Adolphe Crémieux
(1796-1880)

A lawyer and politician who often defended the liberal press, Crémieux was largely responsible for establishing the civil rights of Jews under French law and actively sought to ameliorate their position in the Muslim states. He was brilliant, incontestably honest, and a consistent advocate of liberal causes. Possessed of a phenomenal memory, a contemporary said that one attended his parties not so much for the important artists who went there and the best music in Paris, but for the pleasure of hearing him speak. Though his looks were peculiar, Nadar, for whom he also sat, thought him handsome in the tenderness he inspired, and unconventionally beautiful because of his 'superior intelligence, infinite goodness, perpetual forbearance, love of justice, and above all the inalterable serenity of his pure conscience.'