Waldeck Rousseau

Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau
Waldeck-Rousseau, photographed by Nadar
51st Prime Minister of France
In office 22 June 1899 – 7 June 1902
Preceded by	Charles Dupuy
Succeeded by	Émile Combes
Personal details
Born	2 December 1846 Nantes
Died	10 August 1904(1904-08-10) (aged 57) Corbeil-Essonnes
Political party	Opportunist Republicans Democratic Republican Alliance

Pierre Marie René Ernest Waldeck-Rousseau (French: [pjɛʁ valdɛk ʁuso]; 2 December 1846 – 10 August 1904) was a French Republican politician.

Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau was born in Nantes, Loire-Atlantique. His father, René Waldeck-Rousseau, a barrister at the Nantes bar and a leader of the local republican party, figured in the revolution of 1848 as one of the deputies returned to the Constituent Assembly for Loire Inférieure.

The son was a delicate child whose eyesight made reading difficult, and his early education was therefore entirely oral. He studied law at Poitiers and in Paris, where he took his licentiate in January 1869. His father's record ensured his reception in high republican circles. Jules Grévy stood sponsor for him at the Parisian bar. After six months of waiting for briefs in Paris, he decided to return home and to join the bar of St Nazaire early in 1870. In September he became, in spite of his youth, secretary to the municipal commission temporarily appointed to carry on the town business. He organized the National Defence at St Nazaire, and himself marched out with his contingent, though they saw no active service owing to lack of ammunition, their private store having been commandeered by the state.

In 1873, following the establishment of the Third Republic in 1871, he moved to the bar of Rennes, and six years later was returned to the Chamber of Deputies. In his electoral program he had stated that he was prepared to respect all liberties except those of conspiracy against the institutions of the country and of educating the young in hatred of the modern social order. In the Chamber he supported the policy of Léon Gambetta.