MARIE JOSEPH LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS (15 April 1797-3 September 1877) was a French statesman and historian. He was the second elected President of France, and the first President of the French Third Republic.
Thiers served as a prime minister in 1836, 1840 and 1848. He was a vocal opponent of Emperor Napoleon III, who reigned from 1848-71. Following the defeat of France in the Franco-German War, which he opposed, he was elected chief executive of the new French government, negotiated the end of the war, and, when the Paris Commune seized power in that city in March 1871, gave the orders to the army for its suppression. He was named President of the Republic by the French National Assembly in August 1871. Opposed by the royalists in the French assembly and the left wing of the Republicans, he resigned on May 24, 1873, and was replaced as President by Patrice de MacMahon, Duke of Magenta.
He died in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1877 aged 80.
FREDERIC SHOBERL (1775-1853) was an English journalist, editor, translator, writer and illustrator.
Shoberl was the founding editor of Ackermann’s Forget-Me-Not, the first literary annual, issued at Christmas for 1823, and translated The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He created his own hand-colored engravings for The World in Miniature: Hindoostan (1820s).
Shoberl died at Thistle Grove, Brompton, London, on 5 March 1853.