Jules Bastide was a French politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

.

He studied law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

 for a time, and was afterward engaged in business as a timber

Timber

Timber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...

 merchant. In 1821, he became a member of the French la Charbonnerie, modelled on that of the Italian Carbonari

Carbonari

The Carbonari were groups of secret revolutionary societies founded in early 19th-century Italy. The Italian Carbonari may have further influenced other revolutionary groups in Spain, France, Portugal and possibly Russia. Although their goals often had a patriotic and liberal focus, they lacked a...

, and took a prominent part in the Revolution of 1830

July Revolution

The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution or in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X of France, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown...

. After the July Days uprising, he received an artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

 command in the National Guard. For his part in the riots in Paris (5 June 1832) on the occasion of the funeral of General Maximilien Lamarque, Bastide was sentenced to death, but he escaped to London.

On his return to Paris in 1834, he was acquitted. He occupied himself with journalism

Journalism

Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

, and he contributed to the National, a republican journal of which he became editor in 1836. In 1847, he founded the Revue Nationale as a collaborative venture with Philippe Buchez

Philippe Buchez

Philippe-Joseph-Benjamin Buchez , more commonly called Philippe Buchez, was a French historian, sociologist, and politician. He was the founder of the newspaper, L'Atelier, and he served briefly, in 1848, as the president of the Constituent National Assembly, which was then meeting at the Palais...

, whose ideas had thoroughly infected Bastide. After the Revolution of February 1848 Bastide's intimate knowledge of foreign affairs gained for him a ministerial post in the provisional government, and, after the creation of the Executive Commission, he was made Minister of Foreign Affairs. At the close of 1848, he resigned his portfolio, and, after the coup d'état

Coup d'état

A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

of December 1851, retired to private life.