon Bonaparte to be colonial prefect (governor) of Louisiana in August 1802 and arrived in the colony on March 26, 1803.[3] In his procolomation introducing himself and his fellow Republican colonial administrators, Laussat described the transfer of Louisiana from France to Spain as "... one of the most shameful epochs of her [France's] glory, under an already weak and corrupt Government, after an ignominious war and following a withering peace." He praised Bonaparte's desire to regain Louisiana and to see the colony thrive.[4] Laussat also provided an outline for how the colony would be governed with a captain general overseeing internal and external defense of the colony; a colonial prefect overseeing administration and finances; and a commissary of justice overseeing civil and criminal tribunals.[5] Two weeks later, Bonaparte made his decision to sell Louisiana to the United States.[3]

Laussat was initially only to be the interim head of Louisiana until arrival of the Governor General Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte appointed by Bonaparte. However, when Bonaparte rejected Bernadotte's request for additional settlers and support for the posting, Bernadotte declined the governorship.[6] This left Laussat ruling as governor for several months, during which time he abolished the local cabildo and then published the Napoleonic Code in the colony.[7]

Laussat envisioned bringing forth a rebirth of a prosperous French La Nouvelle-Orléans; however, not all Louisianans were eager to see Republican France in control of the city. Three-fifths of the Ursaline sisters in New Orleans, along with their mother-superior, decided to abandon the city and head to Havana when the Spanish handed over the city.[8] Lassat and other French officials were contemptuous towards the Spanish officials in charge of the territory; he contrasted the "Spanish spirit" as senile, corrupt, racially weak and effeminately degenerate with the "austerity, efficiency, and virility" of Bonapartist republicanism.[9]

Within several months, Laussat heard that Louisiana had been sold to the U.S., but he did not believe it. On July 28, 1803, he wrote to the French government to inquire whether the rumor was true.[3] On August 18, 1803, he received word from Bonaparte that France had declared war on Great Britain and that he was to transfer Louisiana to the United States.[10][11]

On November 30, 1803, Laussat served as commissioner of the French government in the retrocession of Louisiana from Spain to France. A few weeks later, on December 20, 1803, Laussat transferred the colony to the U.S. representatives, William C.C. Claiborne and James Wilkinson.[3]

On April 21, 1804, Laussat left Louisiana to become colonial prefect of Martinique, serving until 1809 when he was captured and imprisoned by the British.[12]

In 1810, Laussat returned to France and sought a new governmental posting. He was sent to the French Netherlands to oversee the port of occupied Antwerp (1810–1812) and then to serve as prefect of Jemmape (1812–1814). During the Hundred Days, he served as prefect of Pas-de-Calais until the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.[13]

During the Bourbon Restoration, he served as commandant of French Guiana from 1819 to 1823,[14] after which he retired to his ancestral château in France where he died in 1835.

In September 1790, Laussat married Marie-Anne-Joséphine de Péborde de Pardiès (1768–1827), the daughter of Laussat's mentor, Jean-Nicolas de Péborde, seigneur de Cardesse.[15] They had three daughters — Zoé, Sophie, and Camille — and one son, Lysis Baure Pierre.[16]

• Laussat, Pierre-Clément de (1831). Mémoires sur ma vie à mon fils: pendant les années 1803 et suivantes, que j'ai rempli des fonctions publiques, savoir à la Louisianne, en qualité de commissaire du gouvernement français pour la reprise de possession de cette colonie et pour sa remise aux Etats-Unis; à la Martinique, comme préfet colonial; à la Guyane française, en qualité de commandant et administrateur pour le roi [Memoirs on my Life to My Son During the Years 1803 and following, that I Filled Public Office in Louisiana, as Commissioner of the French Government for the Repossession of This Colony and for Surrender to the United States; in Martinique, as Colonial Prefect; and in French Guiana, as Commander and Administrator for the King] (in French). Pau, France: É. Vignancour, Imprimeur - Libaire. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
• Laussat, Pierre Clement de (1978). Bush, Robert D. (ed.). Memoirs of My Life: Beyond the Bayou. Translated by Pastwa, Agnes-Josephine. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: LSU Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-2870-1. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
• Laussat, Pierre-Clément de (1989). Lebel, Maurice (ed.). Louisiana, Napoleon and the United States: An Autobiography of Pierre-Clément de Laussat, 1756-1835. Translated by Pastwa, Agnes-Josephine. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. ISBN 978-0-8191-7448-2. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
• Kuka, Jon; Rosal, Angelita; Lemmon, Alfred Emmette, eds. (1993). A Guide to the Papers of Pierre Clément Laussat: Napoleon's Prefect for the Colony of Louisiana and of General Claude Perrin Victor at the Historic New Orleans Collection. New Orleans, Louisiana: The Historic New Orleans Collection. ISBN 978-0-917860-33-1. Retrieved 2 November 2018.