https://enlightenment-revolution.org/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=Toubiana 2026-10-27T10:44:05Z User contributions MediaWiki 1.39.2 https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Saint-Just,_Louis-Antoine_de&diff=1786 2026-10-20T22:11:21Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de''' (1767-1794): French Revolutionary.<br /> <br /> Louis Antoine de Saint-Just was born in Decize in the Nivernais region. In spite of the “de” his parents were not of noble blood. His father was a retired cavalry captain and his mother was from the upper middle class. Very early on, the family moves to Blérancourt in Picardie in Northern France. At the age of 10, Saint-Just loses his father and his mother sends him to Soissons to be educated by the Oratorian Monks. In the summer of 1786, he steals some of his mother’s silver trinkets and flees to Paris, but in November, his mother has him arrested. While in jail, he writes a very long epic poem, ''Organt''. Six months later, his mother decides her son learnt a good lesson and let him go free. He goes to Rheims where he studies law. But after a year, he goes back to live with his mother in Blérancourt. <br /> <br /> In 1790, he gives a speech on the choosing of the new capital for his department; he realizes then his taste for public political life. In July, he is back in Paris as the head of the Blérancourt National Guards. Upon his return home, he writes an admiring letter to [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] that would seal a life friendship. In 1791, Saint-Just publishes his ''Esprit de la Révolution et de la Constitution de France'' which enjoys immediate popularity. In this work, the author is not unfriendly to monarchy since the king’s flee to Varennes has yet to happen and the court duplicities are still unrevealed. His swift style announces a future orator; his logic is inexorable which anticipates his inflexibility and firmness but also his lack of desire to charm his audience to lure it to his viewpoint. <br /> <br /> In September 1792, he is elected deputy at the National Convention. His friendship to Robespierre draws him to the “Montagnard” side and he regards the “Girondists” as enemies responsible for the outbreak of the war with the Prussians. The Girondists led by [[Vergniaud, Pierre]] and [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] accuse the Montagne of inciting the September Massacre where about 1600 inmates (mainly Royalist sympathizers) were murdered by the Paris mob. At 25, Saint-Just is one of the youngest deputies but his first speech calling for Louis XVI’s death has a lasting impact; his conviction and calm in justifying his decision impressed the Convention members. With men like [[Danton, Georges]], [[Marat, Jean-Paul]], Robespierre, Saint-Just, and Billaud-Varenne, the Montagnards become the dominant faction and make the Girondists less and less attune with the new direction taken by the revolution. <br /> <br /> In May 1793, he joins the Committee of Public Safety along with Robespierre and other extremists like Billaud-Varenne and Collot d’Herbois. Attracted by legislation he is called on drafting the new constitution where he shows his political ideals. According to Saint-Just, the basic principles of social laws have to be based on Nature. On the matter of apportionment of provisions, Saint-Just believes in the theory of the Physiocrats but one of his greatest accomplishments is his reorganization of the French armies which do not seem capable of stopping a likely invasion from the Prussians and Austrians. In June, he is named member of a subcommittee to repress the royalist uprising in Western France and to strike at the Girondists imprisoned after their party’s fall. His indictment of the Girondist deputies marks his rise into politics and the beginning of the Terror. Even though he asks for clemency and amnesty for fourteen of the accused, his prosecution has been much too hard for his own party to settle for such a request. Many of the other deputies found his arrogance and austerity irritating. It is often believed that his gravity and coldness were to mask his young age and inexperience. <br /> <br /> In October 1793, Saint-Just along with Lebas is sent to Alsace in the northeastern part of France with great powers conferred by the Convention to help a demoralized and disorganized French army in its fight against the Prussians and Austrians. Saint-Just decides to establish a military tribunal to punish negligence, insubordination, pillage, and theft. The Terror has found its way in the republican forces. His new decrees have galvanized the French soldiers; Generals Hoche and Pichegru obtained crushing victories against the imperial troops. Upon their success, Saint-Just and Lebas are now sent to Northern France with the same mission. However, [[Danton, Georges]] and his followers, known as &quot;The Indulgents”, do not see the need to continue with the politics of Terror, and are in strong opposition to extremists such as [[Hebert, Jacques]] and Chaumette. Robespierre needing support calls back Saint-Just to Paris. To the Committee of Public Safety, the Indulgents appear to be the most dangerous enemies. The rest of the Convention, intimidated, do not dare to vote against the resolutions proposed by Robespierre and his allies. However, [[Desmoulins, Camille]] in his ''Le Vieux Cordelier'' denounces the Terror as well as the “Enragés” like Hébert. Robespierre, Saint-Just, and Couthon consider the criticism as a direct attack. For Saint-Just, a relaxation of the Terror means a relaxation of strict moral which in turn could conduct to military defeat and the end of the revolution. In February 1794, he delivers a speech at the Convention to maintain the Terror and suppress the Indulgents. He lists all the dangers faced by the nation and how the decisions taken by the Committee of Public Safety saved France. Thanks to his political tactic, Saint-Just convinces the Convention to provide the Committee with even more draconian power which allows [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] and himself to strike a final blow to the Indulgents, too moderate, and the Hebertists, too extremist. On March 13 and 14, the latter are arrested. Saint-Just pronounces a virulent and vituperative prosecution against [[Hebert, Jacques]] and the Enraged who are sent to the scaffold ten days later. Dantonists, like Fabre d’Eglantine and Hérault de Seychelles, had already been arrested previously for conspiracy with foreigners. By eliminating two of Danton’s close allies Robespierre weakens his political enemies and on March 30 has Danton incarcerated with Desmoulins and their followers. Saint-Just himself writes the indictment to convince the Convention that Dantonists represent the real threat to the revolution. The accusations are merely a list of gossip and rumors without solid proof. The trial opens on April 2 and on April 3, Danton speaks almost the entire day demonstrating Saint-Just’s false accusations. With his eloquence, Danton is turning the opinion in his favor and the members of the Convention, worried about their own fate, vote that the trial must continue without the presence of the accused and their witnesses because the aforementioned had supposedly insulted the tribunal. April 5, the jury reaches a guilty verdict and Danton, Desmoulins, [[Fabre d'Eglantine]], and other Dantonists are publicly guillotined.<br /> <br /> Saint-Just is then sent back to the Army of the North to ensure a stunning victory for the revolution. The battle of Fleurus, Belgium, in June, against the Austrians where the French are largely outnumbered achieves just that, but by defeating the Austrians, France is no longer in danger of being invaded and makes the Terror needless. In spite of his great victory, back in Paris, Saint-Just realizes that the atmosphere is turning againt him; the influence of the triumvirate, [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]], Couthon and himself that are dominating the Committee of Public Safety is waning. The opposing faction at the Convention led by Tallien, Bourdon, Fouché, and [[Barras]] manage to recruit on their side Billaud-Varenne and Collot d’Herbois because of internal dissention within the Committee of Public Safety. On Thermidor 8 (July 26, 1794) at the Committee of Public Safety, Carnot and Collot d'Herbois fearing an indictment from Saint-Just have a violent argument with him. On Thermidor 9, Saint-Just takes the floor at the Convention with his customary arrogance even though he knows of a conspiracy to overthrow him and Robespierre, but Tallien not letting him speak, starts his attacks on members of the Committee of Public Safety and is followed on the platform by Billaud-Varenne and Collot d'Herbois who realize that publicly accusing Robespierre and Saint-Just might just save them. Robespierre and Saint-Just attempt to defend themselves but their voices are once again drowned by Tallien's. An indictment is promptly passed against Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon and other Robespierrists who are all guillotined the next day.<br /> <br /> Further Reading: <br /> <br /> Norman Hampson, ''Saint-Just'', 1991.<br /> <br /> '''Guy David Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Robespierre,_Maximilien_Fran%C3%A7ois_Marie_Isidore_de&diff=1785 2026-10-20T22:07:13Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de''' (1758-1794): French revolutionary.<br /> <br /> The most famous, and most reviled of all of the Jacobin leaders of the French Revolution, Robespierre was a provincial lawyer from Arras, where he was known as an advocate for the poor. In April, 1789, he was elected deputy to the Estates General for the Third Estate. Upon arriving in Paris, he promptly joined the Breton Club, which later became known as the Jacobin Club. Robespierre first came to prominence with a speech attacking the luxurious lifestyles of the Bishops and their lack of charity toward the poor. Subsequently, he became one of the leading spokesmen of the Left in the Constituent Assembly over the next two years, during which, as a democrat and a liberal, he supported adult male suffrage and opposed the death penalty.<br /> <br /> Barred from seeking election in 1791 to the new Legislative Assembly by the self-denying ordinance, which he supported, he concentrated his political activities in the Jacobin Club. From there, he opposed France’s popular move to war on the grounds that war would undermine the work of consolidating the revolution at home and that French troops would be greeted with hostility by the peoples they claimed to liberate. He also led the Jacobin campaign for the removal of the King and the election of a National Convention on the basis of adult male suffrage. In September of 1792, he was elected to the newly-formed National Convention, where he called for the speedy execution of the King on the grounds that he had already been judged by the nation. Joined by influential members of the Convention like [[Danton, Georges]], [[Marat, Jean-Paul]] and [[Desmoulins, Camille]] in his condemnation of Louis XVI, Robespierre averted the Girondins’attempt to save the French monarch. With the deterioration of France’s military fortunes, Robespierre played an important role in the fall of the Girondins (the more moderate revolutionaries led by [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], and [[Vergniaud, Pierre]]). He was appointed to the Committee of Public Safety in July, 1793 and became its dominant figure until his fall a year later.<br /> <br /> Confronted by external invasion and internal rebellion, Robespierre abandoned his liberal support for freedom of speech and the press. Instead, he maintained that the Revolution should be guided by a single will. His fear of aristocratic plots led him to support the repressive measures that came to be known as “The Terror” and led to the suppression by guillotine of his opponents on both his right and his left. On March 14, he had the Ultrarevolutionaries led by [[Hebert, Jacques]] arrested and executed ten days later. He viewed many of his former allies as rivals and on 30 March 1794, he had Danton and Desmoulins detained and guillotined on 5 April.<br /> <br /> While best known for the Terror, the Committee of Public Safety under Robespierre’s leadership drafted laws involving peasant landholdings, industry, education, and public assistance. Though generally supportive of economic liberalism, it imposed price controls in the form of the general maximum of prices and wages. By the end of his tenure, the Committee had defeated the Revolution’s internal and external opponents and was once again poised to resume the offensive.<br /> <br /> Robespierre was heavily influenced by [[Rousseau, Jean-Jacques]], and throughout his political activities he was guided by the ideal of a republic of virtue composed of medium and small property-holders, uncorrupted by wealth or poverty. Robespierre’s own reputation for personal probity was such that he became known as “the Incorruptible.” The capstone of this activity was his failed attempt in May-June 1794 to replace Catholicism and combat atheism with a deistic civil religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being, dedicated to the immortality of the soul and inculcation of the social virtues among the citizenry.<br /> <br /> As a result of divisions within the Committee of Public Safety and between the Committee and the Convention, Robespierre and several of his colleagues were overthrown in the coup d’etat of 9 Thermidor. In a conspiracy mainly led by Tallien and [[Barras]], the Convention unanimously voted the arrest of the triumvirate, Robespierre, Couthon and [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]]. They were guillotined the following day on July 28, 1794.<br /> <br /> Further reading:<br /> <br /> George Rudé ed., ''Robespierre'', 1967.<br /> <br /> J. M. Thompson, ''Robespierre and the French Revolution'', 1962.<br /> <br /> '''Kevin E. Dodson'''<br /> <br /> Lamar University</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Cabarrus,_Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se&diff=1784 2026-10-20T22:03:42Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>Thérèse Cabarrus (1773-1835): Franco-Spanish Socialite. <br /> <br /> Jeanne Thérèse Cabarrus was born on 31st July 1773 in Carabanchel Alto, a suburb of Madrid. Her father, François Cabarrus, originally from Bayonne (French Basque Country) had moved to Spain where he became a Spanish financer. He married Maria Antonia Galabert and founded the bank of San Carlos later known as the Royal Bank of Spain. In 1789, he was granted peerage as a count by King Carlos IV of Spain.<br /> <br /> At age 12, Thérèse is sent to a French convent but does not stay long and soon returns to Spain. She had some education in languages, singing, dancing and painting but her real value resided in her beauty. Very precocious and a center of attraction for her stunning looks, her parents decide to marry her before she even turns 15. In Paris, she meets her first husband, the Marquis de Fontenay, who was 26 years old, wealthy but not quite able to keep pace with his young wife. On the 2nd of May 1789, she delivers a son whose paternity is doubted. She had read [[Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de]], [[Rousseau, Jean-Jacques]], [[Diderot, Denis]] resulting in interest for the notion of liberty and equality. At the beginning of the revolution, she and her friends even attend meetings of the National Assembly. She leads a life of pleasure and gaiety indifferent to her husband. Being the daughter of a count and the spouse of a marquis, she soon feels frightened by the seriousness and goals of the revolution. Her husband decides to leave for Martinique (she will be granted a divorce in 1791) while she prefers to move to Bordeaux, a city in southwestern France. <br /> <br /> In Bordeaux, she lives with her uncle and her brother, single and attractive, she is quickly surrounded by many admirers. After the Girondins’ political defeat, Girondins home region is in turmoil. The National Assembly sends two leading Montagnards, Tallien and Ysabeau, to reestablish calm and order. Quickly the guillotine is built and suspects are jailed every week. Tallien’s men must search for and arrest the remaining Girondins leaders, Buzot, [[Louvet]], Pétion and Gaudet, that are still at large unlike their fellow counterparts, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and [[Vergniaud, Pierre]], who had been already arrested. Thérèse’s brother suspected by Tallien’s men to conspire with the Girondins is subjected to a house visit and some material confiscation. Thérèse on the other hand is directly imprisoned because of her strong reaction during the house visit. Knowing that Tallien is master of Bordeaux, she writes him and begs him to come to her rescue. Once Tallien lays eyes on her, he succumbs to her beauty.<br /> <br /> Aware of Tallien’s political power, she positions herself to become his new collaborator. She even gives a speech on education, “Discours sur l’éducation par la Citoyenne Thérèse Cabarrus-Fontenay.” She has her salon where she invites men of the Terror. Tallien, infatuated by her looks, agrees to most of her requests. Her popularity is such that many people accused of crimes against the government come to her for justice. She uses her influence on Tallien to save numerous suspects and convicted from jail or even the guillotine. In Bordeaux patriots and aristocrats alike are saved by the mesmerizing woman nicknaming her the “Goddess of Liberty.” Early in 1794, [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]], hearing of Tallien’s liaison and noticing a lull in condemnations, sends one of his own men, Jullien, known for his stern republicanism, to investigate matters. Tallien is recalled to Paris and Thérèse, unable to seduce Jullien, soon joins him in Paris. Robespierre, aware that Cabarrus is the daughter of a Spanish count and responsible for having fouled Tallien’s probity, signs her arrest. By the end of May, she is imprisoned at the Petite Force prison. She writes to Tallien and reproached him of being a coward for not doing everything possible to save her once more.<br /> <br /> Determined to rescue her, and backed by Fouché and Barras, on 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794), at the Convention, Tallien accuses Robespierre of abusing his power and being a tyrant. He does not give a chance to Robespierre to defend himself against the allegations, which leads to the fall and death of Robespierre, [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]] and many other Robespierrists. Thérèse is liberated and both are at the peak of their social and political fame. Tallien is nicknamed the “Man of the 9” and she becomes known as “Notre Dame de Thermidor” (our Lady of Thermidor). They get married on 26 December 1794. A daughter will be born out of their union. As she did in Bordeaux, she uses again her influence on Tallien to save suspects of counter-revolutionary activities. In spite of his political renown and to his wife’s disappointment, Tallien is unable to take advantage of his reputation and fails to become one of the leaders of the Directoire. Madame Tallien opens her own salon to the fashionable and influential people of Paris. Joséphine de Beauharnais, [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]]’s future wife, becomes one of her closest acquaintances and Barras, France’s new leader, her new lover. Along with Joséphine, they reach celebrity for their extravagant and fashionable attires. She wears rubies in her hair, bracelets on her arms and ankles and rings in her toes. She sets a new fashion throughout Paris nicknamed “Sans Chemises,” a political jibe to the fanatical street revolutionaries known as the “Sans Culottes.” Talleyrand will say of Thérèse that “it is impossible to be more richly undressed.” As [[Barras]]’ mistress, she has little to do with her husband who has lost most of his influence (Tallien dies forgotten and in severe poverty in 1820). In 1797, she files for divorce, which is finalized in 1802. In November 1795, the Directoire replaces the Convention and lasts until Bonaparte’s coup in November 1799. She is the woman in vogue of that period and is nicknamed the “Queen of the Directoire.” However, France’s economy is in dire trouble and coupled with the shortage of basic necessities, Thérèse Cabarrus’ ostentatiousness irritates many people and makes her the target of antipathy and contempt. As Barras’ star dims down, she turns to a new lover, France’s finance-king, Gabriel-Julien Ouvrard, with whom she bears four children. Her lack of respectability forces Napoleon to forbid his wife, Joséphine, to have any contact with her former friend. Her charm helps her anew when at Madame de Staël’s salon, she meets a very wealthy and respectable aristocrat, the Count of Chimay (later to become Prince of Caraman-Chimay) whom she married in 1805. Four more children will be born out of this marriage. After Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, Louis XVIII also forbids her to appear at court. Later on, while living in present day Belgium, the King of Holland, also refuses to have her at his court (during that period Belgium belonged to Holland). <br /> <br /> In Belgium, Thérèse opens her salon where she is surrounded by her husband, her children and many artists. The Goddess of Liberty of Bordeaux, The Lady of Thermidor, Madame Tallien, the Queen of the Directoire has become more discreet and honorable but her fame follows her and in Paris, her public appearance still attracts a lot of attention. Renown for being one of the most beautiful women of France, her beauty, led her to experience a memorable and eventful life. She spends the rest of her days peacefully telling her friends how she saved many people from jail and the scaffold and brought joy and distraction in Paris back when the revolution frightened most Frenchmen. She dies on 15 January 1835 in Chimay, Belgium at age 61. <br /> <br /> <br /> Further Reading:<br /> <br /> J. Mills Whitman, ''Men and Women of the French Revolution'', 1933.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Guy Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Barras&diff=1783 2026-10-20T21:59:41Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Barras, Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de''' (1755–1829): French revolutionary, politician and member of the Directory<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Early life and military service''<br /> <br /> Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (30 June 1755–29 January 1829), was a French politician and one of the most prominent members of the Directory, the executive government that ruled France from 1795 to 1799. His career crossed several phases of the Revolution: the overthrow of the monarchy, the Terror, the fall of Robespierre, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. He helped defeat two threats to the revolutionary government in Paris and was a leading participant in the coup of 18 Fructidor. A resourceful political survivor, Barras also came to embody the patronage and controversy associated with the Directory.<br /> Barras was born at Fox-Amphoux in Provenc Paul François Jean Nicolas, Vicomte dee into a family of the lesser nobility. Military service was a conventional career for a young man of his background, and he entered the Languedoc regiment while still in his teens. He later traveled to India, where France maintained trading posts and military interests in competition with Britain. He served in the period surrounding the British capture of Pondicherry in 1778, an episode that exposed him to the weaknesses of French colonial defenses. His travels also took him to the Cape of Good Hope. By the early 1780s he had returned to France, dissatisfied with the conduct of senior officials and with limited prospects for further advancement.<br /> His years abroad contributed to a taste for travel, sociability, and personal independence that would remain visible throughout his career. Back in France, he moved in fashionable circles and acquired a reputation for pleasure-seeking. Such habits later furnished his enemies with a ready-made portrait of an ambitious and dissolute politician. Yet his political choices were not simply those of an aristocrat defending his class. As criticism of the royal government spread in the late 1780s, Barras became receptive to reform and increasingly hostile to émigrés who sought foreign help against the Revolution.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''From the Revolution to Toulon''<br /> <br /> The Revolution of 1789 offered Barras an opening into public life. He welcomed the destruction of hereditary privileges and became associated with the Jacobin Club, which at first included a broad range of supporters of constitutional change. In 1791 he married Pélagie Templier, whose royalist sympathies contrasted with his own politics. The couple spent much of their marriage apart. His commitment to the new order became unmistakable after the monarchy fell: elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793.<br /> During 1793 Barras served as a representative on mission in southeastern France, often alongside Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron. Such representatives exercised sweeping supervisory powers over armies and local authorities. The region was unsettled by resistance to the increasingly radical government in Paris. At Toulon, opponents of the Convention admitted British and allied forces into a major French naval base. Recovering the port became a pressing military objective. Barras and Fréron were among the political officials attached to the republican effort to regain control.<br /> The siege of Toulon brought Barras into contact with [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]], then a young artillery officer whose proposals helped republican forces threaten the allied fleet. Toulon was recaptured in December 1793, and Bonaparte's performance won him rapid promotion. Barras later became an important political patron, although the extent of his role in each stage of Bonaparte's advancement is sometimes overstated. The victory was followed by severe reprisals against suspected enemies of the Republic. Barras's association with repression in the south, and allegations of misconduct there, would make him vulnerable when the political climate in Paris changed.