COUNT PAUL FREDERICK SCLOPIS DE SALERANO. 459 



and his name, in the order of date and of merit, was at the head of 

 the roll of the French Institute. He was elected a member of this 

 Academy in 1874. 



COUNT PAUL FREDERICK SCLOPIS DE SALERAXO. 



This distinguished statesman was born at Turin in the year 1798, 

 and after a long career of public service ended his life at the mature 

 age of eighty years. 



His education had been studiously cared for by his father, and he 

 issued from all the courses prescribed in his natal city with distin- 

 guished honors. Neither was it long before he received an appoint- 

 ment in the department of the Minister of the Interior. From this 

 point, his assent was easy to the judicial department, aud to the Senate 

 of Piedmont, then constituting the Superior Court of the nation. 

 From this he was advanced to the still higher position of chief of the 

 domestic service, and official counsel of the crown in matters of law. 

 In the year 1837, he was selected as one of the commission to codify 

 the Civil Code of Sardinia ; and ten years later he was made President 

 of the highest board of revision in the kingdom. 



The events of the great year 1848, which went so far to shake all 

 established forms of government in Europe, only contributed to mark 

 Count Sclopis the more as a prominent statesman. Much against his 

 will, he was compelled to assume the high post of keeper of the seals, 

 as well as minister both of justice and of ecclesiastical affairs. He 

 was likewise made President of a Commission to which was intrusted 

 the duty of supervising the law touching the freedom of the press, his 

 reports upon which have been recognized to this day as the most liberal 

 in Europe. In the general election which followed, he was chosen a 

 deputy from Turin. At this time, he carried through two of the most 

 critical measures of that period. The first was a general amnesty 

 necessary to restore quiet to the elements distracted by so much civil 

 commotion. The second was a not less important provision for secur- 

 ing the liberty of the press. A year or two later, he was called in 

 1850 to the Senate, and at once elevated to the presidency of that 

 distinguished assembly. 



Having passed a great part of his life crowned with so many honors, 

 when the day came that the course of events so far enlarged the terri- 

 torial limits of the kingdom as to impose on him the necessity of trans- 

 ferring himself to a new capital, Florence, and ultimately at Rome, he 

 could not reconcile himself to leave, in his old age, the place of his 

 birth, and so he respectfully asked leave to retire to private life. 



