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President of France, 1873-1879
Marie Edmé Patrice Maurice MacMahon, duc de Magenta, Marshal of France ( July 13, 1808 - October 16, 1893) was a Frenchman of Irish descent. He served as President of the Third French Republic from 1873 to 1879. To date he is the only person of Irish descent to have served as a head of state in continental Europe.
Born in Sully (near Autun) , in the département of Saône-et-Loire, Patrice MacMahon was the 16th of 17 children of a family already in the French nobility (his grandfather was named Marquis d'Equilly by king Louis XVLouis XV ( February 15, 1710 May 10, 1774) was king of France from 1715- 74. He was born at the Palace of Versailles. Until the royal legal age of maturity at fourteen, his uncle, Philippe d'Orleans, acted as Regent. Cardinal Fleury, until his death ( 174, and the family in France had decidedly royalist politics).
His ancestors settled in France from county Limerick (although they were originally from County Clare) during the reign of James IIJames II of England and VII of Scotland ( 14 October 1633 16 September 1701) became King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 6 February 1685. He would prove to be the last Catholic monarch to reign over England, Scotland or Ireland. His subjects distrus, owing to the penal laws. They applied for naturalization in 1749.
Patrice MacMahon was educated at the College of Louis Le Grand and at the Academy of St-Cyr, graduating in 1827.
He served in the Army as aide-de-camp to General Achard, and went to the campaign in AlgiersAlgiers (Fr. Alger Arab. El-Jezair i. The Islands), is the capital and largest city of Algeria, North Africa. It is situated on the west side of a bay of the Mediterranean Sea, to which it gives its name, in 36 deg. and is built on the slopes of the Sahel in 1830. He stayed in AlgeriaAlgeria is a country in northern Africa with a coast on the Mediterranean Sea along the north and bordered by Tunisia in the northeast, Libya in the east, Niger in the southeast, Mali and Mauritania in the southwest, and Morocco in the west (the Moroccan from 1834-1854, and was wounded during an assault on ConstantineConstantine or Qustantinah is a city in north-east Algeria, slightly inland. It has a population of about 350,000, making it the third largest city in the country (after Algiers and Oran). It is named for Constantine I of the Roman Empire, who caused the in 1837. He became commander of the Foreign LegionThe French Foreign Legion F''. Legion Etrangere is a military unit of the French Army since 1831. History The French Foreign Legion was created by Louis Philippe, the French King at the time, on March 10, 1831, to support his war in Algeria. Successive le in 1843, and was promoted to Division General in 1852.
In the Crimean WarThe Crimean War lasted from 1854 to 1856. It was fought between Russia and an alliance of the United Kingdom, France, and the Ottoman Empire, joined somewhat tardily by Piedmont-Sardinia. The majority of the conflict took place around the Crimean peninsul, he distinguished himself in the Battle of Malakoff at Sevastopol ( September 8, 1855). He was offered the top French Army post after the war but declined, preferring to return to Algeria.
He was appointed to the French Senate in 1856.
He fought in the Austro-Italian War as commander of the Second Corps ("Army of Italy"). He secured the French victory at Magenta ( June 4, 1859) and rose to the rank of marshal while in the field. He was later named "duc de Magenta" by Napoleon III as a result.
He served as Governor-General of Algeria from September 1, 1864, returning at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, during which he led an Alsatian army unit (although attrition throughout the war led to men from other areas being added to this).
As president of France, he controversially dismissed the republican Prime Minister, replacing him with a known monarchist, before dissolving the French National Assembly on May 16, 1877 in an effort to halt the rise of Republicanism and boost the prospects of a restoration of the monarchy under the Comte de Chambord.
He died at Montcresson , Loiret.
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