“Native” or “Foreign”? Auguste de Staël’s French Nationality Challenged in 1824

In 1824, attacked on his French nationality, Auguste de Staël had published by an English publisher close to his Protestant revivalist networks, a legal consultation written by two great Parisian lawyers, Messrs. Billecocq and Gairal. At the origin of this affair, a land and political establishment in the department of Ain in the footsteps of the liberal Camille Jordan as well as his registration within the electoral college. But it appears that he was mainly blamed for his family origins. Born in France during the Revolution of foreign parents, then of a mother proscribed under the Empire, his case fell under the Civil Code of 1804 but also under fluctuating case law in the matter. Witness the same year the fight in parliament by Benjamin Constant. Political law and citizenship having become inseparable, the status of citizen and French nationality did not cease to be a subject of contention under the Restoration.