Son of Lazare Carnot and father of President Sadi Carnot, he was Minister of Public Instruction for three months in 1848 and tabled a bill for free, secular and compulsory primary schooling. The Assembly overthrew him, the text remained a dead letter; the Ferry laws would take up its essentials.
The story
The son of Lazare Carnot, the “organiser of victory” of the Year II, Lazare Hippolyte Carnot was born in 1801 and grew up at Magdeburg, in Prussia, where the Restoration had finally exiled his father. He came back to France in 1823, on his father's death, and joined the Saint-Simonians, whose faith in education as a social lever he shared.
The revolution of February 1848 carried him to the ministry of Public Instruction. In three months he laid before the chamber a bill providing for primary schooling that would be free, secular and compulsory, and a training college to form republican schoolmasters. The Assembly brought him down in July; the text remained a dead letter.
Thirty-three years later, the Ferry laws would take up almost word for word what Carnot had proposed. A constant opponent of the Second Empire, he was re-elected deputy in 1852 and again in 1857, and each time refused to swear the oath to Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte: he was elected and did not sit. He entered the Corps législatif only in 1864, having resolved at last to take the oath.
A life senator of the Third Republic, he died in 1888, a year after his son Sadi Carnot was elected President of the Republic. He lies in Division 11.
On site, do not miss
The proximity, in the same Division, of Brongniart's tomb: the architect of the cemetery and the man who wanted school for all rest a few alleys from each other.
Visitors' questions
Where is Hippolyte Carnot buried?
In Division 11 of Père-Lachaise, one of the most visited Divisions in the cemetery: it is Frédéric Chopin's, whose grave is under flowers all year round, and it is that of Brongniart, the architect of the cemetery.
Frédéric ChopinWhat did Hippolyte Carnot do in 1848?
As Minister of Public Instruction in the provisional government, he brought in a bill for primary schooling free, secular and compulsory. Turned out after four months, he never saw his text voted: Jules Ferry would take it up again in 1881.
Political figures at Père-LachaiseWhat was his connection with Sadi Carnot?
Sadi was his son. Marie François Sadi Carnot, elected President of the Republic in 1887, was assassinated at Lyon in 1894 by the anarchist Caserio. The grandfather, Lazare Carnot, sat on the Committee of Public Safety: three generations in French public life.
Scientists & physicians at Père-LachaiseWhat else is there to see in Division 11?
The grave of Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, the architect who drew Père-Lachaise in 1804, that of Luigi Cherubini and that of Jean-François Le Sueur. Division 11 gathers a good share of the cemetery's musicians.
Alexandre-Théodore BrongniartAudio guide to Père Lachaise: the best unusual guided tour!
Discover the secrets of the most astonishing tombs
the audio guidefrom€6.99