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Thermidor and the defense of the Convention''<br /> <br /> By early 1794 Barras was back in Paris, where the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal exercised formidable power. [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] and his allies had grown suspicious of several representatives recalled from the provinces. Barras had reason to fear prosecution over his conduct in the south. He therefore joined other endangered deputies, including Tallien and Fouché, in opposition to Robespierre. Their alliance was driven by political disagreement but also by a more immediate concern for survival.<br /> On 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] was denounced and arrested in the Convention. His supporters attempted to rally the Paris Commune, and the outcome briefly remained uncertain. Barras was given command of forces acting for the Convention and helped suppress the resistance. Robespierre was executed the next day. Barras emerged from the crisis with enhanced standing, while the new Thermidorian leadership gradually dismantled the institutions and practices most closely identified with the Terror. The episode established Barras's reputation as a man capable of acting forcefully at a decisive moment.<br /> He also visited the imprisoned son of Louis XVI at the Temple after Robespierre's fall. Later rumors alleged that the child, regarded by royalists as Louis XVII, had been secretly removed and replaced. There is no reliable evidence that Barras organized such an exchange; the story belongs to the enduring legends surrounding the prince's captivity. More consequential for Barras was the challenge of governing a country exhausted by war, food shortages, and currency depreciation. He supported the Thermidorian effort to restrain radical clubs without allowing royalists to reverse the Revolution.<br /> In 1795 the Convention adopted the Constitution of Year III, which created a two-chamber legislature and a five-member executive called the Directory. Before the new constitution could take effect, royalist and conservative opponents organized an armed rising in Paris. Barras was assigned responsibility for the Convention's defense and relied on Bonaparte's artillery expertise. On 13 Vendémiaire Year IV (5 October 1795), republican forces dispersed the insurgents. The victory secured the transition to the new regime and greatly strengthened Bonaparte's reputation. It also helped carry Barras into the executive leadership of the Republic.<br /> <br /> <br /> The Directory and its difficulties<br /> <br /> Barras became one of the five directors in autumn 1795, alongside Lazare Carnot, Jean-François Reubell, Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, and Étienne-François Le Tourneur. The constitution had deliberately divided executive power to prevent another concentration of authority. In practice, the directors had to govern through shifting alliances while facing opposition from both royalists and radical republicans. Barras was particularly adept at cultivating personal connections. His influence depended on political judgment, patronage, and access to military figures as much as on his formal responsibilities.<br /> The Directory inherited a severe financial crisis. The assignat, the Revolution's paper currency, had lost most of its value, while shortages and high prices provoked resentment. The government also relied on military campaigns and contributions from occupied territories to sustain its finances. Its economic difficulties created openings for critics who accused the directors of profiting while ordinary people suffered. Barras's expensive social life and association with contractors, financiers, and influential hostesses made him a favorite target. His contemporaries often described him as corrupt and self-indulgent, though some of the most vivid stories were circulated by political enemies.<br /> The directors sought a middle course but frequently used coercion to preserve it. On the left, the movement organized around [[Babeuf, François Noël “Gracchus”]] proposed radical social equality and challenged the property settlement of the Revolution. The government uncovered the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796; Babeuf was tried and executed in 1797. On the right, royalists made electoral gains and hoped to turn popular discontent into a restoration of the Bourbons. The Directory's efforts to defeat these opponents exposed the tension between its republican claims and its readiness to limit political competition.<br /> Barras was also a conspicuous presence in Parisian society. He was acquainted with [[Cabarrus, Thérèse]] aka Madame Tallien and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who married [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]] in March 1796. The social world around the directors was an important arena of politics, where appointments, introductions, and favors could be negotiated outside official chambers. For Barras, this network supplied information and influence. For his critics, it offered evidence that the government had replaced revolutionary austerity with a new elite devoted to luxury. Both interpretations capture part of the political culture of the period.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fructidor and the ascendancy of Bonaparte''<br /> <br /> The elections of 1797 strengthened conservative and royalist deputies in the legislature. Within the Directory, Carnot and the recently appointed François Barthélemy favored accommodation, while Barras and two colleagues feared that the Republic itself was in danger. The directors turned to the army for support. Bonaparte, then commanding the successful French campaign in Italy, sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris. On 18 Fructidor Year V (4 September 1797), troops occupied key positions, opponents were arrested, and the results of numerous elections were overturned. Carnot escaped, Barthélemy was detained, and many deputies faced deportation.<br /> The coup eliminated an immediate royalist challenge and made Barras one of the regime's dominant figures. Yet it damaged the Directory's constitutional standing. The government had preserved itself by using soldiers against elected representatives, setting a precedent that would later be used against it. Barras also supported the appointment of Talleyrand as foreign minister in 1797. Skilled administrators and diplomats could strengthen the regime, but their loyalty was often personal and conditional rather than institutional.<br /> Meanwhile Bonaparte's victories in Italy made him a national celebrity. His military achievements helped the Directory negotiate from a position of strength, but his growing independence alarmed its civilian leaders. The Egyptian expedition of 1798 offered a new campaign against British interests and removed the ambitious general from Paris. France's fortunes subsequently deteriorated as a new European coalition formed and its armies suffered setbacks. At home, the directors annulled further unfavorable electoral results on 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798). Each such intervention made the regime appear less able to survive ordinary constitutional politics.<br /> By 1799 the Directory had lost much of its authority. War, taxation, factional disputes, and public anger had weakened the government, while political leaders increasingly looked for a stronger executive. Barras had survived repeated crises by balancing rivals and calling on military force when necessary. But these methods could not repair the system's deeper weaknesses. The army had become both the Republic's principal defense and a potential instrument for its overthrow.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fall, exile, and historical assessment''<br /> <br /> [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]] returned from Egypt in October 1799 and joined a group of politicians, including [[Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]], who planned to replace the Directory. Barras did not become a central partner in their scheme. During the coup of 18–19 Brumaire Year VIII (9–10 November 1799), pressure was brought to bear on the directors, and Barras resigned. Troops then dispersed opposition in the legislature, clearing the way for the Consulate. Bonaparte became First Consul. The general whom Barras had helped promote had now brought his political career to an end.<br /> Barras's former associates adapted rapidly to the new government. He was offered or considered for posts but did not return to significant office. The Consulate continued to view him with suspicion because of his connections and his knowledge of revolutionary politics. Ordered to live away from Paris, he spent time in Brussels and later in southern France. In 1813, under the Empire, he was sent to Rome amid fears of political intrigue. He returned to France during the upheavals surrounding Napoleon's fall in 1814. Though his name was mentioned in political conversations during the restoration and the Hundred Days, he no longer played a decisive public role.<br /> In his final years Barras lived largely in retirement. He prepared memoirs that were published after his death and remain useful, if partisan, testimony about revolutionary politics. He died in Paris on 29 January 1829 and was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. His long survival was remarkable in a generation whose leading figures so often met violent ends. It also allowed him to witness the transformation of France from monarchy to republic, Directory, Consulate, Empire, and restored monarchy.<br /> Historians have differed sharply in their judgments of Barras. To his critics, he personified the corruption, intrigue, and weakness of the Directory. A more balanced assessment recognizes his considerable political ability and his role in preserving the Republic during dangerous moments. He was neither a consistent democrat nor merely an opportunist: he defended revolutionary gains while repeatedly accepting measures that undermined representative government. His career illustrates a central paradox of the French Revolution. In trying to save the Republic through exceptional action, its leaders helped create the conditions in which military authority could supersede civilian rule.<br /> <br /> <br /> Further Reading:<br /> <br /> Georges Duruy, ''Mémoires de Barras, membre du Directoire'', 2020.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Daniel Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> College of Charleston</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Barras&diff=1782 2026-10-20T21:58:02Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Barras, Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de''' (1755–1829): French revolutionary, politician and member of the Directory<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Early life and military service''<br /> <br /> Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (30 June 1755–29 January 1829), was a French politician and one of the most prominent members of the Directory, the executive government that ruled France from 1795 to 1799. His career crossed several phases of the Revolution: the overthrow of the monarchy, the Terror, the fall of Robespierre, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. He helped defeat two threats to the revolutionary government in Paris and was a leading participant in the coup of 18 Fructidor. A resourceful political survivor, Barras also came to embody the patronage and controversy associated with the Directory.<br /> Barras was born at Fox-Amphoux in Provenc Paul François Jean Nicolas, Vicomte dee into a family of the lesser nobility. Military service was a conventional career for a young man of his background, and he entered the Languedoc regiment while still in his teens. He later traveled to India, where France maintained trading posts and military interests in competition with Britain. He served in the period surrounding the British capture of Pondicherry in 1778, an episode that exposed him to the weaknesses of French colonial defenses. His travels also took him to the Cape of Good Hope. By the early 1780s he had returned to France, dissatisfied with the conduct of senior officials and with limited prospects for further advancement.<br /> His years abroad contributed to a taste for travel, sociability, and personal independence that would remain visible throughout his career. Back in France, he moved in fashionable circles and acquired a reputation for pleasure-seeking. Such habits later furnished his enemies with a ready-made portrait of an ambitious and dissolute politician. Yet his political choices were not simply those of an aristocrat defending his class. As criticism of the royal government spread in the late 1780s, Barras became receptive to reform and increasingly hostile to émigrés who sought foreign help against the Revolution.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''From the Revolution to Toulon''<br /> <br /> The Revolution of 1789 offered Barras an opening into public life. He welcomed the destruction of hereditary privileges and became associated with the Jacobin Club, which at first included a broad range of supporters of constitutional change. In 1791 he married Pélagie Templier, whose royalist sympathies contrasted with his own politics. The couple spent much of their marriage apart. His commitment to the new order became unmistakable after the monarchy fell: elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793.<br /> During 1793 Barras served as a representative on mission in southeastern France, often alongside Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron. Such representatives exercised sweeping supervisory powers over armies and local authorities. The region was unsettled by resistance to the increasingly radical government in Paris. At Toulon, opponents of the Convention admitted British and allied forces into a major French naval base. Recovering the port became a pressing military objective. Barras and Fréron were among the political officials attached to the republican effort to regain control.<br /> The siege of Toulon brought Barras into contact with [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]], then a young artillery officer whose proposals helped republican forces threaten the allied fleet. Toulon was recaptured in December 1793, and Bonaparte's performance won him rapid promotion. Barras later became an important political patron, although the extent of his role in each stage of Bonaparte's advancement is sometimes overstated. The victory was followed by severe reprisals against suspected enemies of the Republic. Barras's association with repression in the south, and allegations of misconduct there, would make him vulnerable when the political climate in Paris changed.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Thermidor and the defense of the Convention''<br /> <br /> By early 1794 Barras was back in Paris, where the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal exercised formidable power. [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] and his allies had grown suspicious of several representatives recalled from the provinces. Barras had reason to fear prosecution over his conduct in the south. He therefore joined other endangered deputies, including Tallien and Fouché, in opposition to Robespierre. Their alliance was driven by political disagreement but also by a more immediate concern for survival.<br /> On 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] was denounced and arrested in the Convention. His supporters attempted to rally the Paris Commune, and the outcome briefly remained uncertain. Barras was given command of forces acting for the Convention and helped suppress the resistance. Robespierre was executed the next day. Barras emerged from the crisis with enhanced standing, while the new Thermidorian leadership gradually dismantled the institutions and practices most closely identified with the Terror. The episode established Barras's reputation as a man capable of acting forcefully at a decisive moment.<br /> He also visited the imprisoned son of Louis XVI at the Temple after Robespierre's fall. Later rumors alleged that the child, regarded by royalists as Louis XVII, had been secretly removed and replaced. There is no reliable evidence that Barras organized such an exchange; the story belongs to the enduring legends surrounding the prince's captivity. More consequential for Barras was the challenge of governing a country exhausted by war, food shortages, and currency depreciation. He supported the Thermidorian effort to restrain radical clubs without allowing royalists to reverse the Revolution.<br /> In 1795 the Convention adopted the Constitution of Year III, which created a two-chamber legislature and a five-member executive called the Directory. Before the new constitution could take effect, royalist and conservative opponents organized an armed rising in Paris. Barras was assigned responsibility for the Convention's defense and relied on Bonaparte's artillery expertise. On 13 Vendémiaire Year IV (5 October 1795), republican forces dispersed the insurgents. The victory secured the transition to the new regime and greatly strengthened Bonaparte's reputation. It also helped carry Barras into the executive leadership of the Republic.<br /> <br /> <br /> The Directory and its difficulties<br /> <br /> Barras became one of the five directors in autumn 1795, alongside Lazare Carnot, Jean-François Reubell, Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, and Étienne-François Le Tourneur. The constitution had deliberately divided executive power to prevent another concentration of authority. In practice, the directors had to govern through shifting alliances while facing opposition from both royalists and radical republicans. Barras was particularly adept at cultivating personal connections. His influence depended on political judgment, patronage, and access to military figures as much as on his formal responsibilities.<br /> The Directory inherited a severe financial crisis. The assignat, the Revolution's paper currency, had lost most of its value, while shortages and high prices provoked resentment. The government also relied on military campaigns and contributions from occupied territories to sustain its finances. Its economic difficulties created openings for critics who accused the directors of profiting while ordinary people suffered. Barras's expensive social life and association with contractors, financiers, and influential hostesses made him a favorite target. His contemporaries often described him as corrupt and self-indulgent, though some of the most vivid stories were circulated by political enemies.<br /> The directors sought a middle course but frequently used coercion to preserve it. On the left, the movement organized around [[Babeuf, François Noël “Gracchus”]] proposed radical social equality and challenged the property settlement of the Revolution. The government uncovered the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796; Babeuf was tried and executed in 1797. On the right, royalists made electoral gains and hoped to turn popular discontent into a restoration of the Bourbons. The Directory's efforts to defeat these opponents exposed the tension between its republican claims and its readiness to limit political competition.<br /> Barras was also a conspicuous presence in Parisian society. He was acquainted with [[Cabarrus, Thérèse]] aka Madame Tallien and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who married [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]] in March 1796. The social world around the directors was an important arena of politics, where appointments, introductions, and favors could be negotiated outside official chambers. For Barras, this network supplied information and influence. For his critics, it offered evidence that the government had replaced revolutionary austerity with a new elite devoted to luxury. Both interpretations capture part of the political culture of the period.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fructidor and the ascendancy of Bonaparte''<br /> <br /> The elections of 1797 strengthened conservative and royalist deputies in the legislature. Within the Directory, Carnot and the recently appointed François Barthélemy favored accommodation, while Barras and two colleagues feared that the Republic itself was in danger. The directors turned to the army for support. Bonaparte, then commanding the successful French campaign in Italy, sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris. On 18 Fructidor Year V (4 September 1797), troops occupied key positions, opponents were arrested, and the results of numerous elections were overturned. Carnot escaped, Barthélemy was detained, and many deputies faced deportation.<br /> The coup eliminated an immediate royalist challenge and made Barras one of the regime's dominant figures. Yet it damaged the Directory's constitutional standing. The government had preserved itself by using soldiers against elected representatives, setting a precedent that would later be used against it. Barras also supported the appointment of Talleyrand as foreign minister in 1797. Skilled administrators and diplomats could strengthen the regime, but their loyalty was often personal and conditional rather than institutional.<br /> Meanwhile Bonaparte's victories in Italy made him a national celebrity. His military achievements helped the Directory negotiate from a position of strength, but his growing independence alarmed its civilian leaders. The Egyptian expedition of 1798 offered a new campaign against British interests and removed the ambitious general from Paris. France's fortunes subsequently deteriorated as a new European coalition formed and its armies suffered setbacks. At home, the directors annulled further unfavorable electoral results on 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798). Each such intervention made the regime appear less able to survive ordinary constitutional politics.<br /> By 1799 the Directory had lost much of its authority. War, taxation, factional disputes, and public anger had weakened the government, while political leaders increasingly looked for a stronger executive. Barras had survived repeated crises by balancing rivals and calling on military force when necessary. But these methods could not repair the system's deeper weaknesses. The army had become both the Republic's principal defense and a potential instrument for its overthrow.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fall, exile, and historical assessment''<br /> <br /> [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]] returned from Egypt in October 1799 and joined a group of politicians, including [[Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]], who planned to replace the Directory. Barras did not become a central partner in their scheme. During the coup of 18–19 Brumaire Year VIII (9–10 November 1799), pressure was brought to bear on the directors, and Barras resigned. Troops then dispersed opposition in the legislature, clearing the way for the Consulate. Bonaparte became First Consul. The general whom Barras had helped promote had now brought his political career to an end.<br /> Barras's former associates adapted rapidly to the new government. He was offered or considered for posts but did not return to significant office. The Consulate continued to view him with suspicion because of his connections and his knowledge of revolutionary politics. Ordered to live away from Paris, he spent time in Brussels and later in southern France. In 1813, under the Empire, he was sent to Rome amid fears of political intrigue. He returned to France during the upheavals surrounding Napoleon's fall in 1814. Though his name was mentioned in political conversations during the restoration and the Hundred Days, he no longer played a decisive public role.<br /> In his final years Barras lived largely in retirement. He prepared memoirs that were published after his death and remain useful, if partisan, testimony about revolutionary politics. He died in Paris on 29 January 1829 and was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. His long survival was remarkable in a generation whose leading figures so often met violent ends. It also allowed him to witness the transformation of France from monarchy to republic, Directory, Consulate, Empire, and restored monarchy.<br /> Historians have differed sharply in their judgments of Barras. To his critics, he personified the corruption, intrigue, and weakness of the Directory. A more balanced assessment recognizes his considerable political ability and his role in preserving the Republic during dangerous moments. He was neither a consistent democrat nor merely an opportunist: he defended revolutionary gains while repeatedly accepting measures that undermined representative government. His career illustrates a central paradox of the French Revolution. In trying to save the Republic through exceptional action, its leaders helped create the conditions in which military authority could supersede civilian rule.<br /> <br /> Further Reading:<br /> <br /> Georges Duruy, ''Memoires de Barras, membre du Directoire'', 2020.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Daniel Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> College of Charleston</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Barras&diff=1781 2026-10-20T21:39:14Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Barras, Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de''' (1755–1829): French revolutionary, politician and member of the Directory<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Early life and military service''<br /> <br /> Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (30 June 1755–29 January 1829), was a French politician and one of the most prominent members of the Directory, the executive government that ruled France from 1795 to 1799. His career crossed several phases of the Revolution: the overthrow of the monarchy, the Terror, the fall of Robespierre, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. He helped defeat two threats to the revolutionary government in Paris and was a leading participant in the coup of 18 Fructidor. A resourceful political survivor, Barras also came to embody the patronage and controversy associated with the Directory.<br /> Barras was born at Fox-Amphoux in Provenc Paul François Jean Nicolas, Vicomte dee into a family of the lesser nobility. Military service was a conventional career for a young man of his background, and he entered the Languedoc regiment while still in his teens. He later traveled to India, where France maintained trading posts and military interests in competition with Britain. He served in the period surrounding the British capture of Pondicherry in 1778, an episode that exposed him to the weaknesses of French colonial defenses. His travels also took him to the Cape of Good Hope. By the early 1780s he had returned to France, dissatisfied with the conduct of senior officials and with limited prospects for further advancement.