Augustine Spiga
 The Admiral at the Port of Brest, 1802 | |
| Director-General of France | |
| In office 19 January 1795 – 30 March 1814 | |
| President of the States-General | |
| In office 9 October 1794 – 19 January 1795 | |
| Monarch | Henry, Duke of Aquitaine |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 14 March 1757 Port of Toulon, France |
| Died | 16 November 1827 (age 70) San Cipriano, Genoa |
| SpouseLua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Text' not found. | Marie Madeleine Rodemac (m. 1785; d. 1822) |
| Children | Blanche Elise Spica |
| Parents |
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Augustine Spiga (14 March 1757 – 16 November 1817) was a Sardo-French admiral and statesman who co-founded and led the First French Republic as its first and only Director-General during the eponymous Augustine Wars. As a political leader and international ideological icon, he played a pivotal role in the development of national republicanism, the dismantlement of absolute monarchy in Europe, and the global expansion of the French colonial empire.
He was born into the nouveau riche Spiga family. Augustine's father, Quirico, was an avid anti-Bourbon politician and participated in the Sardinian war of independence. He joined the French Navy in 1776 at age nineteen, fighting against the Spanish occupation of Sicily. He was commissioned as an officer in 1783 after studying at the naval academy at Hyères. Ten years later, with the rank of vice-admiral, he brought together the taxed commons, the radical republicans of the Friends of Liberty, and the Clavian militias to establish the National Assembly with the Duke of Aquitaine as constitutional monarch. Upon the Duke's death in 1795, Spiga was declared the leader of the First French Republic, a role he would hold until the Congress of Vienna of 1814–15.
The vast majority of his political tenure would be dedicated to war with other European nations, a series of three conflicts known as the Wars of Deliverance. Jacques Rossignol, Marshal of France and most powerful member of the executive Council of Ten, would guide the Republic towards a path of militarization. By 1809, Spiga had lost much of his authority, with his jurisdiction steadily being restricted by those around him. The defeat of France in 1814 allowed Spiga to retire to the Genoese Republic, where he would die peacefully at the age of seventy.
