# Charles Beslay

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**Charles Victor Beslay** (1795 in [Dinan](/source/Dinan), [Côtes-d'Armor](/source/C%C3%B4tes-d'Armor) – 1878 in [Neuchâtel](/source/Neuch%C3%A2tel)) was the oldest member of the [Paris Commune](/source/Paris_Commune).

An engineer, he was councillor general of [Morbihan](/source/Morbihan) in 1830. Later, in Paris, he founded a [steam machine factory](/source/Steam_machine_factory), and tried to apply the ideas of his friend [Proudhon](/source/Pierre-Joseph_Proudhon) on the association of capital to work. After the [1848 Revolution](/source/1848_French_Revolution) the [provisional government](/source/1848_provisional_government) named him Commissioner of the Republic in [Morbihan](/source/Morbihan). He was a [moderate republican](/source/Moderate_Republicans_(France,_1848%E2%80%931870)) member of the [Constituent Assembly](/source/French_Revolution_of_1848), where he suppressed the insurgents of the [insurgency of June 1848](/source/June_Days_Uprising). He did not sit in the legislative assembly. In the [Second Empire](/source/Second_French_Empire), he was bankrupted creating a [bank](/source/Bank) which exchanged and discounted using Proudhonian ideas. In 1866, he joined the [International Workingmen's Association](/source/International_Workingmen's_Association).

During the [siege of Paris](/source/Siege_of_Paris_(1870%E2%80%931871)) by the Germans (September 1870 – March 1871), he was delegate to the [Comité central républicain des Vingt arrondissements](/source/Comit%C3%A9_central_r%C3%A9publicain_des_Vingt_arrondissements) with title of the 6th arrondissement. On 26 March he was elected to the [Conseil de la Commune](/source/Conseil_de_la_Commune) of the 6th arrondissement. On 29 March he became a member of the Finance Commission and became delegate of the Commune for the [Banque de France](/source/Banque_de_France). At the end of May 1871, due to a free pass from the [Thiers government](/source/Thiers_government), he became a refugee in Switzerland after the failure of the Commune. In December 1872, the war council made no case against him.

## Sources

- Bernard Noël, *Dictionnaire de la Commune*, Flammarion, collection Champs, 1978.

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