FREYCINET, CHARLES LOUIS DE SAULCES DE (1828-1923), French statesman, was born at Foix on Nov. 14, 1828. He was educated at the 1?cole Polytechnique, and entered the government service as a mining engineer. In 1858 he was appointed traffic manager to the Compagnie de chemins de fer du Midi, and in 1862 returned to the engineering service (in which he attained in 1886 the rank of inspector-general). He was sent on a number of special missions, among which, one to England, on which he wrote a Memoire sur le travail des femmes et des enfants dans les manufactures de l'Angleterre (1867). On the establish ment of the Third Republic in Sept. 1870, he offered his services to Gambetta, was appointed prefect of the department of Tarn-et Garronne, and in October became chief of the military cabinet. It was mainly his powers of organization that enabled Gambetta to raise army after army to oppose the invading Germans. In 1871 he published a defence of his administration under the title of La Guerre en province pendant le siege de Paris. He entered the Senate in 1876 as a follower of Gambetta, and in Dec. 1877 be came minister of public works in the Dufaure cabinet. He carried a scheme for the guadual acquisition of the railways by the state and the construction of new lines at a cost of three milliards, and for the development of the canal system at a further cost of one milliard. He retained his post in the ministry of Waddington, whom he succeeded in Dec. 1879 as president of the council and minister for foreign affairs. He passed an amnesty for the Com munards, but in attempting to steer a middle course on the ques tion of the religious associations, lost the support of Gambetta, and resigned in Sept. 1880. In Jan. 1882 he again became president of the council and minister for foreign affairs. His ministry resigned on the rejection of his plan to occupy the Isthmus of Suez. He returned to office in April i885 as foreign minister in the Brisson cabinet, and retained that post when, in Jan. 1886, he succeeded to the premiership. He came into power with an am bitious programme of internal reform ; but except that he settled the question of the exiled pretenders, his successes were won chiefly in the sphere of colonial extension. His ministry fell on Dec. 3, 1886.
In April 1888 he became minister of war in the Floquet cabinet -the first civilian since 1848 to hold that office. His services to France in this capacity were the crowning achievement of his life. He held his office without a break for five years through as many successive administrations-those of Floquet and Tirard, his own fourth ministry (March 189o-Feb. 1892), and the Loubet and Ribot ministries. He introduced the three-years' service and established a general staff, a supreme council of war, and the army commands. He failed to clear himself entirely of complicity in the Panama scandals, and in Jan. 1893 resigned the ministry of war. In Nov. 1898 he once more became minister of war in the Dupuy cabinet, but resigned office May 6, 1899. He published, besides the works already mentioned, Traite de mecanique ration nelle (1858) ; De l' analyse in finitesimale (186o, revised ed., 1881) ; Des pentes economiques en chemin de fer (1861) ; Emploi des eaux d'egaut en agriculture (1869) ; Principes de l'assainissement des villes and Traite d'assainissement industrial (1870) ; Essai sur la philosophie des sciences (1896) ; La Question d'Egypte besides some remarkable "Pensees" contributed to the Contem porain under the pseudonym of "Alceste." In 1882 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1890 to the French Academy in succession to Emile Augier. He died on May 14, 1923 in Paris.