<br /> His years abroad contributed to a taste for travel, sociability, and personal independence that would remain visible throughout his career. Back in France, he moved in fashionable circles and acquired a reputation for pleasure-seeking. Such habits later furnished his enemies with a ready-made portrait of an ambitious and dissolute politician. Yet his political choices were not simply those of an aristocrat defending his class. As criticism of the royal government spread in the late 1780s, Barras became receptive to reform and increasingly hostile to émigrés who sought foreign help against the Revolution.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''From the Revolution to Toulon''<br /> <br /> The Revolution of 1789 offered Barras an opening into public life. He welcomed the destruction of hereditary privileges and became associated with the Jacobin Club, which at first included a broad range of supporters of constitutional change. In 1791 he married Pélagie Templier, whose royalist sympathies contrasted with his own politics. The couple spent much of their marriage apart. His commitment to the new order became unmistakable after the monarchy fell: elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793.<br /> During 1793 Barras served as a representative on mission in southeastern France, often alongside Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron. Such representatives exercised sweeping supervisory powers over armies and local authorities. The region was unsettled by resistance to the increasingly radical government in Paris. At Toulon, opponents of the Convention admitted British and allied forces into a major French naval base. Recovering the port became a pressing military objective. Barras and Fréron were among the political officials attached to the republican effort to regain control.<br /> The siege of Toulon brought Barras into contact with [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]], then a young artillery officer whose proposals helped republican forces threaten the allied fleet. Toulon was recaptured in December 1793, and Bonaparte's performance won him rapid promotion. Barras later became an important political patron, although the extent of his role in each stage of Bonaparte's advancement is sometimes overstated. The victory was followed by severe reprisals against suspected enemies of the Republic. Barras's association with repression in the south, and allegations of misconduct there, would make him vulnerable when the political climate in Paris changed.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Thermidor and the defense of the Convention''<br /> <br /> By early 1794 Barras was back in Paris, where the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal exercised formidable power. [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] and his allies had grown suspicious of several representatives recalled from the provinces. Barras had reason to fear prosecution over his conduct in the south. He therefore joined other endangered deputies, including Tallien and Fouché, in opposition to Robespierre. Their alliance was driven by political disagreement but also by a more immediate concern for survival.<br /> On 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] was denounced and arrested in the Convention. His supporters attempted to rally the Paris Commune, and the outcome briefly remained uncertain. Barras was given command of forces acting for the Convention and helped suppress the resistance. Robespierre was executed the next day. Barras emerged from the crisis with enhanced standing, while the new Thermidorian leadership gradually dismantled the institutions and practices most closely identified with the Terror. The episode established Barras's reputation as a man capable of acting forcefully at a decisive moment.<br /> He also visited the imprisoned son of Louis XVI at the Temple after Robespierre's fall. Later rumors alleged that the child, regarded by royalists as Louis XVII, had been secretly removed and replaced. There is no reliable evidence that Barras organized such an exchange; the story belongs to the enduring legends surrounding the prince's captivity. More consequential for Barras was the challenge of governing a country exhausted by war, food shortages, and currency depreciation. He supported the Thermidorian effort to restrain radical clubs without allowing royalists to reverse the Revolution.<br /> In 1795 the Convention adopted the Constitution of Year III, which created a two-chamber legislature and a five-member executive called the Directory. Before the new constitution could take effect, royalist and conservative opponents organized an armed rising in Paris. Barras was assigned responsibility for the Convention's defense and relied on Bonaparte's artillery expertise. On 13 Vendémiaire Year IV (5 October 1795), republican forces dispersed the insurgents. The victory secured the transition to the new regime and greatly strengthened Bonaparte's reputation. It also helped carry Barras into the executive leadership of the Republic.<br /> <br /> <br /> The Directory and its difficulties<br /> <br /> Barras became one of the five directors in autumn 1795, alongside Lazare Carnot, Jean-François Reubell, Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, and Étienne-François Le Tourneur. The constitution had deliberately divided executive power to prevent another concentration of authority. In practice, the directors had to govern through shifting alliances while facing opposition from both royalists and radical republicans. Barras was particularly adept at cultivating personal connections. His influence depended on political judgment, patronage, and access to military figures as much as on his formal responsibilities.<br /> The Directory inherited a severe financial crisis. The assignat, the Revolution's paper currency, had lost most of its value, while shortages and high prices provoked resentment. The government also relied on military campaigns and contributions from occupied territories to sustain its finances. Its economic difficulties created openings for critics who accused the directors of profiting while ordinary people suffered. Barras's expensive social life and association with contractors, financiers, and influential hostesses made him a favorite target. His contemporaries often described him as corrupt and self-indulgent, though some of the most vivid stories were circulated by political enemies.<br /> The directors sought a middle course but frequently used coercion to preserve it. On the left, the movement organized around [[Babeuf, François Noël “Gracchus”]] proposed radical social equality and challenged the property settlement of the Revolution. The government uncovered the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796; Babeuf was tried and executed in 1797. On the right, royalists made electoral gains and hoped to turn popular discontent into a restoration of the Bourbons. The Directory's efforts to defeat these opponents exposed the tension between its republican claims and its readiness to limit political competition.<br /> Barras was also a conspicuous presence in Parisian society. He was acquainted with [[Cabarrus, Thérèse]] aka Madame Tallien and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who married [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]] in March 1796. The social world around the directors was an important arena of politics, where appointments, introductions, and favors could be negotiated outside official chambers. For Barras, this network supplied information and influence. For his critics, it offered evidence that the government had replaced revolutionary austerity with a new elite devoted to luxury. Both interpretations capture part of the political culture of the period.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fructidor and the ascendancy of Bonaparte''<br /> <br /> The elections of 1797 strengthened conservative and royalist deputies in the legislature. Within the Directory, Carnot and the recently appointed François Barthélemy favored accommodation, while Barras and two colleagues feared that the Republic itself was in danger. The directors turned to the army for support. Bonaparte, then commanding the successful French campaign in Italy, sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris. On 18 Fructidor Year V (4 September 1797), troops occupied key positions, opponents were arrested, and the results of numerous elections were overturned. Carnot escaped, Barthélemy was detained, and many deputies faced deportation.<br /> The coup eliminated an immediate royalist challenge and made Barras one of the regime's dominant figures. Yet it damaged the Directory's constitutional standing. The government had preserved itself by using soldiers against elected representatives, setting a precedent that would later be used against it. Barras also supported the appointment of Talleyrand as foreign minister in 1797. Skilled administrators and diplomats could strengthen the regime, but their loyalty was often personal and conditional rather than institutional.<br /> Meanwhile Bonaparte's victories in Italy made him a national celebrity. His military achievements helped the Directory negotiate from a position of strength, but his growing independence alarmed its civilian leaders. The Egyptian expedition of 1798 offered a new campaign against British interests and removed the ambitious general from Paris. France's fortunes subsequently deteriorated as a new European coalition formed and its armies suffered setbacks. At home, the directors annulled further unfavorable electoral results on 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798). Each such intervention made the regime appear less able to survive ordinary constitutional politics.<br /> By 1799 the Directory had lost much of its authority. War, taxation, factional disputes, and public anger had weakened the government, while political leaders increasingly looked for a stronger executive. Barras had survived repeated crises by balancing rivals and calling on military force when necessary. But these methods could not repair the system's deeper weaknesses. The army had become both the Republic's principal defense and a potential instrument for its overthrow.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fall, exile, and historical assessment''<br /> <br /> [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]] returned from Egypt in October 1799 and joined a group of politicians, including [[Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]], who planned to replace the Directory. Barras did not become a central partner in their scheme. During the coup of 18–19 Brumaire Year VIII (9–10 November 1799), pressure was brought to bear on the directors, and Barras resigned. Troops then dispersed opposition in the legislature, clearing the way for the Consulate. Bonaparte became First Consul. The general whom Barras had helped promote had now brought his political career to an end.<br /> Barras's former associates adapted rapidly to the new government. He was offered or considered for posts but did not return to significant office. The Consulate continued to view him with suspicion because of his connections and his knowledge of revolutionary politics. Ordered to live away from Paris, he spent time in Brussels and later in southern France. In 1813, under the Empire, he was sent to Rome amid fears of political intrigue. He returned to France during the upheavals surrounding Napoleon's fall in 1814. Though his name was mentioned in political conversations during the restoration and the Hundred Days, he no longer played a decisive public role.<br /> In his final years Barras lived largely in retirement. He prepared memoirs that were published after his death and remain useful, if partisan, testimony about revolutionary politics. He died in Paris on 29 January 1829 and was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. His long survival was remarkable in a generation whose leading figures so often met violent ends. It also allowed him to witness the transformation of France from monarchy to republic, Directory, Consulate, Empire, and restored monarchy.<br /> Historians have differed sharply in their judgments of Barras. To his critics, he personified the corruption, intrigue, and weakness of the Directory. A more balanced assessment recognizes his considerable political ability and his role in preserving the Republic during dangerous moments. He was neither a consistent democrat nor merely an opportunist: he defended revolutionary gains while repeatedly accepting measures that undermined representative government. His career illustrates a central paradox of the French Revolution. In trying to save the Republic through exceptional action, its leaders helped create the conditions in which military authority could supersede civilian rule.<br /> <br /> '''Daniel Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> College of Charleston</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Barras&diff=1780 2026-10-20T21:33:37Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Barras, Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de''' (1755–1829): French revolutionary, politician and member of the Directory<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Early life and military service''<br /> <br /> Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (30 June 1755–29 January 1829), was a French politician and one of the most prominent members of the Directory, the executive government that ruled France from 1795 to 1799. His career crossed several phases of the Revolution: the overthrow of the monarchy, the Terror, the fall of Robespierre, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. He helped defeat two threats to the revolutionary government in Paris and was a leading participant in the coup of 18 Fructidor. A resourceful political survivor, Barras also came to embody the patronage and controversy associated with the Directory.<br /> Barras was born at Fox-Amphoux in Provenc Paul François Jean Nicolas, Vicomte dee into a family of the lesser nobility. Military service was a conventional career for a young man of his background, and he entered the Languedoc regiment while still in his teens. He later traveled to India, where France maintained trading posts and military interests in competition with Britain. He served in the period surrounding the British capture of Pondicherry in 1778, an episode that exposed him to the weaknesses of French colonial defenses. His travels also took him to the Cape of Good Hope. By the early 1780s he had returned to France, dissatisfied with the conduct of senior officials and with limited prospects for further advancement.<br /> His years abroad contributed to a taste for travel, sociability, and personal independence that would remain visible throughout his career. Back in France, he moved in fashionable circles and acquired a reputation for pleasure-seeking. Such habits later furnished his enemies with a ready-made portrait of an ambitious and dissolute politician. Yet his political choices were not simply those of an aristocrat defending his class. As criticism of the royal government spread in the late 1780s, Barras became receptive to reform and increasingly hostile to émigrés who sought foreign help against the Revolution.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''From the Revolution to Toulon''<br /> <br /> The Revolution of 1789 offered Barras an opening into public life. He welcomed the destruction of hereditary privileges and became associated with the Jacobin Club, which at first included a broad range of supporters of constitutional change. In 1791 he married Pélagie Templier, whose royalist sympathies contrasted with his own politics. The couple spent much of their marriage apart. His commitment to the new order became unmistakable after the monarchy fell: elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793.<br /> During 1793 Barras served as a representative on mission in southeastern France, often alongside Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron. Such representatives exercised sweeping supervisory powers over armies and local authorities. The region was unsettled by resistance to the increasingly radical government in Paris. At Toulon, opponents of the Convention admitted British and allied forces into a major French naval base. Recovering the port became a pressing military objective. Barras and Fréron were among the political officials attached to the republican effort to regain control.<br /> The siege of Toulon brought Barras into contact with [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]], then a young artillery officer whose proposals helped republican forces threaten the allied fleet. Toulon was recaptured in December 1793, and Bonaparte's performance won him rapid promotion. Barras later became an important political patron, although the extent of his role in each stage of Bonaparte's advancement is sometimes overstated. The victory was followed by severe reprisals against suspected enemies of the Republic. Barras's association with repression in the south, and allegations of misconduct there, would make him vulnerable when the political climate in Paris changed.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Thermidor and the defense of the Convention''<br /> <br /> By early 1794 Barras was back in Paris, where the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal exercised formidable power. [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] and his allies had grown suspicious of several representatives recalled from the provinces. Barras had reason to fear prosecution over his conduct in the south. He therefore joined other endangered deputies, including Tallien and Fouché, in opposition to Robespierre. Their alliance was driven by political disagreement but also by a more immediate concern for survival.<br /> On 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] was denounced and arrested in the Convention. His supporters attempted to rally the Paris Commune, and the outcome briefly remained uncertain. Barras was given command of forces acting for the Convention and helped suppress the resistance. Robespierre was executed the next day. Barras emerged from the crisis with enhanced standing, while the new Thermidorian leadership gradually dismantled the institutions and practices most closely identified with the Terror. The episode established Barras's reputation as a man capable of acting forcefully at a decisive moment.<br /> He also visited the imprisoned son of Louis XVI at the Temple after Robespierre's fall. Later rumors alleged that the child, regarded by royalists as Louis XVII, had been secretly removed and replaced. There is no reliable evidence that Barras organized such an exchange; the story belongs to the enduring legends surrounding the prince's captivity. More consequential for Barras was the challenge of governing a country exhausted by war, food shortages, and currency depreciation. He supported the Thermidorian effort to restrain radical clubs without allowing royalists to reverse the Revolution.<br /> In 1795 the Convention adopted the Constitution of Year III, which created a two-chamber legislature and a five-member executive called the Directory. Before the new constitution could take effect, royalist and conservative opponents organized an armed rising in Paris. Barras was assigned responsibility for the Convention's defense and relied on Bonaparte's artillery expertise. On 13 Vendémiaire Year IV (5 October 1795), republican forces dispersed the insurgents. The victory secured the transition to the new regime and greatly strengthened Bonaparte's reputation. It also helped carry Barras into the executive leadership of the Republic.<br /> <br /> <br /> The Directory and its difficulties<br /> <br /> Barras became one of the five directors in autumn 1795, alongside Lazare Carnot, Jean-François Reubell, Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, and Étienne-François Le Tourneur. The constitution had deliberately divided executive power to prevent another concentration of authority. In practice, the directors had to govern through shifting alliances while facing opposition from both royalists and radical republicans. Barras was particularly adept at cultivating personal connections. His influence depended on political judgment, patronage, and access to military figures as much as on his formal responsibilities.<br /> The Directory inherited a severe financial crisis. The assignat, the Revolution's paper currency, had lost most of its value, while shortages and high prices provoked resentment. The government also relied on military campaigns and contributions from occupied territories to sustain its finances. Its economic difficulties created openings for critics who accused the directors of profiting while ordinary people suffered. Barras's expensive social life and association with contractors, financiers, and influential hostesses made him a favorite target. His contemporaries often described him as corrupt and self-indulgent, though some of the most vivid stories were circulated by political enemies.<br /> The directors sought a middle course but frequently used coercion to preserve it. On the left, the movement organized around [[Babeuf, François Noël “Gracchus”]] proposed radical social equality and challenged the property settlement of the Revolution. The government uncovered the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796; Babeuf was tried and executed in 1797. On the right, royalists made electoral gains and hoped to turn popular discontent into a restoration of the Bourbons. The Directory's efforts to defeat these opponents exposed the tension between its republican claims and its readiness to limit political competition.<br /> Barras was also a conspicuous presence in Parisian society. He was acquainted with Thérésa Tallien and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who married [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]] in March 1796. The social world around the directors was an important arena of politics, where appointments, introductions, and favors could be negotiated outside official chambers. For Barras, this network supplied information and influence. For his critics, it offered evidence that the government had replaced revolutionary austerity with a new elite devoted to luxury. Both interpretations capture part of the political culture of the period.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fructidor and the ascendancy of Bonaparte''<br /> <br /> The elections of 1797 strengthened conservative and royalist deputies in the legislature. Within the Directory, Carnot and the recently appointed François Barthélemy favored accommodation, while Barras and two colleagues feared that the Republic itself was in danger. The directors turned to the army for support. Bonaparte, then commanding the successful French campaign in Italy, sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris. On 18 Fructidor Year V (4 September 1797), troops occupied key positions, opponents were arrested, and the results of numerous elections were overturned. Carnot escaped, Barthélemy was detained, and many deputies faced deportation.<br /> The coup eliminated an immediate royalist challenge and made Barras one of the regime's dominant figures. Yet it damaged the Directory's constitutional standing. The government had preserved itself by using soldiers against elected representatives, setting a precedent that would later be used against it. Barras also supported the appointment of Talleyrand as foreign minister in 1797. Skilled administrators and diplomats could strengthen the regime, but their loyalty was often personal and conditional rather than institutional.<br /> Meanwhile Bonaparte's victories in Italy made him a national celebrity. His military achievements helped the Directory negotiate from a position of strength, but his growing independence alarmed its civilian leaders. The Egyptian expedition of 1798 offered a new campaign against British interests and removed the ambitious general from Paris. France's fortunes subsequently deteriorated as a new European coalition formed and its armies suffered setbacks. At home, the directors annulled further unfavorable electoral results on 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798). Each such intervention made the regime appear less able to survive ordinary constitutional politics.<br /> By 1799 the Directory had lost much of its authority. War, taxation, factional disputes, and public anger had weakened the government, while political leaders increasingly looked for a stronger executive. Barras had survived repeated crises by balancing rivals and calling on military force when necessary. But these methods could not repair the system's deeper weaknesses. The army had become both the Republic's principal defense and a potential instrument for its overthrow.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fall, exile, and historical assessment''<br /> <br /> [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]] returned from Egypt in October 1799 and joined a group of politicians, including [[Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]], who planned to replace the Directory. Barras did not become a central partner in their scheme. During the coup of 18–19 Brumaire Year VIII (9–10 November 1799), pressure was brought to bear on the directors, and Barras resigned. Troops then dispersed opposition in the legislature, clearing the way for the Consulate. Bonaparte became First Consul. The general whom Barras had helped promote had now brought his political career to an end.<br /> Barras's former associates adapted rapidly to the new government. He was offered or considered for posts but did not return to significant office. The Consulate continued to view him with suspicion because of his connections and his knowledge of revolutionary politics. Ordered to live away from Paris, he spent time in Brussels and later in southern France. In 1813, under the Empire, he was sent to Rome amid fears of political intrigue. He returned to France during the upheavals surrounding Napoleon's fall in 1814. Though his name was mentioned in political conversations during the restoration and the Hundred Days, he no longer played a decisive public role.