Louis Henri de Gueydon | |
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Governor of Martinique | |
In office 15 June 1853 – September 1856 | |
Preceded by | Auguste-Nicolas Vaillant Jacques Brunot (acting) |
Succeeded by | Louis André Lagrange (acting) Armand Louis Joseph de Fitte de Soucy |
Governor of Algeria | |
In office 21 March 1871 – 10 June 1873 | |
Preceded by | Alexis Lambert |
Succeeded by | Antoine Chanzy |
Deputy for Manche | |
In office 4 October 1885 – 1 December 1886 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Granville, Manche, France | 22 November 1809
Died | 1 December 1886 Kerlaran, Landerneau, Finistère, France | (aged 77)
Occupation | Naval officer |
Louis Henri, comte de Gueydon (22 November 1809 – 1 December 1886) was a vice admiral in the French Navy, and the first governor of Algeria under the Third Republic.
De Gueydon was born in Granville, Manche. His family were nobles of Italian extraction. His son Paul de Gueydon also became a vice-admiral; his son-in-law Auguste de Penfentenyo became a counter admiral; his grandson Hervé de Penfentenyo became a vice-admiral and won the Grand Croix of the Légion d'honneur.
On 29 March 1871, De Gueydon was named civil governor of French Algeria, which had been in revolt for several months. He declared martial law across much of the colony and used severe measures to suppress the revolt. He compared the Kabyles to the Communards of Paris and advised, "Agir comme à Paris; on juge et on désarme". A decree of 14 September partly abolished the "Arab bureaus", reordered the administration of Kabylie, and reorganised 100,000 hectares of land for the influx of colonising refugees from Alsace-Lorraine. On his advice, title would be granted to colonists who engaged to reside on the land for nine years. In 1872 he summed up the political situation: "We must face the fact, that what the politicians and most of the colonists want, is the dominance of those elected by the French population, and the crushing, the enslavement even, of the native population."
In the 1885 legislative election, De Gueydon was elected from Manche to the National Assembly as a Royalist. He had failed to be elected to the Senate earlier that year.[2]