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François-Charles-Louis Comte (usually referred to merely as "Charles Comte") was a lawyer and journalist, one of the leaders of the French Liberal School during the Bourbon Restoration period.
Charles Comte was born in Sainte-Enimie, in the department of Lozère, in the Languedoc region of southern France. He studied law in Paris. Comte founder and editor of Le Censeur with fellow lawyer and former classmate Charles Dunoyer in 1814, in the hope to push France in a more liberal direction after the collapse of the Bonapartist Empire. During Napoleon's "hundred days" in 1815, Comte bravely come out against Napoleon, notably with a tract on the incompatibility of constitutionalism under a military leader, and the journal was duly suppressed. The Censeur resumed after Waterloo, but went only for two more numbers before it was suppressed again. In the interim, Comte delved into economics, and was particularly energized by the re-appearance of the works of J.B. Say. After meeting Say himself in 1815, Comte became an ardent proponent of laissez-faire. (Comte would eventually go on to marry Say's daughter in 1818).
The Censeur was re-launched, under a new title, in 1817. Disappointed that the old Mercantilist-Imperial economic policies were simply being renewed, Comte grew highly critical of the absolutist and illiberal tendencies of the Bourbon monarchs. The second Censeur was suppressed in 1819, and Comte fled into exile in Switzerland in 1820 to escape a prison sentence. Comte taught natural law at the University of Lausanne for a little while, before being forced to move again in 1823. He was for a period in Britain, where he met his old hero, Jeremy Bentham, and reportedly wrote some articles for the Edinburgh Review (unclear which).
Comte finally returned to France in 1825, and promptly set about writing his magnum opus, the Traité de législation (1827), with an emphasis on the limits of the role of the State in economic affairs. This was followed up by his treatise on property (1834).
Comte was an active participant in the July Revolution of 1830 which toppled the conservative Bourbons, and replaced them with the more liberal Orleanist regime. He served briefly in the new chamber of deputies, before taking up a post at the newly re-created Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques in 1832 (which had been suppressed by Napoleon back in 1803).
After Say's death in 1832, Comte set about editing his posthumous works (1833).
Major Works of Charles Comte
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Resources on Charles Comte
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