John Lemoinne (1815–1892)

John Lemoinne was born in London on 17 October 1815 to a family of French émigrés, and died in Paris on 13 December 1892. He joined the Journal des Débats in 1840 and remained attached to it for roughly fifty years, building his reputation as the paper's correspondent and editorialist on English affairs and foreign policy more broadly. During the Second Empire, his columns repeatedly held up England's free political institutions as a contrast to Napoleon III's more authoritarian methods, though his admiration for England cooled later in life over colonial questions such as Egypt. He eventually rose to a senior editorial role at the paper.1

He also wrote regularly for the Revue des Deux Mondes and published Études critiques et biographiques (1862), a collection of critical and biographical essays on literary and political figures of his day. In recognition of his standing as a journalist and man of letters, he was elected to the Académie française on 13 May 1875, taking seat 28 (previously held by Jules Janin), and was formally received on 2 March 1876.2

Lemoinne capped his career with a political appointment: on 23 February 1880 he was elected a life senator by a unanimous vote of 142, sitting with the center-left. He briefly served as minister plenipotentiary to Brussels in spring 1880 before resigning the post within weeks to return to his journalistic and senatorial work. He is buried at Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.1