Anatole de Monzie

Anatole de Monzie (22 November 1876, Bazas, Gironde – 11 January 1947, Paris) was a French administrator, encyclopaedist (Encyclopédie française), political figure and scholar. His father was a tax collector in Bazas, Gironde where Anatole - a name he disliked from an early age - was born in 1876. A nurse mishap resulted in an accident where the child Anatole lost the proper use of his leg and he remained crippled for the rest of his life. He never married but had several affairs. A brilliant mind, he studied in Agen before attending the Collège Stanislas, a famous catholic school in Paris, where he became friend with writer to be Henry de Jouvenel and catholic activist Marc Sangnier.

He studied law and started to practice but finally chose politics. He was chef de cabinet of education minister Joseph Chautemps in 1902. At about the same time, he started a career as a local politician in the Lot, a forlorn and backwater, yet charming, department in the south west of France. Successively, and very often simultaneously, he became counsellor, general, mayor of Cahors (the local prefecture), deputy and senator. Soon commanding a huge following among the local voters, pleased by his culture, his easy access to government and proficiency in handing out public sector jobs, he made of the Lot a lifelong stronghold.

Member of a small centrist faction, called Républicains Socialistes, he soon cut a fine figure in the Chambre des Députés because of its abilities and its central positioning. His thriving ministerial career started in 1913 when he was appointed sous-secrétaire d'État à la marine marchande. From 1918 to 1940, he occupied numerous positions in all sorts of governments and was appointed minister eighteen times.

As a finance minister, he is remembered for recommending to cut the budget in 1925. He was deeply involved in the diplomatic affairs, starting a campaign for a renewal of the relations with the Holy Seat followed, in 1922, by a plea for the acknowledgment of the Soviet Union. From 1924 to 1927, he headed the Russian Affairs commission and as such dealt with some of the prominent Russian figures of that time. He started discussing the reimbursement of the Russian loans but, after the return to power of Poincaré in 1926, the negotiation failed.

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