<br /> In his final years Barras lived largely in retirement. He prepared memoirs that were published after his death and remain useful, if partisan, testimony about revolutionary politics. He died in Paris on 29 January 1829 and was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. His long survival was remarkable in a generation whose leading figures so often met violent ends. It also allowed him to witness the transformation of France from monarchy to republic, Directory, Consulate, Empire, and restored monarchy.<br /> Historians have differed sharply in their judgments of Barras. To his critics, he personified the corruption, intrigue, and weakness of the Directory. A more balanced assessment recognizes his considerable political ability and his role in preserving the Republic during dangerous moments. He was neither a consistent democrat nor merely an opportunist: he defended revolutionary gains while repeatedly accepting measures that undermined representative government. His career illustrates a central paradox of the French Revolution. In trying to save the Republic through exceptional action, its leaders helped create the conditions in which military authority could supersede civilian rule.<br /> <br /> '''Daniel Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> College of Charleston</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Barras&diff=1779 2026-10-20T21:27:07Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Barras, Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de''' (1755–1829): French revolutionary, politician and member of the Directory<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Early life and military service''<br /> <br /> Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (30 June 1755–29 January 1829), was a French politician and one of the most prominent members of the Directory, the executive government that ruled France from 1795 to 1799. His career crossed several phases of the Revolution: the overthrow of the monarchy, the Terror, the fall of Robespierre, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. He helped defeat two threats to the revolutionary government in Paris and was a leading participant in the coup of 18 Fructidor. A resourceful political survivor, Barras also came to embody the patronage and controversy associated with the Directory.<br /> Barras was born at Fox-Amphoux in Provenc Paul François Jean Nicolas, Vicomte dee into a family of the lesser nobility. Military service was a conventional career for a young man of his background, and he entered the Languedoc regiment while still in his teens. He later traveled to India, where France maintained trading posts and military interests in competition with Britain. He served in the period surrounding the British capture of Pondicherry in 1778, an episode that exposed him to the weaknesses of French colonial defenses. His travels also took him to the Cape of Good Hope. By the early 1780s he had returned to France, dissatisfied with the conduct of senior officials and with limited prospects for further advancement.<br /> His years abroad contributed to a taste for travel, sociability, and personal independence that would remain visible throughout his career. Back in France, he moved in fashionable circles and acquired a reputation for pleasure-seeking. Such habits later furnished his enemies with a ready-made portrait of an ambitious and dissolute politician. Yet his political choices were not simply those of an aristocrat defending his class. As criticism of the royal government spread in the late 1780s, Barras became receptive to reform and increasingly hostile to émigrés who sought foreign help against the Revolution.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''From the Revolution to Toulon''<br /> <br /> The Revolution of 1789 offered Barras an opening into public life. He welcomed the destruction of hereditary privileges and became associated with the Jacobin Club, which at first included a broad range of supporters of constitutional change. In 1791 he married Pélagie Templier, whose royalist sympathies contrasted with his own politics. The couple spent much of their marriage apart. His commitment to the new order became unmistakable after the monarchy fell: elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793.<br /> During 1793 Barras served as a representative on mission in southeastern France, often alongside Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron. Such representatives exercised sweeping supervisory powers over armies and local authorities. The region was unsettled by resistance to the increasingly radical government in Paris. At Toulon, opponents of the Convention admitted British and allied forces into a major French naval base. Recovering the port became a pressing military objective. Barras and Fréron were among the political officials attached to the republican effort to regain control.<br /> The siege of Toulon brought Barras into contact with [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]], then a young artillery officer whose proposals helped republican forces threaten the allied fleet. Toulon was recaptured in December 1793, and Bonaparte's performance won him rapid promotion. Barras later became an important political patron, although the extent of his role in each stage of Bonaparte's advancement is sometimes overstated. The victory was followed by severe reprisals against suspected enemies of the Republic. Barras's association with repression in the south, and allegations of misconduct there, would make him vulnerable when the political climate in Paris changed.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Thermidor and the defense of the Convention''<br /> <br /> By early 1794 Barras was back in Paris, where the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal exercised formidable power. [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] and his allies had grown suspicious of several representatives recalled from the provinces. Barras had reason to fear prosecution over his conduct in the south. He therefore joined other endangered deputies, including Tallien and Fouché, in opposition to Robespierre. Their alliance was driven by political disagreement but also by a more immediate concern for survival.<br /> On 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] was denounced and arrested in the Convention. His supporters attempted to rally the Paris Commune, and the outcome briefly remained uncertain. Barras was given command of forces acting for the Convention and helped suppress the resistance. Robespierre was executed the next day. Barras emerged from the crisis with enhanced standing, while the new Thermidorian leadership gradually dismantled the institutions and practices most closely identified with the Terror. The episode established Barras's reputation as a man capable of acting forcefully at a decisive moment.<br /> He also visited the imprisoned son of Louis XVI at the Temple after Robespierre's fall. Later rumors alleged that the child, regarded by royalists as Louis XVII, had been secretly removed and replaced. There is no reliable evidence that Barras organized such an exchange; the story belongs to the enduring legends surrounding the prince's captivity. More consequential for Barras was the challenge of governing a country exhausted by war, food shortages, and currency depreciation. He supported the Thermidorian effort to restrain radical clubs without allowing royalists to reverse the Revolution.<br /> In 1795 the Convention adopted the Constitution of Year III, which created a two-chamber legislature and a five-member executive called the Directory. Before the new constitution could take effect, royalist and conservative opponents organized an armed rising in Paris. Barras was assigned responsibility for the Convention's defense and relied on Bonaparte's artillery expertise. On 13 Vendémiaire Year IV (5 October 1795), republican forces dispersed the insurgents. The victory secured the transition to the new regime and greatly strengthened Bonaparte's reputation. It also helped carry Barras into the executive leadership of the Republic.<br /> <br /> <br /> The Directory and its difficulties<br /> <br /> Barras became one of the five directors in autumn 1795, alongside Lazare Carnot, Jean-François Reubell, Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, and Étienne-François Le Tourneur. The constitution had deliberately divided executive power to prevent another concentration of authority. In practice, the directors had to govern through shifting alliances while facing opposition from both royalists and radical republicans. Barras was particularly adept at cultivating personal connections. His influence depended on political judgment, patronage, and access to military figures as much as on his formal responsibilities.<br /> The Directory inherited a severe financial crisis. The assignat, the Revolution's paper currency, had lost most of its value, while shortages and high prices provoked resentment. The government also relied on military campaigns and contributions from occupied territories to sustain its finances. Its economic difficulties created openings for critics who accused the directors of profiting while ordinary people suffered. Barras's expensive social life and association with contractors, financiers, and influential hostesses made him a favorite target. His contemporaries often described him as corrupt and self-indulgent, though some of the most vivid stories were circulated by political enemies.<br /> The directors sought a middle course but frequently used coercion to preserve it. On the left, the movement organized around [[Babeuf, François Noël “Gracchus”]] proposed radical social equality and challenged the property settlement of the Revolution. The government uncovered the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796; Babeuf was tried and executed in 1797. On the right, royalists made electoral gains and hoped to turn popular discontent into a restoration of the Bourbons. The Directory's efforts to defeat these opponents exposed the tension between its republican claims and its readiness to limit political competition.<br /> Barras was also a conspicuous presence in Parisian society. He was acquainted with Thérésa Tallien and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who married [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]] in March 1796. The social world around the directors was an important arena of politics, where appointments, introductions, and favors could be negotiated outside official chambers. For Barras, this network supplied information and influence. For his critics, it offered evidence that the government had replaced revolutionary austerity with a new elite devoted to luxury. Both interpretations capture part of the political culture of the period.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fructidor and the ascendancy of Bonaparte''<br /> <br /> The elections of 1797 strengthened conservative and royalist deputies in the legislature. Within the Directory, Carnot and the recently appointed François Barthélemy favored accommodation, while Barras and two colleagues feared that the Republic itself was in danger. The directors turned to the army for support. Bonaparte, then commanding the successful French campaign in Italy, sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris. On 18 Fructidor Year V (4 September 1797), troops occupied key positions, opponents were arrested, and the results of numerous elections were overturned. Carnot escaped, Barthélemy was detained, and many deputies faced deportation.<br /> The coup eliminated an immediate royalist challenge and made Barras one of the regime's dominant figures. Yet it damaged the Directory's constitutional standing. The government had preserved itself by using soldiers against elected representatives, setting a precedent that would later be used against it. Barras also supported the appointment of Talleyrand as foreign minister in 1797. Skilled administrators and diplomats could strengthen the regime, but their loyalty was often personal and conditional rather than institutional.<br /> Meanwhile Bonaparte's victories in Italy made him a national celebrity. His military achievements helped the Directory negotiate from a position of strength, but his growing independence alarmed its civilian leaders. The Egyptian expedition of 1798 offered a new campaign against British interests and removed the ambitious general from Paris. France's fortunes subsequently deteriorated as a new European coalition formed and its armies suffered setbacks. At home, the directors annulled further unfavorable electoral results on 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798). Each such intervention made the regime appear less able to survive ordinary constitutional politics.<br /> By 1799 the Directory had lost much of its authority. War, taxation, factional disputes, and public anger had weakened the government, while political leaders increasingly looked for a stronger executive. Barras had survived repeated crises by balancing rivals and calling on military force when necessary. But these methods could not repair the system's deeper weaknesses. The army had become both the Republic's principal defense and a potential instrument for its overthrow.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fall, exile, and historical assessment''<br /> <br /> [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]] returned from Egypt in October 1799 and joined a group of politicians, including Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, who planned to replace the Directory. Barras did not become a central partner in their scheme. During the coup of 18–19 Brumaire Year VIII (9–10 November 1799), pressure was brought to bear on the directors, and Barras resigned. Troops then dispersed opposition in the legislature, clearing the way for the Consulate. Bonaparte became First Consul. The general whom Barras had helped promote had now brought his political career to an end.<br /> Barras's former associates adapted rapidly to the new government. He was offered or considered for posts but did not return to significant office. The Consulate continued to view him with suspicion because of his connections and his knowledge of revolutionary politics. Ordered to live away from Paris, he spent time in Brussels and later in southern France. In 1813, under the Empire, he was sent to Rome amid fears of political intrigue. He returned to France during the upheavals surrounding Napoleon's fall in 1814. Though his name was mentioned in political conversations during the restoration and the Hundred Days, he no longer played a decisive public role.<br /> In his final years Barras lived largely in retirement. He prepared memoirs that were published after his death and remain useful, if partisan, testimony about revolutionary politics. He died in Paris on 29 January 1829 and was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. His long survival was remarkable in a generation whose leading figures so often met violent ends. It also allowed him to witness the transformation of France from monarchy to republic, Directory, Consulate, Empire, and restored monarchy.<br /> Historians have differed sharply in their judgments of Barras. To his critics, he personified the corruption, intrigue, and weakness of the Directory. A more balanced assessment recognizes his considerable political ability and his role in preserving the Republic during dangerous moments. He was neither a consistent democrat nor merely an opportunist: he defended revolutionary gains while repeatedly accepting measures that undermined representative government. His career illustrates a central paradox of the French Revolution. In trying to save the Republic through exceptional action, its leaders helped create the conditions in which military authority could supersede civilian rule.<br /> <br /> '''Daniel Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> College of Charleston</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Barras&diff=1778 2026-10-20T21:18:58Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Barras, Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de''' (1755–1829): French revolutionary, politician and member of the Directory<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Early life and military service''<br /> <br /> Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (30 June 1755–29 January 1829), was a French politician and one of the most prominent members of the Directory, the executive government that ruled France from 1795 to 1799. His career crossed several phases of the Revolution: the overthrow of the monarchy, the Terror, the fall of Robespierre, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. He helped defeat two threats to the revolutionary government in Paris and was a leading participant in the coup of 18 Fructidor. A resourceful political survivor, Barras also came to embody the patronage and controversy associated with the Directory.<br /> Barras was born at Fox-Amphoux in Provenc Paul François Jean Nicolas, Vicomte dee into a family of the lesser nobility. Military service was a conventional career for a young man of his background, and he entered the Languedoc regiment while still in his teens. He later traveled to India, where France maintained trading posts and military interests in competition with Britain. He served in the period surrounding the British capture of Pondicherry in 1778, an episode that exposed him to the weaknesses of French colonial defenses. His travels also took him to the Cape of Good Hope. By the early 1780s he had returned to France, dissatisfied with the conduct of senior officials and with limited prospects for further advancement.<br /> His years abroad contributed to a taste for travel, sociability, and personal independence that would remain visible throughout his career. Back in France, he moved in fashionable circles and acquired a reputation for pleasure-seeking. Such habits later furnished his enemies with a ready-made portrait of an ambitious and dissolute politician. Yet his political choices were not simply those of an aristocrat defending his class. As criticism of the royal government spread in the late 1780s, Barras became receptive to reform and increasingly hostile to émigrés who sought foreign help against the Revolution.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''From the Revolution to Toulon''<br /> <br /> The Revolution of 1789 offered Barras an opening into public life. He welcomed the destruction of hereditary privileges and became associated with the Jacobin Club, which at first included a broad range of supporters of constitutional change. In 1791 he married Pélagie Templier, whose royalist sympathies contrasted with his own politics. The couple spent much of their marriage apart. His commitment to the new order became unmistakable after the monarchy fell: elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793.<br /> During 1793 Barras served as a representative on mission in southeastern France, often alongside Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron. Such representatives exercised sweeping supervisory powers over armies and local authorities. The region was unsettled by resistance to the increasingly radical government in Paris. At Toulon, opponents of the Convention admitted British and allied forces into a major French naval base. Recovering the port became a pressing military objective. Barras and Fréron were among the political officials attached to the republican effort to regain control.<br /> The siege of Toulon brought Barras into contact with [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]], then a young artillery officer whose proposals helped republican forces threaten the allied fleet. Toulon was recaptured in December 1793, and Bonaparte's performance won him rapid promotion. Barras later became an important political patron, although the extent of his role in each stage of Bonaparte's advancement is sometimes overstated. The victory was followed by severe reprisals against suspected enemies of the Republic. Barras's association with repression in the south, and allegations of misconduct there, would make him vulnerable when the political climate in Paris changed.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Thermidor and the defense of the Convention''<br /> <br /> By early 1794 Barras was back in Paris, where the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal exercised formidable power. [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] and his allies had grown suspicious of several representatives recalled from the provinces. Barras had reason to fear prosecution over his conduct in the south. He therefore joined other endangered deputies, including Tallien and Fouché, in opposition to Robespierre. Their alliance was driven by political disagreement but also by a more immediate concern for survival.<br /> On 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] was denounced and arrested in the Convention. His supporters attempted to rally the Paris Commune, and the outcome briefly remained uncertain. Barras was given command of forces acting for the Convention and helped suppress the resistance. Robespierre was executed the next day. Barras emerged from the crisis with enhanced standing, while the new Thermidorian leadership gradually dismantled the institutions and practices most closely identified with the Terror. The episode established Barras's reputation as a man capable of acting forcefully at a decisive moment.<br /> He also visited the imprisoned son of Louis XVI at the Temple after Robespierre's fall. Later rumors alleged that the child, regarded by royalists as Louis XVII, had been secretly removed and replaced. There is no reliable evidence that Barras organized such an exchange; the story belongs to the enduring legends surrounding the prince's captivity. More consequential for Barras was the challenge of governing a country exhausted by war, food shortages, and currency depreciation. He supported the Thermidorian effort to restrain radical clubs without allowing royalists to reverse the Revolution.<br /> In 1795 the Convention adopted the Constitution of Year III, which created a two-chamber legislature and a five-member executive called the Directory. Before the new constitution could take effect, royalist and conservative opponents organized an armed rising in Paris. Barras was assigned responsibility for the Convention's defense and relied on Bonaparte's artillery expertise. On 13 Vendémiaire Year IV (5 October 1795), republican forces dispersed the insurgents. The victory secured the transition to the new regime and greatly strengthened Bonaparte's reputation. It also helped carry Barras into the executive leadership of the Republic.<br /> <br /> <br /> The Directory and its difficulties<br /> <br /> Barras became one of the five directors in autumn 1795, alongside Lazare Carnot, Jean-François Reubell, Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, and Étienne-François Le Tourneur. The constitution had deliberately divided executive power to prevent another concentration of authority. In practice, the directors had to govern through shifting alliances while facing opposition from both royalists and radical republicans. Barras was particularly adept at cultivating personal connections. His influence depended on political judgment, patronage, and access to military figures as much as on his formal responsibilities.<br /> The Directory inherited a severe financial crisis. The assignat, the Revolution's paper currency, had lost most of its value, while shortages and high prices provoked resentment. The government also relied on military campaigns and contributions from occupied territories to sustain its finances. Its economic difficulties created openings for critics who accused the directors of profiting while ordinary people suffered. Barras's expensive social life and association with contractors, financiers, and influential hostesses made him a favorite target. His contemporaries often described him as corrupt and self-indulgent, though some of the most vivid stories were circulated by political enemies.<br /> The directors sought a middle course but frequently used coercion to preserve it. On the left, the movement organized around Gracchus Babeuf proposed radical social equality and challenged the property settlement of the Revolution. The government uncovered the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796; Babeuf was tried and executed in 1797. On the right, royalists made electoral gains and hoped to turn popular discontent into a restoration of the Bourbons. The Directory's efforts to defeat these opponents exposed the tension between its republican claims and its readiness to limit political competition.<br /> Barras was also a conspicuous presence in Parisian society. He was acquainted with Thérésa Tallien and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who married [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]] in March 1796. The social world around the directors was an important arena of politics, where appointments, introductions, and favors could be negotiated outside official chambers. For Barras, this network supplied information and influence. For his critics, it offered evidence that the government had replaced revolutionary austerity with a new elite devoted to luxury. Both interpretations capture part of the political culture of the period.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fructidor and the ascendancy of Bonaparte''<br /> <br /> The elections of 1797 strengthened conservative and royalist deputies in the legislature. Within the Directory, Carnot and the recently appointed François Barthélemy favored accommodation, while Barras and two colleagues feared that the Republic itself was in danger. The directors turned to the army for support. Bonaparte, then commanding the successful French campaign in Italy, sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris. On 18 Fructidor Year V (4 September 1797), troops occupied key positions, opponents were arrested, and the results of numerous elections were overturned. Carnot escaped, Barthélemy was detained, and many deputies faced deportation.<br /> The coup eliminated an immediate royalist challenge and made Barras one of the regime's dominant figures. Yet it damaged the Directory's constitutional standing. The government had preserved itself by using soldiers against elected representatives, setting a precedent that would later be used against it. Barras also supported the appointment of Talleyrand as foreign minister in 1797. Skilled administrators and diplomats could strengthen the regime, but their loyalty was often personal and conditional rather than institutional.