Pau Claris i Casademunt (; 1 January 1586 – 27 February 1641) was a Catalan lawyer, clergyman and 94th President of the Deputation of the General of Catalonia at the beginning of the Catalan Revolt. On 16 January 1641 he proclaimed the Catalan Republic under the protection of France.
Biography
Early years
Claris was born in Barcelona (then in the Principality of Catalonia, part of the Spanish Monarchy). His paternal family was from Berga, and both his grandfather, Francesc, and his father, Joan, were prominent jurists in Barcelona. His mother was Peronella Casademunt. Pau was the youngest of four brothers, and his older brother, Francesc, was a lawyer who had a strong influence on his brother's path toward politics. The Claris family belonged to the Barcelonan bourgeois and had significant economic and administrative power.
While it is possible that his education may have been more extensive, it is only clear that Pau Claris received a doctorate in civil law and canon law from the University of Barcelona, and that he studied the course during the period between 1604 and 1612.
On 28 August 1612 Claris was appointed to work in La Seu d'Urgell, the seat of the Bishop of Urgell and Andorra. On 25 September the same year, he was appointed canon, and was assigned to the Diocese of Urgell. delegated by Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu on behalf of Louis XIII, for which Catalonia had received military support aimed at facing the Castilian offensive commanded by the Count-Duke of Olivares, who had already decided to intervene in Catalonia. It is believed that in front of the Castilian military pressure, Claris was seen to be progressively driven to accept a counter-course to French pressure, in which Catalonia would separate itself from the Spanish Monarchy and would take the form of a Free Republic under the protection of the French king.
The personal assumption of power by Claris' staff from September 1640, appeared to be total. A Council of Arms (Junta General de Braços) was summoned and set up as the ruling institution of the new situation, the commitments with France and the secession were made official, and public debt was issued for funding the military expenses.
On 20 October 1640 Du Plessis-Besançon went to Barcelona, and some days afterwards, he signed the first pact of confraternity and military aid from France to Catalonia, by which France was engaged to defend the Principality.
Catalan Republic
On 24 November the Spanish army under Pedro Fajardo, the Marquis of Los Vélez, invaded Catalonia from the south. On 23 December Pau Claris raised the alarm and declared war against Philip IV of Spain. The victorious advance of the Castilian troops through Tortosa, Cambrils, Tarragona, and Martorell forced the Council of Arms and Consell de Cent to yield to the French pressures, and on 16 and 17 January respectively, the Junta and Consell accepted the proposal to constitute Catalonia into a republic under the protection of France.
But again the pressure of the Castilians who approached Barcelona, and the French pretensions toward Catalonia, brought Claris to have to end the republican project and proclaim Louis XIII the Count of Barcelona on 23 January 1641, three days before the Battle of Montjuïc in which the French and Catalan armies defeated the Castilian forces and stopped the attack in Barcelona.
Death
On 20 February 1641 Claris fell gravely ill, the same day that Philippe de La Mothe-Houdancourt arrived in Barcelona with the powers of commander-in-chief of all French and Catalan armies. The following day Claris received the last rites, and he died on the night of 27 February. Despite the fact that he had health problems for at least a year, the theory of a possible poisoning circulated since the first moment, as noted in a letter from Roger de Bossost, Baron d'Espenan, to du Plessis-Besançon; some modern investigations support this possibility.
Claris was placed in the family crypt of the chapel of the Holy Christ in the Church of Sant Joan de Jerusalem in Barcelona. Unfortunately the church was demolished in 1888 as part of the urban reformation for the upcoming Universal Exhibition of Barcelona.