Alexandre Lameth (-Theodore-Victor), comte de

Alexandre Lameth

He was born on October 28, 1760, in Paris and died on March 18, 1829, noble who was a leading advocate of constitutional monarchy in the early stages of the French Revolution of 1789.  Lameth and his brothers, Charles and Theodore, fought for the colonists in the American Revolution (1775-83).  On returning of  France, he was appointed colonel of a cavalry regiment (1785).

Lameth was elected a representative for the nobility to the States General that convened on May 5, 1789, but on June 25 he joined the unprivileged Third Estate, which had declared itself a revolutionary National “Assembly.  He helped draft the Assembly’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (August 1789), and he supported measures abolishing feudalism and restricting the hitherto absolute powers of King Louis XVL.  In September, Lameth and his two close associates, Antoine Barnave and Adrien Duport—the “triumpvirate”—blocked legislation that would have created a separate legislative chamber for the mobility.

Nevertheless, by the spring of 1791 Lameth and his friends felt that continuation of the “Revolution might endanger the monarchy and private property.  They then became secret advisers to the royal family, which subsidized their paper, the Logographe.  Lameth secured legislation excluding “passive citizens” (those who could not meet the property qualification for voting) from membership in the national guard, and he sought to curb the popular press, which was agitating for democratic reforms.

Louis XVI’s abortive attempt to flee from France in June 1791, however, discredited the new system of constitutional monarchy.  In an attempt to consolidate their forces, Lameth and his associates withdrew from the Jacobin club and formed the Club of the Feuillans.  The triumvirs were ineligible to sit in the Legislative Assembly, which convened on Oct. 1, 1791, but they directed the Feuillants of the Assembly in their unsuccessful struggle against the Jacobins.

When France went to war with Austria in April 1792, Lameth became an officer in the Army of the North.  He emigrated with the marquis de Lafayette after the fall of the monarchy on Aug. 10, 1792.  Interned for more than three years in Austria, Lameth settled in Hamburg in 1796.  After napoleon came to power in France, Lameth returned to his homeland (1800) and served as a prefect from 1802 until 1815.  He was a member of the liberal parliamentary opposition during the reigns of kings Louis XVII and Charles X.

Peter Lalor – Engineer in Ireland

Peter Lalor

(Born on February 5, 1827 in Tinakill, Queen’s Country, now County Leix.  Died February 9, 1889 in Melbourne),  a politician who, when he was a miner in 1854, led the gold miners’ uprising at the Eureka Stockade in Ballarat, Victoria, one of the most celebrated rebellions in Australian history.

Trained as an engineer in Ireland, Lalor emigrated to Victoria in 1852, working first on the Melbourne railway and then at the Eureka goldfield in 1853.  He joined the Ballarat Reform League, formed by miners on Nov. 11, 1854, to protest high license fees, police mistreatment, lack of representation, and shortage of land.  When the league’s petition for reform went unanswered by the government, the miners organized to fight on November 30 and chose Lalor as their leader.  He went into hiding after the rebellious miners were driven out of the Eureka Stockade on December 3 and emerged again after charges against the rebel  leaders had been dropped.  After the Eureka uprising, most of the miners’ grievances were redressed.

Lalor was one of the first goldfield representatives, elected to the Victoria Legislative Council in 1855 and then to the Legislative Assembly (lower house) 1856-71 and 1875-89.  He served as postmaster general (1875), commissioner of trade and customs (1875, 1877-80), and speaker of the assembly from 1880 to 1887. – The New Encyclopedia Britannica

Visual source:  mininghall