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It was called Grande rue until August 2, 1894then, following the proposal of Mr. Défontaine, deputy, and decision of Adolphe Barette, mayor of Vernon (Eure), by deliberation of the municipal council it is called rue Carnot. Carnot, but which one?
Because, in the Carnot family, a certain number of personalities could have given their name to a street: scientistsof the politicians, engineers and soldiers. From his first name Sadi, there are three in the family, including a physicist and engineer (1796-1832), and a colonel and writer (1865-1948).
The one who concerns us was born on August 11, 1837 in Limoges (Haute-Vienne), it is Marie-François-Sadi. The first name Sadi comes from his grandfather Lazare, an admirer, it is said, of the Persian poet Saadi.
The Carnot family belongs to the great bourgeoisie. His mother Claire comes from a family that owned the Château de Savignac in Grenord, in Charente.
He is raised to Parisbut spends the holidays at his grandparents’ castle. With his younger brother, Adolphe, he received a education centered on the literature and philosophy of the 17the and 18e centuries, he learned ancient Greek, Latin, and Italian, but also manual trades, thanks to their father Hippolyte, concerned about the future.
A brilliant student
He is a brilliant student, having won several prizes in the General Competition. He obtained the Baccalaureate of Letters in 1854, then, at the age of 18, the Baccalaureate of Science.
Sadi is bravedetermined and very hardworking. Also gifted in mathematics, he was accepted fifth out of nearly 600 candidates in the entrance exam to the École Polytechnique, in 1857. Then, he joined the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, in 1860. This background would be precious to him throughout throughout his career.
He became engineer of the Bridges and Roads of Haute-Savoie in August 1864. His work, the Collonges bridge which crosses the Rhône, between Ain and Haute-Savoie, won an award at the Universal Exhibition of 1878, but Sadi Carnot , then a deputy, cannot receive this reward. The Bridge will be renamed Pont Carnot. On January 10, 1871, he was appointed extraordinary commissioner for Lower Normandy.
He married Cécile Dupont-White (1841-1898), on 1is June 1863, in Paris. She is a cultured, English-speaking young woman, imbued with the philosophy of the Enlightenment. They had four children, Claire in 1864, Sadi in 1865, Ernest in 1866, and François in 1872.
Elected President of the Republic in 1887
It was as a convinced republican that he got involved in politics. Appointed prefect of Seine-Inférieure (current Seine-Maritime), he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1876, then re-elected during the legislative elections of 1877, 1881 and 1885 and, in April of that same year, First Minister of Public Works, then Minister of Finance.
On December 3, 1887, the day after the resignation of Jules Grévy, the National Assembly elected him to the presidency of the Republic with, in the second round, 74.5% of the votes, against General Saussier, candidate of the conservatives.
The timbre of his voice and his somewhat subdued nature, following a typhoid fever contracted as a student, are often mocked. He is described as a man without deep convictions. However, in 1889, Charles Rémond said of him: “Sadi Carnot tried to convince through logic and the clarity of argumentation rather than leading through rhetorical effects.”
Assassination attempts
The start of Sadi Carnot’s mandate was marked by Boulangist agitation and scandal of the Panama affair. He escapes from assassination attempts in 1889 and 1890.
It is a series ofbomb attacksperpetrated by François Koënigstein known as Ravachol from March 11, 1892, which led, from 1893, to laws to fight against anarchist attacks.
On December 9, 1893, Auguste Vaillant, an anarchist activist, threw a bomb into the chamber of the Chamber of Deputies, injuring around fifty people. Following this attack, Vaillant was condemned and guillotined on February 5, 1894. The refusal of pardon, despite a request signed by 58 deputies, provoked anger in the anarchist milieu.
A violent death
On June 24, 1894, Sadi Carnot was on an official trip to Lyon, for the Universal, International and Colonial Exhibition. He has to go to a performance at the city’s Grand Théâtre. It was during a crowd on Rue de la République that a young Italian anarchist, Sante Geronimo Caserio, threw himself on the car and stabbed the president. This serious injury to the liver and portal vein causes hemorrhage that the surgeon will not be able to stop.
President Sadi Carnot dies overnight at the age of 56. On July 1, 1894, after a national funeral at Notre-Dame, Sadi Carnot was buried in the Pantheon.
From our correspondent Monique Dupont Sagorin
Sources: “The three Republics and the three Carnots” by Ch. Rémond (Edition Georges Maurice). Archives Service of the Presidency of the Republic. Vernon Archives Service.
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