<br /> Meanwhile Bonaparte's victories in Italy made him a national celebrity. His military achievements helped the Directory negotiate from a position of strength, but his growing independence alarmed its civilian leaders. The Egyptian expedition of 1798 offered a new campaign against British interests and removed the ambitious general from Paris. France's fortunes subsequently deteriorated as a new European coalition formed and its armies suffered setbacks. At home, the directors annulled further unfavorable electoral results on 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798). Each such intervention made the regime appear less able to survive ordinary constitutional politics.<br /> By 1799 the Directory had lost much of its authority. War, taxation, factional disputes, and public anger had weakened the government, while political leaders increasingly looked for a stronger executive. Barras had survived repeated crises by balancing rivals and calling on military force when necessary. But these methods could not repair the system's deeper weaknesses. The army had become both the Republic's principal defense and a potential instrument for its overthrow.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fall, exile, and historical assessment''<br /> <br /> [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]] returned from Egypt in October 1799 and joined a group of politicians, including Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, who planned to replace the Directory. Barras did not become a central partner in their scheme. During the coup of 18–19 Brumaire Year VIII (9–10 November 1799), pressure was brought to bear on the directors, and Barras resigned. Troops then dispersed opposition in the legislature, clearing the way for the Consulate. Bonaparte became First Consul. The general whom Barras had helped promote had now brought his political career to an end.<br /> Barras's former associates adapted rapidly to the new government. He was offered or considered for posts but did not return to significant office. The Consulate continued to view him with suspicion because of his connections and his knowledge of revolutionary politics. Ordered to live away from Paris, he spent time in Brussels and later in southern France. In 1813, under the Empire, he was sent to Rome amid fears of political intrigue. He returned to France during the upheavals surrounding Napoleon's fall in 1814. Though his name was mentioned in political conversations during the restoration and the Hundred Days, he no longer played a decisive public role.<br /> In his final years Barras lived largely in retirement. He prepared memoirs that were published after his death and remain useful, if partisan, testimony about revolutionary politics. He died in Paris on 29 January 1829 and was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. His long survival was remarkable in a generation whose leading figures so often met violent ends. It also allowed him to witness the transformation of France from monarchy to republic, Directory, Consulate, Empire, and restored monarchy.<br /> Historians have differed sharply in their judgments of Barras. To his critics, he personified the corruption, intrigue, and weakness of the Directory. A more balanced assessment recognizes his considerable political ability and his role in preserving the Republic during dangerous moments. He was neither a consistent democrat nor merely an opportunist: he defended revolutionary gains while repeatedly accepting measures that undermined representative government. His career illustrates a central paradox of the French Revolution. In trying to save the Republic through exceptional action, its leaders helped create the conditions in which military authority could supersede civilian rule.<br /> <br /> '''Daniel Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> College of Charleston</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Barras&diff=1777 2026-10-20T21:02:59Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Barras, Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de''' (1755–1829): French revolutionary, politician and member of the Directory<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Early life and military service''<br /> <br /> Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (30 June 1755–29 January 1829), was a French politician and one of the most prominent members of the Directory, the executive government that ruled France from 1795 to 1799. His career crossed several phases of the Revolution: the overthrow of the monarchy, the Terror, the fall of Robespierre, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. He helped defeat two threats to the revolutionary government in Paris and was a leading participant in the coup of 18 Fructidor. A resourceful political survivor, Barras also came to embody the patronage and controversy associated with the Directory.<br /> Barras was born at Fox-Amphoux in Provenc Paul François Jean Nicolas, Vicomte dee into a family of the lesser nobility. Military service was a conventional career for a young man of his background, and he entered the Languedoc regiment while still in his teens. He later traveled to India, where France maintained trading posts and military interests in competition with Britain. He served in the period surrounding the British capture of Pondicherry in 1778, an episode that exposed him to the weaknesses of French colonial defenses. His travels also took him to the Cape of Good Hope. By the early 1780s he had returned to France, dissatisfied with the conduct of senior officials and with limited prospects for further advancement.<br /> His years abroad contributed to a taste for travel, sociability, and personal independence that would remain visible throughout his career. Back in France, he moved in fashionable circles and acquired a reputation for pleasure-seeking. Such habits later furnished his enemies with a ready-made portrait of an ambitious and dissolute politician. Yet his political choices were not simply those of an aristocrat defending his class. As criticism of the royal government spread in the late 1780s, Barras became receptive to reform and increasingly hostile to émigrés who sought foreign help against the Revolution.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''From the Revolution to Toulon''<br /> <br /> The Revolution of 1789 offered Barras an opening into public life. He welcomed the destruction of hereditary privileges and became associated with the Jacobin Club, which at first included a broad range of supporters of constitutional change. In 1791 he married Pélagie Templier, whose royalist sympathies contrasted with his own politics. The couple spent much of their marriage apart. His commitment to the new order became unmistakable after the monarchy fell: elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793.<br /> During 1793 Barras served as a representative on mission in southeastern France, often alongside Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron. Such representatives exercised sweeping supervisory powers over armies and local authorities. The region was unsettled by resistance to the increasingly radical government in Paris. At Toulon, opponents of the Convention admitted British and allied forces into a major French naval base. Recovering the port became a pressing military objective. Barras and Fréron were among the political officials attached to the republican effort to regain control.<br /> The siege of Toulon brought Barras into contact with [[Bonaparte, Napoleon]], then a young artillery officer whose proposals helped republican forces threaten the allied fleet. Toulon was recaptured in December 1793, and Bonaparte's performance won him rapid promotion. Barras later became an important political patron, although the extent of his role in each stage of Bonaparte's advancement is sometimes overstated. The victory was followed by severe reprisals against suspected enemies of the Republic. Barras's association with repression in the south, and allegations of misconduct there, would make him vulnerable when the political climate in Paris changed.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Thermidor and the defense of the Convention''<br /> <br /> By early 1794 Barras was back in Paris, where the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal exercised formidable power. Maximilien Robespierre and his allies had grown suspicious of several representatives recalled from the provinces. Barras had reason to fear prosecution over his conduct in the south. He therefore joined other endangered deputies, including Tallien and Fouché, in opposition to Robespierre. Their alliance was driven by political disagreement but also by a more immediate concern for survival.<br /> On 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), Robespierre was denounced and arrested in the Convention. His supporters attempted to rally the Paris Commune, and the outcome briefly remained uncertain. Barras was given command of forces acting for the Convention and helped suppress the resistance. Robespierre was executed the next day. Barras emerged from the crisis with enhanced standing, while the new Thermidorian leadership gradually dismantled the institutions and practices most closely identified with the Terror. The episode established Barras's reputation as a man capable of acting forcefully at a decisive moment.<br /> He also visited the imprisoned son of Louis XVI at the Temple after Robespierre's fall. Later rumors alleged that the child, regarded by royalists as Louis XVII, had been secretly removed and replaced. There is no reliable evidence that Barras organized such an exchange; the story belongs to the enduring legends surrounding the prince's captivity. More consequential for Barras was the challenge of governing a country exhausted by war, food shortages, and currency depreciation. He supported the Thermidorian effort to restrain radical clubs without allowing royalists to reverse the Revolution.<br /> In 1795 the Convention adopted the Constitution of Year III, which created a two-chamber legislature and a five-member executive called the Directory. Before the new constitution could take effect, royalist and conservative opponents organized an armed rising in Paris. Barras was assigned responsibility for the Convention's defense and relied on Bonaparte's artillery expertise. On 13 Vendémiaire Year IV (5 October 1795), republican forces dispersed the insurgents. The victory secured the transition to the new regime and greatly strengthened Bonaparte's reputation. It also helped carry Barras into the executive leadership of the Republic.<br /> <br /> <br /> The Directory and its difficulties<br /> <br /> Barras became one of the five directors in autumn 1795, alongside Lazare Carnot, Jean-François Reubell, Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, and Étienne-François Le Tourneur. The constitution had deliberately divided executive power to prevent another concentration of authority. In practice, the directors had to govern through shifting alliances while facing opposition from both royalists and radical republicans. Barras was particularly adept at cultivating personal connections. His influence depended on political judgment, patronage, and access to military figures as much as on his formal responsibilities.<br /> The Directory inherited a severe financial crisis. The assignat, the Revolution's paper currency, had lost most of its value, while shortages and high prices provoked resentment. The government also relied on military campaigns and contributions from occupied territories to sustain its finances. Its economic difficulties created openings for critics who accused the directors of profiting while ordinary people suffered. Barras's expensive social life and association with contractors, financiers, and influential hostesses made him a favorite target. His contemporaries often described him as corrupt and self-indulgent, though some of the most vivid stories were circulated by political enemies.<br /> The directors sought a middle course but frequently used coercion to preserve it. On the left, the movement organized around Gracchus Babeuf proposed radical social equality and challenged the property settlement of the Revolution. The government uncovered the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796; Babeuf was tried and executed in 1797. On the right, royalists made electoral gains and hoped to turn popular discontent into a restoration of the Bourbons. The Directory's efforts to defeat these opponents exposed the tension between its republican claims and its readiness to limit political competition.<br /> Barras was also a conspicuous presence in Parisian society. He was acquainted with Thérésa Tallien and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who married Bonaparte in March 1796. The social world around the directors was an important arena of politics, where appointments, introductions, and favors could be negotiated outside official chambers. For Barras, this network supplied information and influence. For his critics, it offered evidence that the government had replaced revolutionary austerity with a new elite devoted to luxury. Both interpretations capture part of the political culture of the period.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fructidor and the ascendancy of Bonaparte''<br /> <br /> The elections of 1797 strengthened conservative and royalist deputies in the legislature. Within the Directory, Carnot and the recently appointed François Barthélemy favored accommodation, while Barras and two colleagues feared that the Republic itself was in danger. The directors turned to the army for support. Bonaparte, then commanding the successful French campaign in Italy, sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris. On 18 Fructidor Year V (4 September 1797), troops occupied key positions, opponents were arrested, and the results of numerous elections were overturned. Carnot escaped, Barthélemy was detained, and many deputies faced deportation.<br /> The coup eliminated an immediate royalist challenge and made Barras one of the regime's dominant figures. Yet it damaged the Directory's constitutional standing. The government had preserved itself by using soldiers against elected representatives, setting a precedent that would later be used against it. Barras also supported the appointment of Talleyrand as foreign minister in 1797. Skilled administrators and diplomats could strengthen the regime, but their loyalty was often personal and conditional rather than institutional.<br /> Meanwhile Bonaparte's victories in Italy made him a national celebrity. His military achievements helped the Directory negotiate from a position of strength, but his growing independence alarmed its civilian leaders. The Egyptian expedition of 1798 offered a new campaign against British interests and removed the ambitious general from Paris. France's fortunes subsequently deteriorated as a new European coalition formed and its armies suffered setbacks. At home, the directors annulled further unfavorable electoral results on 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798). Each such intervention made the regime appear less able to survive ordinary constitutional politics.<br /> By 1799 the Directory had lost much of its authority. War, taxation, factional disputes, and public anger had weakened the government, while political leaders increasingly looked for a stronger executive. Barras had survived repeated crises by balancing rivals and calling on military force when necessary. But these methods could not repair the system's deeper weaknesses. The army had become both the Republic's principal defense and a potential instrument for its overthrow.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fall, exile, and historical assessment''<br /> <br /> Bonaparte returned from Egypt in October 1799 and joined a group of politicians, including Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, who planned to replace the Directory. Barras did not become a central partner in their scheme. During the coup of 18–19 Brumaire Year VIII (9–10 November 1799), pressure was brought to bear on the directors, and Barras resigned. Troops then dispersed opposition in the legislature, clearing the way for the Consulate. Bonaparte became First Consul. The general whom Barras had helped promote had now brought his political career to an end.<br /> Barras's former associates adapted rapidly to the new government. He was offered or considered for posts but did not return to significant office. The Consulate continued to view him with suspicion because of his connections and his knowledge of revolutionary politics. Ordered to live away from Paris, he spent time in Brussels and later in southern France. In 1813, under the Empire, he was sent to Rome amid fears of political intrigue. He returned to France during the upheavals surrounding Napoleon's fall in 1814. Though his name was mentioned in political conversations during the restoration and the Hundred Days, he no longer played a decisive public role.<br /> In his final years Barras lived largely in retirement. He prepared memoirs that were published after his death and remain useful, if partisan, testimony about revolutionary politics. He died in Paris on 29 January 1829 and was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. His long survival was remarkable in a generation whose leading figures so often met violent ends. It also allowed him to witness the transformation of France from monarchy to republic, Directory, Consulate, Empire, and restored monarchy.<br /> Historians have differed sharply in their judgments of Barras. To his critics, he personified the corruption, intrigue, and weakness of the Directory. A more balanced assessment recognizes his considerable political ability and his role in preserving the Republic during dangerous moments. He was neither a consistent democrat nor merely an opportunist: he defended revolutionary gains while repeatedly accepting measures that undermined representative government. His career illustrates a central paradox of the French Revolution. In trying to save the Republic through exceptional action, its leaders helped create the conditions in which military authority could supersede civilian rule.<br /> <br /> '''Daniel Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> College of Charleston</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Barras&diff=1776 2026-10-20T20:43:11Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Barras, Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de''' (1755–1829): French revolutionary, politician and member of the Directory<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Early life and military service''<br /> <br /> Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (30 June 1755–29 January 1829), was a French politician and one of the most prominent members of the Directory, the executive government that ruled France from 1795 to 1799. His career crossed several phases of the Revolution: the overthrow of the monarchy, the Terror, the fall of Robespierre, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. He helped defeat two threats to the revolutionary government in Paris and was a leading participant in the coup of 18 Fructidor. A resourceful political survivor, Barras also came to embody the patronage and controversy associated with the Directory.<br /> Barras was born at Fox-Amphoux in Provenc Paul François Jean Nicolas, Vicomte dee into a family of the lesser nobility. Military service was a conventional career for a young man of his background, and he entered the Languedoc regiment while still in his teens. He later traveled to India, where France maintained trading posts and military interests in competition with Britain. He served in the period surrounding the British capture of Pondicherry in 1778, an episode that exposed him to the weaknesses of French colonial defenses. His travels also took him to the Cape of Good Hope. By the early 1780s he had returned to France, dissatisfied with the conduct of senior officials and with limited prospects for further advancement.<br /> His years abroad contributed to a taste for travel, sociability, and personal independence that would remain visible throughout his career. Back in France, he moved in fashionable circles and acquired a reputation for pleasure-seeking. Such habits later furnished his enemies with a ready-made portrait of an ambitious and dissolute politician. Yet his political choices were not simply those of an aristocrat defending his class. As criticism of the royal government spread in the late 1780s, Barras became receptive to reform and increasingly hostile to émigrés who sought foreign help against the Revolution.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''From the Revolution to Toulon''<br /> <br /> The Revolution of 1789 offered Barras an opening into public life. He welcomed the destruction of hereditary privileges and became associated with the Jacobin Club, which at first included a broad range of supporters of constitutional change. In 1791 he married Pélagie Templier, whose royalist sympathies contrasted with his own politics. The couple spent much of their marriage apart. His commitment to the new order became unmistakable after the monarchy fell: elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793.<br /> During 1793 Barras served as a representative on mission in southeastern France, often alongside Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron. Such representatives exercised sweeping supervisory powers over armies and local authorities. The region was unsettled by resistance to the increasingly radical government in Paris. At Toulon, opponents of the Convention admitted British and allied forces into a major French naval base. Recovering the port became a pressing military objective. Barras and Fréron were among the political officials attached to the republican effort to regain control.<br /> The siege of Toulon brought Barras into contact with Napoleon Bonaparte, then a young artillery officer whose proposals helped republican forces threaten the allied fleet. Toulon was recaptured in December 1793, and Bonaparte's performance won him rapid promotion. Barras later became an important political patron, although the extent of his role in each stage of Bonaparte's advancement is sometimes overstated. The victory was followed by severe reprisals against suspected enemies of the Republic. Barras's association with repression in the south, and allegations of misconduct there, would make him vulnerable when the political climate in Paris changed.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Thermidor and the defense of the Convention''<br /> <br /> By early 1794 Barras was back in Paris, where the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal exercised formidable power. Maximilien Robespierre and his allies had grown suspicious of several representatives recalled from the provinces. Barras had reason to fear prosecution over his conduct in the south. He therefore joined other endangered deputies, including Tallien and Fouché, in opposition to Robespierre. Their alliance was driven by political disagreement but also by a more immediate concern for survival.<br /> On 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), Robespierre was denounced and arrested in the Convention. His supporters attempted to rally the Paris Commune, and the outcome briefly remained uncertain. Barras was given command of forces acting for the Convention and helped suppress the resistance. Robespierre was executed the next day. Barras emerged from the crisis with enhanced standing, while the new Thermidorian leadership gradually dismantled the institutions and practices most closely identified with the Terror. The episode established Barras's reputation as a man capable of acting forcefully at a decisive moment.<br /> He also visited the imprisoned son of Louis XVI at the Temple after Robespierre's fall. Later rumors alleged that the child, regarded by royalists as Louis XVII, had been secretly removed and replaced. There is no reliable evidence that Barras organized such an exchange; the story belongs to the enduring legends surrounding the prince's captivity. More consequential for Barras was the challenge of governing a country exhausted by war, food shortages, and currency depreciation. He supported the Thermidorian effort to restrain radical clubs without allowing royalists to reverse the Revolution.<br /> In 1795 the Convention adopted the Constitution of Year III, which created a two-chamber legislature and a five-member executive called the Directory. Before the new constitution could take effect, royalist and conservative opponents organized an armed rising in Paris. Barras was assigned responsibility for the Convention's defense and relied on Bonaparte's artillery expertise. On 13 Vendémiaire Year IV (5 October 1795), republican forces dispersed the insurgents. The victory secured the transition to the new regime and greatly strengthened Bonaparte's reputation. It also helped carry Barras into the executive leadership of the Republic.<br /> <br /> <br /> The Directory and its difficulties<br /> <br /> Barras became one of the five directors in autumn 1795, alongside Lazare Carnot, Jean-François Reubell, Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, and Étienne-François Le Tourneur. The constitution had deliberately divided executive power to prevent another concentration of authority. In practice, the directors had to govern through shifting alliances while facing opposition from both royalists and radical republicans. Barras was particularly adept at cultivating personal connections. His influence depended on political judgment, patronage, and access to military figures as much as on his formal responsibilities.<br /> The Directory inherited a severe financial crisis. The assignat, the Revolution's paper currency, had lost most of its value, while shortages and high prices provoked resentment. The government also relied on military campaigns and contributions from occupied territories to sustain its finances. Its economic difficulties created openings for critics who accused the directors of profiting while ordinary people suffered. Barras's expensive social life and association with contractors, financiers, and influential hostesses made him a favorite target. His contemporaries often described him as corrupt and self-indulgent, though some of the most vivid stories were circulated by political enemies.