Périer, Casimir-Pierre

PÉRIER, CASIMIR-PIERRE. - French politician, b. 11 Oct. 1777 at Grenoble, d. 16 May 1832 at Paris. A deputy from 1817 until his death and president of the Chamber in 1830.

President of the Council and minister of the Interior on 13 March 1831, he pursued a policy of energetic repression of every revolutionary attempt and set as his foreign aim the preservation of the statu quo. By non-intervention in the affairs of Italy he disappointed the Italian revolutionaries, who had risen in the legations and in the Duchy of Modena in the hope of French intervention, but he clearly warned Austria not to influence events with arms. Metternich, however, had Modena and the legations occupied by his own troops and stifled every attempt to establish liberal systems or at least reforms in the peninsula. P., determined not to permit Austrian predominance in the peninsula, had Ancona occupied in Feb. 1832 by French forces. It was a notable success of French policy but also a violation of the papal government, which nevertheless re-established in the peninsula a Franco-Austrian equilibrium. Since the evacuation of Ancona was made conditional on the departure of the Austrian troops from Bologna, the French left the city only in Dec. 1838; P. died, in the midst of his policy, a victim of cholera.

Silvio Furlani