Louis Frémy
Louis Frémy | |
|---|---|
| Born | Error: Invalid birth date for calculating age Saint-Fargeau, France |
| Died | March 16, 1891 (aged 85) Paris, France |
| Occupation(s) | Official, politician, banker |
| Years active | 1831–1877 |
| Known for | Governor of Crédit Foncier; mayor of Saint-Fargeau; deputy for Yonne |
Louis Frémy (born April 2, 1805, in Saint-Fargeau – died March 16, 1891, in Paris) was a notable French official, politician, and banking figure.
Early life and family
Louis Frémy was born in Saint-Fargeau to Xavier Louis Maurice Frémy, who served as the town’s mayor from 1803 until his passing in 1807. Raised by his mother after his father's death, he pursued education at Collège Sainte-Barbe and later at the Faculty of Law of Paris, qualifying as a lawyer in Paris by 1829. In 1837, he wed Louise Alexandrine Delacour, and they had a son named Paul in 1848.
In 1841, Frémy purchased an estate close to Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye. Three years later, he acquired a residence at L'Orme-du-Pont where he established an agricultural school that operated between 1847 and 1878. Additionally, he constructed a vacation home located in the Mont Boron area of Nice.
Official positions
Frémy held the office of mayor of Saint-Fargeau beginning in 1831 and served as subprefect in Joigny from 1833 to 1836. By 1833, he had attained the rank of master () at the Conseil d'État. He was appointed subprefect of Domfront in 1835 and later of Gien in 1837.
In 1842, Frémy joined the French railway commission (), advancing to the role of secretary-general in 1847. The following year, he became chief of staff to Minister of the Interior Léon Faucher and also served as prefect of the Yonne department. Between 1849 and 1851, he represented Yonne as a deputy aligned with the monarchist right. In 1853, under Minister Jean Gilbert Victor Fialin, duc de Persigny, he was appointed head of personnel at the Interior Ministry.
In 1862, Empress Eugénie named him vice-president of her private financial administration. He resumed his position as deputy for Yonne from 1865 to 1869, this time backing the dynastic majority supporting Napoleon III. A close confidant of Georges-Eugène Haussmann, Frémy was a committed advocate for the Second French Empire.
Banking career
On , Frémy succeeded Charles Le Bègue de Germiny as chief executive (Governor) of Crédit Foncier. During the late 1850s and early 1860s, he played a key role in enabling substantial loans to the ventures of the Pereire brothers.
Between 1860 and 1861, he spearheaded Crédit Foncier’s efforts to extend agricultural credit through the , although this initiative declined by the late 1870s and is not directly linked to the later establishment of Crédit Agricole. In 1861, Frémy became part of a committee tasked with mediating disputes between the Bank of France and the Bank of Savoy. By 1863, alongside deputy Georges de Soubeyran, he acquired approximately one-third of the shares in Vienna’s Allgemeine Bodencreditanstalt on behalf of Crédit Foncier shareholders and himself. Under his guidance, similar mortgage banks were founded abroad: in the United States and Prussia in 1867, followed by Spain in 1873.
In 1862, Crédit Foncier purchased the historic building on Place Vendôme, reinforcing Frémy’s influence within Paris’s financial circles.
During 1865-1866, he co-established and presided over the Société Générale Algérienne. By the following decade, he also chaired another prominent financial institution operating in French Algeria.
In January 1877, under the governance of the French Third Republic, Finance Minister Léon Say removed Frémy from his post at Crédit Foncier due to his involvement with Egyptian investments; Georges de Soubeyran was dismissed in August 1878. Despite this setback, Frémy maintained a position on the board of Austria’s Bodencreditanstalt until his death. Having suffered significant financial losses by that time, he sold his estates at Les Janets (1884) and L'Orme-du-Pont (1889), though he still owned a villa on the Côte d'Azur as late as 1887.
Honors
On , Frémy was awarded the rank of within the Legion of Honour. Additionally, he was honored with Spain's Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic, the First Class Iron Cross of Merit from Austria-Hungary, the first class Order of the Medjidie bestowed by the Ottoman Empire, and Italy's decoration of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus.
In popular culture
The figure of Frémy served as the inspiration for Toutain-Laroche, a character featured in Émile Zola's 1872 work La Curée.