<br /> The directors sought a middle course but frequently used coercion to preserve it. On the left, the movement organized around Gracchus Babeuf proposed radical social equality and challenged the property settlement of the Revolution. The government uncovered the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796; Babeuf was tried and executed in 1797. On the right, royalists made electoral gains and hoped to turn popular discontent into a restoration of the Bourbons. The Directory's efforts to defeat these opponents exposed the tension between its republican claims and its readiness to limit political competition.<br /> Barras was also a conspicuous presence in Parisian society. He was acquainted with Thérésa Tallien and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who married Bonaparte in March 1796. The social world around the directors was an important arena of politics, where appointments, introductions, and favors could be negotiated outside official chambers. For Barras, this network supplied information and influence. For his critics, it offered evidence that the government had replaced revolutionary austerity with a new elite devoted to luxury. Both interpretations capture part of the political culture of the period.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fructidor and the ascendancy of Bonaparte''<br /> <br /> The elections of 1797 strengthened conservative and royalist deputies in the legislature. Within the Directory, Carnot and the recently appointed François Barthélemy favored accommodation, while Barras and two colleagues feared that the Republic itself was in danger. The directors turned to the army for support. Bonaparte, then commanding the successful French campaign in Italy, sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris. On 18 Fructidor Year V (4 September 1797), troops occupied key positions, opponents were arrested, and the results of numerous elections were overturned. Carnot escaped, Barthélemy was detained, and many deputies faced deportation.<br /> The coup eliminated an immediate royalist challenge and made Barras one of the regime's dominant figures. Yet it damaged the Directory's constitutional standing. The government had preserved itself by using soldiers against elected representatives, setting a precedent that would later be used against it. Barras also supported the appointment of Talleyrand as foreign minister in 1797. Skilled administrators and diplomats could strengthen the regime, but their loyalty was often personal and conditional rather than institutional.<br /> Meanwhile Bonaparte's victories in Italy made him a national celebrity. His military achievements helped the Directory negotiate from a position of strength, but his growing independence alarmed its civilian leaders. The Egyptian expedition of 1798 offered a new campaign against British interests and removed the ambitious general from Paris. France's fortunes subsequently deteriorated as a new European coalition formed and its armies suffered setbacks. At home, the directors annulled further unfavorable electoral results on 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798). Each such intervention made the regime appear less able to survive ordinary constitutional politics.<br /> By 1799 the Directory had lost much of its authority. War, taxation, factional disputes, and public anger had weakened the government, while political leaders increasingly looked for a stronger executive. Barras had survived repeated crises by balancing rivals and calling on military force when necessary. But these methods could not repair the system's deeper weaknesses. The army had become both the Republic's principal defense and a potential instrument for its overthrow.<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Fall, exile, and historical assessment''<br /> <br /> Bonaparte returned from Egypt in October 1799 and joined a group of politicians, including Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, who planned to replace the Directory. Barras did not become a central partner in their scheme. During the coup of 18–19 Brumaire Year VIII (9–10 November 1799), pressure was brought to bear on the directors, and Barras resigned. Troops then dispersed opposition in the legislature, clearing the way for the Consulate. Bonaparte became First Consul. The general whom Barras had helped promote had now brought his political career to an end.<br /> Barras's former associates adapted rapidly to the new government. He was offered or considered for posts but did not return to significant office. The Consulate continued to view him with suspicion because of his connections and his knowledge of revolutionary politics. Ordered to live away from Paris, he spent time in Brussels and later in southern France. In 1813, under the Empire, he was sent to Rome amid fears of political intrigue. He returned to France during the upheavals surrounding Napoleon's fall in 1814. Though his name was mentioned in political conversations during the restoration and the Hundred Days, he no longer played a decisive public role.<br /> In his final years Barras lived largely in retirement. He prepared memoirs that were published after his death and remain useful, if partisan, testimony about revolutionary politics. He died in Paris on 29 January 1829 and was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. His long survival was remarkable in a generation whose leading figures so often met violent ends. It also allowed him to witness the transformation of France from monarchy to republic, Directory, Consulate, Empire, and restored monarchy.<br /> Historians have differed sharply in their judgments of Barras. To his critics, he personified the corruption, intrigue, and weakness of the Directory. A more balanced assessment recognizes his considerable political ability and his role in preserving the Republic during dangerous moments. He was neither a consistent democrat nor merely an opportunist: he defended revolutionary gains while repeatedly accepting measures that undermined representative government. His career illustrates a central paradox of the French Revolution. In trying to save the Republic through exceptional action, its leaders helped create the conditions in which military authority could supersede civilian rule.<br /> <br /> '''Daniel Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> College of Charleston</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Barras&diff=1775 2026-10-20T20:41:02Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Barras, Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de''' (1755–1829): French revolutionary, politician and member of the Directory<br /> <br /> <br /> ''Early life and military service''<br /> <br /> Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (30 June 1755–29 January 1829), was a French politician and one of the most prominent members of the Directory, the executive government that ruled France from 1795 to 1799. His career crossed several phases of the Revolution: the overthrow of the monarchy, the Terror, the fall of Robespierre, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. He helped defeat two threats to the revolutionary government in Paris and was a leading participant in the coup of 18 Fructidor. A resourceful political survivor, Barras also came to embody the patronage and controversy associated with the Directory.<br /> Barras was born at Fox-Amphoux in Provenc Paul François Jean Nicolas, Vicomte dee into a family of the lesser nobility. Military service was a conventional career for a young man of his background, and he entered the Languedoc regiment while still in his teens. He later traveled to India, where France maintained trading posts and military interests in competition with Britain. He served in the period surrounding the British capture of Pondicherry in 1778, an episode that exposed him to the weaknesses of French colonial defenses. His travels also took him to the Cape of Good Hope. By the early 1780s he had returned to France, dissatisfied with the conduct of senior officials and with limited prospects for further advancement.<br /> His years abroad contributed to a taste for travel, sociability, and personal independence that would remain visible throughout his career. Back in France, he moved in fashionable circles and acquired a reputation for pleasure-seeking. Such habits later furnished his enemies with a ready-made portrait of an ambitious and dissolute politician. Yet his political choices were not simply those of an aristocrat defending his class. As criticism of the royal government spread in the late 1780s, Barras became receptive to reform and increasingly hostile to émigrés who sought foreign help against the Revolution.<br /> <br /> From the Revolution to Toulon<br /> <br /> The Revolution of 1789 offered Barras an opening into public life. He welcomed the destruction of hereditary privileges and became associated with the Jacobin Club, which at first included a broad range of supporters of constitutional change. In 1791 he married Pélagie Templier, whose royalist sympathies contrasted with his own politics. The couple spent much of their marriage apart. His commitment to the new order became unmistakable after the monarchy fell: elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793.<br /> During 1793 Barras served as a representative on mission in southeastern France, often alongside Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron. Such representatives exercised sweeping supervisory powers over armies and local authorities. The region was unsettled by resistance to the increasingly radical government in Paris. At Toulon, opponents of the Convention admitted British and allied forces into a major French naval base. Recovering the port became a pressing military objective. Barras and Fréron were among the political officials attached to the republican effort to regain control.<br /> The siege of Toulon brought Barras into contact with Napoleon Bonaparte, then a young artillery officer whose proposals helped republican forces threaten the allied fleet. Toulon was recaptured in December 1793, and Bonaparte's performance won him rapid promotion. Barras later became an important political patron, although the extent of his role in each stage of Bonaparte's advancement is sometimes overstated. The victory was followed by severe reprisals against suspected enemies of the Republic. Barras's association with repression in the south, and allegations of misconduct there, would make him vulnerable when the political climate in Paris changed.<br /> <br /> Thermidor and the defense of the Convention<br /> <br /> By early 1794 Barras was back in Paris, where the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal exercised formidable power. Maximilien Robespierre and his allies had grown suspicious of several representatives recalled from the provinces. Barras had reason to fear prosecution over his conduct in the south. He therefore joined other endangered deputies, including Tallien and Fouché, in opposition to Robespierre. Their alliance was driven by political disagreement but also by a more immediate concern for survival.<br /> On 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), Robespierre was denounced and arrested in the Convention. His supporters attempted to rally the Paris Commune, and the outcome briefly remained uncertain. Barras was given command of forces acting for the Convention and helped suppress the resistance. Robespierre was executed the next day. Barras emerged from the crisis with enhanced standing, while the new Thermidorian leadership gradually dismantled the institutions and practices most closely identified with the Terror. The episode established Barras's reputation as a man capable of acting forcefully at a decisive moment.<br /> He also visited the imprisoned son of Louis XVI at the Temple after Robespierre's fall. Later rumors alleged that the child, regarded by royalists as Louis XVII, had been secretly removed and replaced. There is no reliable evidence that Barras organized such an exchange; the story belongs to the enduring legends surrounding the prince's captivity. More consequential for Barras was the challenge of governing a country exhausted by war, food shortages, and currency depreciation. He supported the Thermidorian effort to restrain radical clubs without allowing royalists to reverse the Revolution.<br /> In 1795 the Convention adopted the Constitution of Year III, which created a two-chamber legislature and a five-member executive called the Directory. Before the new constitution could take effect, royalist and conservative opponents organized an armed rising in Paris. Barras was assigned responsibility for the Convention's defense and relied on Bonaparte's artillery expertise. On 13 Vendémiaire Year IV (5 October 1795), republican forces dispersed the insurgents. The victory secured the transition to the new regime and greatly strengthened Bonaparte's reputation. It also helped carry Barras into the executive leadership of the Republic.<br /> <br /> The Directory and its difficulties<br /> <br /> Barras became one of the five directors in autumn 1795, alongside Lazare Carnot, Jean-François Reubell, Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, and Étienne-François Le Tourneur. The constitution had deliberately divided executive power to prevent another concentration of authority. In practice, the directors had to govern through shifting alliances while facing opposition from both royalists and radical republicans. Barras was particularly adept at cultivating personal connections. His influence depended on political judgment, patronage, and access to military figures as much as on his formal responsibilities.<br /> The Directory inherited a severe financial crisis. The assignat, the Revolution's paper currency, had lost most of its value, while shortages and high prices provoked resentment. The government also relied on military campaigns and contributions from occupied territories to sustain its finances. Its economic difficulties created openings for critics who accused the directors of profiting while ordinary people suffered. Barras's expensive social life and association with contractors, financiers, and influential hostesses made him a favorite target. His contemporaries often described him as corrupt and self-indulgent, though some of the most vivid stories were circulated by political enemies.<br /> The directors sought a middle course but frequently used coercion to preserve it. On the left, the movement organized around Gracchus Babeuf proposed radical social equality and challenged the property settlement of the Revolution. The government uncovered the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796; Babeuf was tried and executed in 1797. On the right, royalists made electoral gains and hoped to turn popular discontent into a restoration of the Bourbons. The Directory's efforts to defeat these opponents exposed the tension between its republican claims and its readiness to limit political competition.<br /> Barras was also a conspicuous presence in Parisian society. He was acquainted with Thérésa Tallien and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who married Bonaparte in March 1796. The social world around the directors was an important arena of politics, where appointments, introductions, and favors could be negotiated outside official chambers. For Barras, this network supplied information and influence. For his critics, it offered evidence that the government had replaced revolutionary austerity with a new elite devoted to luxury. Both interpretations capture part of the political culture of the period.<br /> <br /> Fructidor and the ascendancy of Bonaparte<br /> <br /> The elections of 1797 strengthened conservative and royalist deputies in the legislature. Within the Directory, Carnot and the recently appointed François Barthélemy favored accommodation, while Barras and two colleagues feared that the Republic itself was in danger. The directors turned to the army for support. Bonaparte, then commanding the successful French campaign in Italy, sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris. On 18 Fructidor Year V (4 September 1797), troops occupied key positions, opponents were arrested, and the results of numerous elections were overturned. Carnot escaped, Barthélemy was detained, and many deputies faced deportation.<br /> The coup eliminated an immediate royalist challenge and made Barras one of the regime's dominant figures. Yet it damaged the Directory's constitutional standing. The government had preserved itself by using soldiers against elected representatives, setting a precedent that would later be used against it. Barras also supported the appointment of Talleyrand as foreign minister in 1797. Skilled administrators and diplomats could strengthen the regime, but their loyalty was often personal and conditional rather than institutional.<br /> Meanwhile Bonaparte's victories in Italy made him a national celebrity. His military achievements helped the Directory negotiate from a position of strength, but his growing independence alarmed its civilian leaders. The Egyptian expedition of 1798 offered a new campaign against British interests and removed the ambitious general from Paris. France's fortunes subsequently deteriorated as a new European coalition formed and its armies suffered setbacks. At home, the directors annulled further unfavorable electoral results on 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798). Each such intervention made the regime appear less able to survive ordinary constitutional politics.<br /> By 1799 the Directory had lost much of its authority. War, taxation, factional disputes, and public anger had weakened the government, while political leaders increasingly looked for a stronger executive. Barras had survived repeated crises by balancing rivals and calling on military force when necessary. But these methods could not repair the system's deeper weaknesses. The army had become both the Republic's principal defense and a potential instrument for its overthrow.<br /> <br /> Fall, exile, and historical assessment<br /> <br /> Bonaparte returned from Egypt in October 1799 and joined a group of politicians, including Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, who planned to replace the Directory. Barras did not become a central partner in their scheme. During the coup of 18–19 Brumaire Year VIII (9–10 November 1799), pressure was brought to bear on the directors, and Barras resigned. Troops then dispersed opposition in the legislature, clearing the way for the Consulate. Bonaparte became First Consul. The general whom Barras had helped promote had now brought his political career to an end.<br /> Barras's former associates adapted rapidly to the new government. He was offered or considered for posts but did not return to significant office. The Consulate continued to view him with suspicion because of his connections and his knowledge of revolutionary politics. Ordered to live away from Paris, he spent time in Brussels and later in southern France. In 1813, under the Empire, he was sent to Rome amid fears of political intrigue. He returned to France during the upheavals surrounding Napoleon's fall in 1814. Though his name was mentioned in political conversations during the restoration and the Hundred Days, he no longer played a decisive public role.<br /> In his final years Barras lived largely in retirement. He prepared memoirs that were published after his death and remain useful, if partisan, testimony about revolutionary politics. He died in Paris on 29 January 1829 and was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. His long survival was remarkable in a generation whose leading figures so often met violent ends. It also allowed him to witness the transformation of France from monarchy to republic, Directory, Consulate, Empire, and restored monarchy.<br /> Historians have differed sharply in their judgments of Barras. To his critics, he personified the corruption, intrigue, and weakness of the Directory. A more balanced assessment recognizes his considerable political ability and his role in preserving the Republic during dangerous moments. He was neither a consistent democrat nor merely an opportunist: he defended revolutionary gains while repeatedly accepting measures that undermined representative government. His career illustrates a central paradox of the French Revolution. In trying to save the Republic through exceptional action, its leaders helped create the conditions in which military authority could supersede civilian rule.<br /> <br /> '''Daniel Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> College of Charleston</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Barras&diff=1774 2026-10-20T20:39:42Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Barras, Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de''' (1755–1829): French revolutionary, politician and member of the Directory<br /> <br /> '''Early life and military service'''<br /> <br /> Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (30 June 1755–29 January 1829), was a French politician and one of the most prominent members of the Directory, the executive government that ruled France from 1795 to 1799. His career crossed several phases of the Revolution: the overthrow of the monarchy, the Terror, the fall of Robespierre, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. He helped defeat two threats to the revolutionary government in Paris and was a leading participant in the coup of 18 Fructidor. A resourceful political survivor, Barras also came to embody the patronage and controversy associated with the Directory.<br /> Barras was born at Fox-Amphoux in Provenc Paul François Jean Nicolas, Vicomte dee into a family of the lesser nobility. Military service was a conventional career for a young man of his background, and he entered the Languedoc regiment while still in his teens. He later traveled to India, where France maintained trading posts and military interests in competition with Britain. He served in the period surrounding the British capture of Pondicherry in 1778, an episode that exposed him to the weaknesses of French colonial defenses. His travels also took him to the Cape of Good Hope. By the early 1780s he had returned to France, dissatisfied with the conduct of senior officials and with limited prospects for further advancement.<br /> His years abroad contributed to a taste for travel, sociability, and personal independence that would remain visible throughout his career. Back in France, he moved in fashionable circles and acquired a reputation for pleasure-seeking. Such habits later furnished his enemies with a ready-made portrait of an ambitious and dissolute politician. Yet his political choices were not simply those of an aristocrat defending his class. As criticism of the royal government spread in the late 1780s, Barras became receptive to reform and increasingly hostile to émigrés who sought foreign help against the Revolution.<br /> <br /> From the Revolution to Toulon<br /> <br /> The Revolution of 1789 offered Barras an opening into public life. He welcomed the destruction of hereditary privileges and became associated with the Jacobin Club, which at first included a broad range of supporters of constitutional change. In 1791 he married Pélagie Templier, whose royalist sympathies contrasted with his own politics. The couple spent much of their marriage apart. His commitment to the new order became unmistakable after the monarchy fell: elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793.<br /> During 1793 Barras served as a representative on mission in southeastern France, often alongside Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron. Such representatives exercised sweeping supervisory powers over armies and local authorities. The region was unsettled by resistance to the increasingly radical government in Paris. At Toulon, opponents of the Convention admitted British and allied forces into a major French naval base. Recovering the port became a pressing military objective. Barras and Fréron were among the political officials attached to the republican effort to regain control.<br /> The siege of Toulon brought Barras into contact with Napoleon Bonaparte, then a young artillery officer whose proposals helped republican forces threaten the allied fleet. Toulon was recaptured in December 1793, and Bonaparte's performance won him rapid promotion. Barras later became an important political patron, although the extent of his role in each stage of Bonaparte's advancement is sometimes overstated. The victory was followed by severe reprisals against suspected enemies of the Republic. Barras's association with repression in the south, and allegations of misconduct there, would make him vulnerable when the political climate in Paris changed.<br /> <br /> Thermidor and the defense of the Convention<br /> <br /> By early 1794 Barras was back in Paris, where the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal exercised formidable power. Maximilien Robespierre and his allies had grown suspicious of several representatives recalled from the provinces. Barras had reason to fear prosecution over his conduct in the south. He therefore joined other endangered deputies, including Tallien and Fouché, in opposition to Robespierre. Their alliance was driven by political disagreement but also by a more immediate concern for survival.<br /> On 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), Robespierre was denounced and arrested in the Convention. His supporters attempted to rally the Paris Commune, and the outcome briefly remained uncertain. Barras was given command of forces acting for the Convention and helped suppress the resistance. Robespierre was executed the next day. Barras emerged from the crisis with enhanced standing, while the new Thermidorian leadership gradually dismantled the institutions and practices most closely identified with the Terror. The episode established Barras's reputation as a man capable of acting forcefully at a decisive moment.<br /> He also visited the imprisoned son of Louis XVI at the Temple after Robespierre's fall. Later rumors alleged that the child, regarded by royalists as Louis XVII, had been secretly removed and replaced. There is no reliable evidence that Barras organized such an exchange; the story belongs to the enduring legends surrounding the prince's captivity. More consequential for Barras was the challenge of governing a country exhausted by war, food shortages, and currency depreciation. He supported the Thermidorian effort to restrain radical clubs without allowing royalists to reverse the Revolution.<br /> In 1795 the Convention adopted the Constitution of Year III, which created a two-chamber legislature and a five-member executive called the Directory. Before the new constitution could take effect, royalist and conservative opponents organized an armed rising in Paris. Barras was assigned responsibility for the Convention's defense and relied on Bonaparte's artillery expertise. On 13 Vendémiaire Year IV (5 October 1795), republican forces dispersed the insurgents. The victory secured the transition to the new regime and greatly strengthened Bonaparte's reputation. It also helped carry Barras into the executive leadership of the Republic.<br /> <br /> The Directory and its difficulties<br /> <br /> Barras became one of the five directors in autumn 1795, alongside Lazare Carnot, Jean-François Reubell, Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, and Étienne-François Le Tourneur. The constitution had deliberately divided executive power to prevent another concentration of authority. In practice, the directors had to govern through shifting alliances while facing opposition from both royalists and radical republicans. Barras was particularly adept at cultivating personal connections. His influence depended on political judgment, patronage, and access to military figures as much as on his formal responsibilities.<br /> The Directory inherited a severe financial crisis. The assignat, the Revolution's paper currency, had lost most of its value, while shortages and high prices provoked resentment. The government also relied on military campaigns and contributions from occupied territories to sustain its finances. Its economic difficulties created openings for critics who accused the directors of profiting while ordinary people suffered. Barras's expensive social life and association with contractors, financiers, and influential hostesses made him a favorite target. His contemporaries often described him as corrupt and self-indulgent, though some of the most vivid stories were circulated by political enemies.<br /> The directors sought a middle course but frequently used coercion to preserve it. On the left, the movement organized around Gracchus Babeuf proposed radical social equality and challenged the property settlement of the Revolution. The government uncovered the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796; Babeuf was tried and executed in 1797. On the right, royalists made electoral gains and hoped to turn popular discontent into a restoration of the Bourbons. The Directory's efforts to defeat these opponents exposed the tension between its republican claims and its readiness to limit political competition.<br /> Barras was also a conspicuous presence in Parisian society. He was acquainted with Thérésa Tallien and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who married Bonaparte in March 1796. The social world around the directors was an important arena of politics, where appointments, introductions, and favors could be negotiated outside official chambers. For Barras, this network supplied information and influence. For his critics, it offered evidence that the government had replaced revolutionary austerity with a new elite devoted to luxury. Both interpretations capture part of the political culture of the period.<br /> <br /> Fructidor and the ascendancy of Bonaparte<br /> <br /> The elections of 1797 strengthened conservative and royalist deputies in the legislature. Within the Directory, Carnot and the recently appointed François Barthélemy favored accommodation, while Barras and two colleagues feared that the Republic itself was in danger. The directors turned to the army for support. Bonaparte, then commanding the successful French campaign in Italy, sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris. On 18 Fructidor Year V (4 September 1797), troops occupied key positions, opponents were arrested, and the results of numerous elections were overturned. Carnot escaped, Barthélemy was detained, and many deputies faced deportation.<br /> The coup eliminated an immediate royalist challenge and made Barras one of the regime's dominant figures. Yet it damaged the Directory's constitutional standing. The government had preserved itself by using soldiers against elected representatives, setting a precedent that would later be used against it. Barras also supported the appointment of Talleyrand as foreign minister in 1797. Skilled administrators and diplomats could strengthen the regime, but their loyalty was often personal and conditional rather than institutional.<br /> Meanwhile Bonaparte's victories in Italy made him a national celebrity. His military achievements helped the Directory negotiate from a position of strength, but his growing independence alarmed its civilian leaders. The Egyptian expedition of 1798 offered a new campaign against British interests and removed the ambitious general from Paris. France's fortunes subsequently deteriorated as a new European coalition formed and its armies suffered setbacks. At home, the directors annulled further unfavorable electoral results on 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798). Each such intervention made the regime appear less able to survive ordinary constitutional politics.<br /> By 1799 the Directory had lost much of its authority. War, taxation, factional disputes, and public anger had weakened the government, while political leaders increasingly looked for a stronger executive. Barras had survived repeated crises by balancing rivals and calling on military force when necessary. But these methods could not repair the system's deeper weaknesses. The army had become both the Republic's principal defense and a potential instrument for its overthrow.<br /> <br /> Fall, exile, and historical assessment<br /> <br /> Bonaparte returned from Egypt in October 1799 and joined a group of politicians, including Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, who planned to replace the Directory. Barras did not become a central partner in their scheme. During the coup of 18–19 Brumaire Year VIII (9–10 November 1799), pressure was brought to bear on the directors, and Barras resigned. Troops then dispersed opposition in the legislature, clearing the way for the Consulate. Bonaparte became First Consul. The general whom Barras had helped promote had now brought his political career to an end.<br /> Barras's former associates adapted rapidly to the new government. He was offered or considered for posts but did not return to significant office. The Consulate continued to view him with suspicion because of his connections and his knowledge of revolutionary politics. Ordered to live away from Paris, he spent time in Brussels and later in southern France. In 1813, under the Empire, he was sent to Rome amid fears of political intrigue. He returned to France during the upheavals surrounding Napoleon's fall in 1814. Though his name was mentioned in political conversations during the restoration and the Hundred Days, he no longer played a decisive public role.<br /> In his final years Barras lived largely in retirement. He prepared memoirs that were published after his death and remain useful, if partisan, testimony about revolutionary politics. He died in Paris on 29 January 1829 and was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. His long survival was remarkable in a generation whose leading figures so often met violent ends. It also allowed him to witness the transformation of France from monarchy to republic, Directory, Consulate, Empire, and restored monarchy.<br /> Historians have differed sharply in their judgments of Barras. To his critics, he personified the corruption, intrigue, and weakness of the Directory. A more balanced assessment recognizes his considerable political ability and his role in preserving the Republic during dangerous moments. He was neither a consistent democrat nor merely an opportunist: he defended revolutionary gains while repeatedly accepting measures that undermined representative government. His career illustrates a central paradox of the French Revolution. In trying to save the Republic through exceptional action, its leaders helped create the conditions in which military authority could supersede civilian rule.<br /> <br /> '''Daniel Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> College of Charleston</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Barras&diff=1773 2026-10-20T20:33:12Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>Barras, Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de (1755–1829) French revolutionary, politician and member of the Directory<br /> <br /> Early life and military service<br /> <br /> Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (30 June 1755–29 January 1829), was a French politician and one of the most prominent members of the Directory, the executive government that ruled France from 1795 to 1799. His career crossed several phases of the Revolution: the overthrow of the monarchy, the Terror, the fall of Robespierre, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. He helped defeat two threats to the revolutionary government in Paris and was a leading participant in the coup of 18 Fructidor. A resourceful political survivor, Barras also came to embody the patronage and controversy associated with the Directory.<br /> Barras was born at Fox-Amphoux in Provenc Paul François Jean Nicolas, Vicomte dee into a family of the lesser nobility. Military service was a conventional career for a young man of his background, and he entered the Languedoc regiment while still in his teens. He later traveled to India, where France maintained trading posts and military interests in competition with Britain. He served in the period surrounding the British capture of Pondicherry in 1778, an episode that exposed him to the weaknesses of French colonial defenses. His travels also took him to the Cape of Good Hope. By the early 1780s he had returned to France, dissatisfied with the conduct of senior officials and with limited prospects for further advancement.<br /> His years abroad contributed to a taste for travel, sociability, and personal independence that would remain visible throughout his career. Back in France, he moved in fashionable circles and acquired a reputation for pleasure-seeking. Such habits later furnished his enemies with a ready-made portrait of an ambitious and dissolute politician. Yet his political choices were not simply those of an aristocrat defending his class. As criticism of the royal government spread in the late 1780s, Barras became receptive to reform and increasingly hostile to émigrés who sought foreign help against the Revolution.<br /> <br /> From the Revolution to Toulon<br /> <br /> The Revolution of 1789 offered Barras an opening into public life. He welcomed the destruction of hereditary privileges and became associated with the Jacobin Club, which at first included a broad range of supporters of constitutional change. In 1791 he married Pélagie Templier, whose royalist sympathies contrasted with his own politics. The couple spent much of their marriage apart. His commitment to the new order became unmistakable after the monarchy fell: elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793.<br /> During 1793 Barras served as a representative on mission in southeastern France, often alongside Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron. Such representatives exercised sweeping supervisory powers over armies and local authorities. The region was unsettled by resistance to the increasingly radical government in Paris. At Toulon, opponents of the Convention admitted British and allied forces into a major French naval base. Recovering the port became a pressing military objective. Barras and Fréron were among the political officials attached to the republican effort to regain control.<br /> The siege of Toulon brought Barras into contact with Napoleon Bonaparte, then a young artillery officer whose proposals helped republican forces threaten the allied fleet. Toulon was recaptured in December 1793, and Bonaparte's performance won him rapid promotion. Barras later became an important political patron, although the extent of his role in each stage of Bonaparte's advancement is sometimes overstated. The victory was followed by severe reprisals against suspected enemies of the Republic. Barras's association with repression in the south, and allegations of misconduct there, would make him vulnerable when the political climate in Paris changed.<br /> <br /> Thermidor and the defense of the Convention<br /> <br /> By early 1794 Barras was back in Paris, where the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal exercised formidable power. Maximilien Robespierre and his allies had grown suspicious of several representatives recalled from the provinces. Barras had reason to fear prosecution over his conduct in the south. He therefore joined other endangered deputies, including Tallien and Fouché, in opposition to Robespierre. Their alliance was driven by political disagreement but also by a more immediate concern for survival.<br /> On 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), Robespierre was denounced and arrested in the Convention. His supporters attempted to rally the Paris Commune, and the outcome briefly remained uncertain. Barras was given command of forces acting for the Convention and helped suppress the resistance. Robespierre was executed the next day. Barras emerged from the crisis with enhanced standing, while the new Thermidorian leadership gradually dismantled the institutions and practices most closely identified with the Terror. The episode established Barras's reputation as a man capable of acting forcefully at a decisive moment.<br /> He also visited the imprisoned son of Louis XVI at the Temple after Robespierre's fall. Later rumors alleged that the child, regarded by royalists as Louis XVII, had been secretly removed and replaced. There is no reliable evidence that Barras organized such an exchange; the story belongs to the enduring legends surrounding the prince's captivity. More consequential for Barras was the challenge of governing a country exhausted by war, food shortages, and currency depreciation. He supported the Thermidorian effort to restrain radical clubs without allowing royalists to reverse the Revolution.<br /> In 1795 the Convention adopted the Constitution of Year III, which created a two-chamber legislature and a five-member executive called the Directory. Before the new constitution could take effect, royalist and conservative opponents organized an armed rising in Paris. Barras was assigned responsibility for the Convention's defense and relied on Bonaparte's artillery expertise. On 13 Vendémiaire Year IV (5 October 1795), republican forces dispersed the insurgents. The victory secured the transition to the new regime and greatly strengthened Bonaparte's reputation. It also helped carry Barras into the executive leadership of the Republic.<br /> <br /> The Directory and its difficulties<br /> <br /> Barras became one of the five directors in autumn 1795, alongside Lazare Carnot, Jean-François Reubell, Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, and Étienne-François Le Tourneur. The constitution had deliberately divided executive power to prevent another concentration of authority. In practice, the directors had to govern through shifting alliances while facing opposition from both royalists and radical republicans. Barras was particularly adept at cultivating personal connections. His influence depended on political judgment, patronage, and access to military figures as much as on his formal responsibilities.<br /> The Directory inherited a severe financial crisis. The assignat, the Revolution's paper currency, had lost most of its value, while shortages and high prices provoked resentment. The government also relied on military campaigns and contributions from occupied territories to sustain its finances. Its economic difficulties created openings for critics who accused the directors of profiting while ordinary people suffered. Barras's expensive social life and association with contractors, financiers, and influential hostesses made him a favorite target. His contemporaries often described him as corrupt and self-indulgent, though some of the most vivid stories were circulated by political enemies.<br /> The directors sought a middle course but frequently used coercion to preserve it. On the left, the movement organized around Gracchus Babeuf proposed radical social equality and challenged the property settlement of the Revolution. The government uncovered the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796; Babeuf was tried and executed in 1797. On the right, royalists made electoral gains and hoped to turn popular discontent into a restoration of the Bourbons. The Directory's efforts to defeat these opponents exposed the tension between its republican claims and its readiness to limit political competition.<br /> Barras was also a conspicuous presence in Parisian society. He was acquainted with Thérésa Tallien and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who married Bonaparte in March 1796. The social world around the directors was an important arena of politics, where appointments, introductions, and favors could be negotiated outside official chambers. For Barras, this network supplied information and influence. For his critics, it offered evidence that the government had replaced revolutionary austerity with a new elite devoted to luxury. Both interpretations capture part of the political culture of the period.<br /> <br /> Fructidor and the ascendancy of Bonaparte<br /> <br /> The elections of 1797 strengthened conservative and royalist deputies in the legislature. Within the Directory, Carnot and the recently appointed François Barthélemy favored accommodation, while Barras and two colleagues feared that the Republic itself was in danger. The directors turned to the army for support. Bonaparte, then commanding the successful French campaign in Italy, sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris. On 18 Fructidor Year V (4 September 1797), troops occupied key positions, opponents were arrested, and the results of numerous elections were overturned. Carnot escaped, Barthélemy was detained, and many deputies faced deportation.<br /> The coup eliminated an immediate royalist challenge and made Barras one of the regime's dominant figures. Yet it damaged the Directory's constitutional standing. The government had preserved itself by using soldiers against elected representatives, setting a precedent that would later be used against it. Barras also supported the appointment of Talleyrand as foreign minister in 1797. Skilled administrators and diplomats could strengthen the regime, but their loyalty was often personal and conditional rather than institutional.<br /> Meanwhile Bonaparte's victories in Italy made him a national celebrity. His military achievements helped the Directory negotiate from a position of strength, but his growing independence alarmed its civilian leaders. The Egyptian expedition of 1798 offered a new campaign against British interests and removed the ambitious general from Paris. France's fortunes subsequently deteriorated as a new European coalition formed and its armies suffered setbacks. At home, the directors annulled further unfavorable electoral results on 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798). Each such intervention made the regime appear less able to survive ordinary constitutional politics.<br /> By 1799 the Directory had lost much of its authority. War, taxation, factional disputes, and public anger had weakened the government, while political leaders increasingly looked for a stronger executive. Barras had survived repeated crises by balancing rivals and calling on military force when necessary. But these methods could not repair the system's deeper weaknesses. The army had become both the Republic's principal defense and a potential instrument for its overthrow.<br /> <br /> Fall, exile, and historical assessment<br /> <br /> Bonaparte returned from Egypt in October 1799 and joined a group of politicians, including Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, who planned to replace the Directory. Barras did not become a central partner in their scheme. During the coup of 18–19 Brumaire Year VIII (9–10 November 1799), pressure was brought to bear on the directors, and Barras resigned. Troops then dispersed opposition in the legislature, clearing the way for the Consulate. Bonaparte became First Consul. The general whom Barras had helped promote had now brought his political career to an end.<br /> Barras's former associates adapted rapidly to the new government. He was offered or considered for posts but did not return to significant office. The Consulate continued to view him with suspicion because of his connections and his knowledge of revolutionary politics. Ordered to live away from Paris, he spent time in Brussels and later in southern France. In 1813, under the Empire, he was sent to Rome amid fears of political intrigue. He returned to France during the upheavals surrounding Napoleon's fall in 1814. Though his name was mentioned in political conversations during the restoration and the Hundred Days, he no longer played a decisive public role.<br /> In his final years Barras lived largely in retirement. He prepared memoirs that were published after his death and remain useful, if partisan, testimony about revolutionary politics. He died in Paris on 29 January 1829 and was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. His long survival was remarkable in a generation whose leading figures so often met violent ends. It also allowed him to witness the transformation of France from monarchy to republic, Directory, Consulate, Empire, and restored monarchy.<br /> Historians have differed sharply in their judgments of Barras. To his critics, he personified the corruption, intrigue, and weakness of the Directory. A more balanced assessment recognizes his considerable political ability and his role in preserving the Republic during dangerous moments. He was neither a consistent democrat nor merely an opportunist: he defended revolutionary gains while repeatedly accepting measures that undermined representative government. His career illustrates a central paradox of the French Revolution. In trying to save the Republic through exceptional action, its leaders helped create the conditions in which military authority could supersede civilian rule.<br /> <br /> '''Daniel Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> College of Charleston</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Barras&diff=1772 2026-10-20T20:31:54Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>Barras, Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de (1755–1829) French revolutionary politician and member of the Directory<br /> <br /> Early life and military service<br /> <br /> Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (30 June 1755–29 January 1829), was a French politician and one of the most prominent members of the Directory, the executive government that ruled France from 1795 to 1799. His career crossed several phases of the Revolution: the overthrow of the monarchy, the Terror, the fall of Robespierre, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. He helped defeat two threats to the revolutionary government in Paris and was a leading participant in the coup of 18 Fructidor. A resourceful political survivor, Barras also came to embody the patronage and controversy associated with the Directory.<br /> Barras was born at Fox-Amphoux in Provenc Paul François Jean Nicolas, Vicomte dee into a family of the lesser nobility. Military service was a conventional career for a young man of his background, and he entered the Languedoc regiment while still in his teens. He later traveled to India, where France maintained trading posts and military interests in competition with Britain. He served in the period surrounding the British capture of Pondicherry in 1778, an episode that exposed him to the weaknesses of French colonial defenses. His travels also took him to the Cape of Good Hope. By the early 1780s he had returned to France, dissatisfied with the conduct of senior officials and with limited prospects for further advancement.<br /> His years abroad contributed to a taste for travel, sociability, and personal independence that would remain visible throughout his career. Back in France, he moved in fashionable circles and acquired a reputation for pleasure-seeking. Such habits later furnished his enemies with a ready-made portrait of an ambitious and dissolute politician. Yet his political choices were not simply those of an aristocrat defending his class. As criticism of the royal government spread in the late 1780s, Barras became receptive to reform and increasingly hostile to émigrés who sought foreign help against the Revolution.<br /> <br /> From the Revolution to Toulon<br /> <br /> The Revolution of 1789 offered Barras an opening into public life. He welcomed the destruction of hereditary privileges and became associated with the Jacobin Club, which at first included a broad range of supporters of constitutional change. In 1791 he married Pélagie Templier, whose royalist sympathies contrasted with his own politics. The couple spent much of their marriage apart. His commitment to the new order became unmistakable after the monarchy fell: elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793.<br /> During 1793 Barras served as a representative on mission in southeastern France, often alongside Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron. Such representatives exercised sweeping supervisory powers over armies and local authorities. The region was unsettled by resistance to the increasingly radical government in Paris. At Toulon, opponents of the Convention admitted British and allied forces into a major French naval base. Recovering the port became a pressing military objective. Barras and Fréron were among the political officials attached to the republican effort to regain control.<br /> The siege of Toulon brought Barras into contact with Napoleon Bonaparte, then a young artillery officer whose proposals helped republican forces threaten the allied fleet. Toulon was recaptured in December 1793, and Bonaparte's performance won him rapid promotion. Barras later became an important political patron, although the extent of his role in each stage of Bonaparte's advancement is sometimes overstated. The victory was followed by severe reprisals against suspected enemies of the Republic. Barras's association with repression in the south, and allegations of misconduct there, would make him vulnerable when the political climate in Paris changed.<br /> <br /> Thermidor and the defense of the Convention<br /> <br /> By early 1794 Barras was back in Paris, where the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal exercised formidable power. Maximilien Robespierre and his allies had grown suspicious of several representatives recalled from the provinces. Barras had reason to fear prosecution over his conduct in the south. He therefore joined other endangered deputies, including Tallien and Fouché, in opposition to Robespierre. Their alliance was driven by political disagreement but also by a more immediate concern for survival.<br /> On 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), Robespierre was denounced and arrested in the Convention. His supporters attempted to rally the Paris Commune, and the outcome briefly remained uncertain. Barras was given command of forces acting for the Convention and helped suppress the resistance. Robespierre was executed the next day. Barras emerged from the crisis with enhanced standing, while the new Thermidorian leadership gradually dismantled the institutions and practices most closely identified with the Terror. The episode established Barras's reputation as a man capable of acting forcefully at a decisive moment.<br /> He also visited the imprisoned son of Louis XVI at the Temple after Robespierre's fall. Later rumors alleged that the child, regarded by royalists as Louis XVII, had been secretly removed and replaced. There is no reliable evidence that Barras organized such an exchange; the story belongs to the enduring legends surrounding the prince's captivity. More consequential for Barras was the challenge of governing a country exhausted by war, food shortages, and currency depreciation. He supported the Thermidorian effort to restrain radical clubs without allowing royalists to reverse the Revolution.<br /> In 1795 the Convention adopted the Constitution of Year III, which created a two-chamber legislature and a five-member executive called the Directory. Before the new constitution could take effect, royalist and conservative opponents organized an armed rising in Paris. Barras was assigned responsibility for the Convention's defense and relied on Bonaparte's artillery expertise. On 13 Vendémiaire Year IV (5 October 1795), republican forces dispersed the insurgents. The victory secured the transition to the new regime and greatly strengthened Bonaparte's reputation. It also helped carry Barras into the executive leadership of the Republic.<br /> <br /> The Directory and its difficulties<br /> <br /> Barras became one of the five directors in autumn 1795, alongside Lazare Carnot, Jean-François Reubell, Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, and Étienne-François Le Tourneur. The constitution had deliberately divided executive power to prevent another concentration of authority. In practice, the directors had to govern through shifting alliances while facing opposition from both royalists and radical republicans. Barras was particularly adept at cultivating personal connections. His influence depended on political judgment, patronage, and access to military figures as much as on his formal responsibilities.<br /> The Directory inherited a severe financial crisis. The assignat, the Revolution's paper currency, had lost most of its value, while shortages and high prices provoked resentment. The government also relied on military campaigns and contributions from occupied territories to sustain its finances. Its economic difficulties created openings for critics who accused the directors of profiting while ordinary people suffered. Barras's expensive social life and association with contractors, financiers, and influential hostesses made him a favorite target. His contemporaries often described him as corrupt and self-indulgent, though some of the most vivid stories were circulated by political enemies.<br /> The directors sought a middle course but frequently used coercion to preserve it. On the left, the movement organized around Gracchus Babeuf proposed radical social equality and challenged the property settlement of the Revolution. The government uncovered the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796; Babeuf was tried and executed in 1797. On the right, royalists made electoral gains and hoped to turn popular discontent into a restoration of the Bourbons. The Directory's efforts to defeat these opponents exposed the tension between its republican claims and its readiness to limit political competition.<br /> Barras was also a conspicuous presence in Parisian society. He was acquainted with Thérésa Tallien and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who married Bonaparte in March 1796. The social world around the directors was an important arena of politics, where appointments, introductions, and favors could be negotiated outside official chambers. For Barras, this network supplied information and influence. For his critics, it offered evidence that the government had replaced revolutionary austerity with a new elite devoted to luxury. Both interpretations capture part of the political culture of the period.<br /> <br /> Fructidor and the ascendancy of Bonaparte<br /> <br /> The elections of 1797 strengthened conservative and royalist deputies in the legislature. Within the Directory, Carnot and the recently appointed François Barthélemy favored accommodation, while Barras and two colleagues feared that the Republic itself was in danger. The directors turned to the army for support. Bonaparte, then commanding the successful French campaign in Italy, sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris. On 18 Fructidor Year V (4 September 1797), troops occupied key positions, opponents were arrested, and the results of numerous elections were overturned. Carnot escaped, Barthélemy was detained, and many deputies faced deportation.<br /> The coup eliminated an immediate royalist challenge and made Barras one of the regime's dominant figures. Yet it damaged the Directory's constitutional standing. The government had preserved itself by using soldiers against elected representatives, setting a precedent that would later be used against it. Barras also supported the appointment of Talleyrand as foreign minister in 1797. Skilled administrators and diplomats could strengthen the regime, but their loyalty was often personal and conditional rather than institutional.<br /> Meanwhile Bonaparte's victories in Italy made him a national celebrity. His military achievements helped the Directory negotiate from a position of strength, but his growing independence alarmed its civilian leaders. The Egyptian expedition of 1798 offered a new campaign against British interests and removed the ambitious general from Paris. France's fortunes subsequently deteriorated as a new European coalition formed and its armies suffered setbacks. At home, the directors annulled further unfavorable electoral results on 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798). Each such intervention made the regime appear less able to survive ordinary constitutional politics.<br /> By 1799 the Directory had lost much of its authority. War, taxation, factional disputes, and public anger had weakened the government, while political leaders increasingly looked for a stronger executive. Barras had survived repeated crises by balancing rivals and calling on military force when necessary. But these methods could not repair the system's deeper weaknesses. The army had become both the Republic's principal defense and a potential instrument for its overthrow.<br /> <br /> Fall, exile, and historical assessment<br /> <br /> Bonaparte returned from Egypt in October 1799 and joined a group of politicians, including Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, who planned to replace the Directory. Barras did not become a central partner in their scheme. During the coup of 18–19 Brumaire Year VIII (9–10 November 1799), pressure was brought to bear on the directors, and Barras resigned. Troops then dispersed opposition in the legislature, clearing the way for the Consulate. Bonaparte became First Consul. The general whom Barras had helped promote had now brought his political career to an end.<br /> Barras's former associates adapted rapidly to the new government. He was offered or considered for posts but did not return to significant office. The Consulate continued to view him with suspicion because of his connections and his knowledge of revolutionary politics. Ordered to live away from Paris, he spent time in Brussels and later in southern France. In 1813, under the Empire, he was sent to Rome amid fears of political intrigue. He returned to France during the upheavals surrounding Napoleon's fall in 1814. Though his name was mentioned in political conversations during the restoration and the Hundred Days, he no longer played a decisive public role.<br /> In his final years Barras lived largely in retirement. He prepared memoirs that were published after his death and remain useful, if partisan, testimony about revolutionary politics. He died in Paris on 29 January 1829 and was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. His long survival was remarkable in a generation whose leading figures so often met violent ends. It also allowed him to witness the transformation of France from monarchy to republic, Directory, Consulate, Empire, and restored monarchy.<br /> Historians have differed sharply in their judgments of Barras. To his critics, he personified the corruption, intrigue, and weakness of the Directory. A more balanced assessment recognizes his considerable political ability and his role in preserving the Republic during dangerous moments. He was neither a consistent democrat nor merely an opportunist: he defended revolutionary gains while repeatedly accepting measures that undermined representative government. His career illustrates a central paradox of the French Revolution. In trying to save the Republic through exceptional action, its leaders helped create the conditions in which military authority could supersede civilian rule.<br /> <br /> '''Daniel Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> College of Charleston</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Barras&diff=1771 2026-10-20T20:30:08Z

<p>Toubiana: Created page with &quot;Barras, Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de (1755–1829) French revolutionary politician and member of the Directory Early life and military service Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (30 June 1755–29 January 1829), was a French politician and one of the most prominent members of the Directory, the executive government that ruled France from 1795 to 1799. His career crossed several phases of the Revolution: the overthrow of the monarchy, the Terror,...&quot;</p> <hr /> <div>Barras, Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de (1755–1829) French revolutionary politician and member of the Directory<br /> <br /> Early life and military service<br /> Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (30 June 1755–29 January 1829), was a French politician and one of the most prominent members of the Directory, the executive government that ruled France from 1795 to 1799. His career crossed several phases of the Revolution: the overthrow of the monarchy, the Terror, the fall of Robespierre, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. He helped defeat two threats to the revolutionary government in Paris and was a leading participant in the coup of 18 Fructidor. A resourceful political survivor, Barras also came to embody the patronage and controversy associated with the Directory.<br /> Barras was born at Fox-Amphoux in Provenc Paul François Jean Nicolas, Vicomte dee into a family of the lesser nobility. Military service was a conventional career for a young man of his background, and he entered the Languedoc regiment while still in his teens. He later traveled to India, where France maintained trading posts and military interests in competition with Britain. He served in the period surrounding the British capture of Pondicherry in 1778, an episode that exposed him to the weaknesses of French colonial defenses. His travels also took him to the Cape of Good Hope. By the early 1780s he had returned to France, dissatisfied with the conduct of senior officials and with limited prospects for further advancement.<br /> <br /> His years abroad contributed to a taste for travel, sociability, and personal independence that would remain visible throughout his career. Back in France, he moved in fashionable circles and acquired a reputation for pleasure-seeking. Such habits later furnished his enemies with a ready-made portrait of an ambitious and dissolute politician. Yet his political choices were not simply those of an aristocrat defending his class. As criticism of the royal government spread in the late 1780s, Barras became receptive to reform and increasingly hostile to émigrés who sought foreign help against the Revolution.<br /> <br /> From the Revolution to Toulon<br /> The Revolution of 1789 offered Barras an opening into public life. He welcomed the destruction of hereditary privileges and became associated with the Jacobin Club, which at first included a broad range of supporters of constitutional change. In 1791 he married Pélagie Templier, whose royalist sympathies contrasted with his own politics. The couple spent much of their marriage apart. His commitment to the new order became unmistakable after the monarchy fell: elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793.<br /> During 1793 Barras served as a representative on mission in southeastern France, often alongside Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron. Such representatives exercised sweeping supervisory powers over armies and local authorities. The region was unsettled by resistance to the increasingly radical government in Paris. At Toulon, opponents of the Convention admitted British and allied forces into a major French naval base. Recovering the port became a pressing military objective. Barras and Fréron were among the political officials attached to the republican effort to regain control.<br /> The siege of Toulon brought Barras into contact with Napoleon Bonaparte, then a young artillery officer whose proposals helped republican forces threaten the allied fleet. Toulon was recaptured in December 1793, and Bonaparte's performance won him rapid promotion. Barras later became an important political patron, although the extent of his role in each stage of Bonaparte's advancement is sometimes overstated. The victory was followed by severe reprisals against suspected enemies of the Republic. Barras's association with repression in the south, and allegations of misconduct there, would make him vulnerable when the political climate in Paris changed.<br /> <br /> Thermidor and the defense of the Convention<br /> By early 1794 Barras was back in Paris, where the Committee of Public Safety and the Revolutionary Tribunal exercised formidable power. Maximilien Robespierre and his allies had grown suspicious of several representatives recalled from the provinces. Barras had reason to fear prosecution over his conduct in the south. He therefore joined other endangered deputies, including Tallien and Fouché, in opposition to Robespierre. Their alliance was driven by political disagreement but also by a more immediate concern for survival.<br /> On 9 Thermidor Year II (27 July 1794), Robespierre was denounced and arrested in the Convention. His supporters attempted to rally the Paris Commune, and the outcome briefly remained uncertain. Barras was given command of forces acting for the Convention and helped suppress the resistance. Robespierre was executed the next day. Barras emerged from the crisis with enhanced standing, while the new Thermidorian leadership gradually dismantled the institutions and practices most closely identified with the Terror. The episode established Barras's reputation as a man capable of acting forcefully at a decisive moment.<br /> He also visited the imprisoned son of Louis XVI at the Temple after Robespierre's fall. Later rumors alleged that the child, regarded by royalists as Louis XVII, had been secretly removed and replaced. There is no reliable evidence that Barras organized such an exchange; the story belongs to the enduring legends surrounding the prince's captivity. More consequential for Barras was the challenge of governing a country exhausted by war, food shortages, and currency depreciation. He supported the Thermidorian effort to restrain radical clubs without allowing royalists to reverse the Revolution.<br /> In 1795 the Convention adopted the Constitution of Year III, which created a two-chamber legislature and a five-member executive called the Directory. Before the new constitution could take effect, royalist and conservative opponents organized an armed rising in Paris. Barras was assigned responsibility for the Convention's defense and relied on Bonaparte's artillery expertise. On 13 Vendémiaire Year IV (5 October 1795), republican forces dispersed the insurgents. The victory secured the transition to the new regime and greatly strengthened Bonaparte's reputation. It also helped carry Barras into the executive leadership of the Republic.<br /> <br /> The Directory and its difficulties<br /> Barras became one of the five directors in autumn 1795, alongside Lazare Carnot, Jean-François Reubell, Louis-Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, and Étienne-François Le Tourneur. The constitution had deliberately divided executive power to prevent another concentration of authority. In practice, the directors had to govern through shifting alliances while facing opposition from both royalists and radical republicans. Barras was particularly adept at cultivating personal connections. His influence depended on political judgment, patronage, and access to military figures as much as on his formal responsibilities.<br /> The Directory inherited a severe financial crisis. The assignat, the Revolution's paper currency, had lost most of its value, while shortages and high prices provoked resentment. The government also relied on military campaigns and contributions from occupied territories to sustain its finances. Its economic difficulties created openings for critics who accused the directors of profiting while ordinary people suffered. Barras's expensive social life and association with contractors, financiers, and influential hostesses made him a favorite target. His contemporaries often described him as corrupt and self-indulgent, though some of the most vivid stories were circulated by political enemies.<br /> The directors sought a middle course but frequently used coercion to preserve it. On the left, the movement organized around Gracchus Babeuf proposed radical social equality and challenged the property settlement of the Revolution. The government uncovered the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796; Babeuf was tried and executed in 1797. On the right, royalists made electoral gains and hoped to turn popular discontent into a restoration of the Bourbons. The Directory's efforts to defeat these opponents exposed the tension between its republican claims and its readiness to limit political competition.<br /> Barras was also a conspicuous presence in Parisian society. He was acquainted with Thérésa Tallien and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who married Bonaparte in March 1796. The social world around the directors was an important arena of politics, where appointments, introductions, and favors could be negotiated outside official chambers. For Barras, this network supplied information and influence. For his critics, it offered evidence that the government had replaced revolutionary austerity with a new elite devoted to luxury. Both interpretations capture part of the political culture of the period.<br /> <br /> Fructidor and the ascendancy of Bonaparte<br /> The elections of 1797 strengthened conservative and royalist deputies in the legislature. Within the Directory, Carnot and the recently appointed François Barthélemy favored accommodation, while Barras and two colleagues feared that the Republic itself was in danger. The directors turned to the army for support. Bonaparte, then commanding the successful French campaign in Italy, sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris. On 18 Fructidor Year V (4 September 1797), troops occupied key positions, opponents were arrested, and the results of numerous elections were overturned. Carnot escaped, Barthélemy was detained, and many deputies faced deportation.<br /> The coup eliminated an immediate royalist challenge and made Barras one of the regime's dominant figures. Yet it damaged the Directory's constitutional standing. The government had preserved itself by using soldiers against elected representatives, setting a precedent that would later be used against it. Barras also supported the appointment of Talleyrand as foreign minister in 1797. Skilled administrators and diplomats could strengthen the regime, but their loyalty was often personal and conditional rather than institutional.<br /> Meanwhile Bonaparte's victories in Italy made him a national celebrity. His military achievements helped the Directory negotiate from a position of strength, but his growing independence alarmed its civilian leaders. The Egyptian expedition of 1798 offered a new campaign against British interests and removed the ambitious general from Paris. France's fortunes subsequently deteriorated as a new European coalition formed and its armies suffered setbacks. At home, the directors annulled further unfavorable electoral results on 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798). Each such intervention made the regime appear less able to survive ordinary constitutional politics.<br /> By 1799 the Directory had lost much of its authority. War, taxation, factional disputes, and public anger had weakened the government, while political leaders increasingly looked for a stronger executive. Barras had survived repeated crises by balancing rivals and calling on military force when necessary. But these methods could not repair the system's deeper weaknesses. The army had become both the Republic's principal defense and a potential instrument for its overthrow.<br /> <br /> Fall, exile, and historical assessment<br /> Bonaparte returned from Egypt in October 1799 and joined a group of politicians, including Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, who planned to replace the Directory. Barras did not become a central partner in their scheme. During the coup of 18–19 Brumaire Year VIII (9–10 November 1799), pressure was brought to bear on the directors, and Barras resigned. Troops then dispersed opposition in the legislature, clearing the way for the Consulate. Bonaparte became First Consul. The general whom Barras had helped promote had now brought his political career to an end.<br /> Barras's former associates adapted rapidly to the new government. He was offered or considered for posts but did not return to significant office. The Consulate continued to view him with suspicion because of his connections and his knowledge of revolutionary politics. Ordered to live away from Paris, he spent time in Brussels and later in southern France. In 1813, under the Empire, he was sent to Rome amid fears of political intrigue. He returned to France during the upheavals surrounding Napoleon's fall in 1814. Though his name was mentioned in political conversations during the restoration and the Hundred Days, he no longer played a decisive public role.<br /> In his final years Barras lived largely in retirement. He prepared memoirs that were published after his death and remain useful, if partisan, testimony about revolutionary politics. He died in Paris on 29 January 1829 and was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. His long survival was remarkable in a generation whose leading figures so often met violent ends. It also allowed him to witness the transformation of France from monarchy to republic, Directory, Consulate, Empire, and restored monarchy.<br /> Historians have differed sharply in their judgments of Barras. To his critics, he personified the corruption, intrigue, and weakness of the Directory. A more balanced assessment recognizes his considerable political ability and his role in preserving the Republic during dangerous moments. He was neither a consistent democrat nor merely an opportunist: he defended revolutionary gains while repeatedly accepting measures that undermined representative government. His career illustrates a central paradox of the French Revolution. In trying to save the Republic through exceptional action, its leaders helped create the conditions in which military authority could supersede civilian rule.<br /> <br /> '''Daniel Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> College of Charleston</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Volume_B&diff=1770 2026-10-20T20:25:03Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''[[Babeuf, François Noël “Gracchus” ]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Bach, Johann Sebastian]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Bailly, Jean-Sylvain]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Banks, Joseph]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Banneker, Benjamin]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Barras]], Paul François Jean Nicolas, Vicomte de'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Barruel, Augustin]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Bayes, Thomas]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Beccaria, Cesare Bonesana, Marchese di]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Beckford, William]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Beethoven, Ludwig van]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Bentham, Jeremy]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Berkeley, George]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques Henri]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Bernoulli, Daniel]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Black, Joseph]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Blackstone, William]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Blake, William]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Bodmer, Johann Jakob]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Boerhaave, Hermann]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Boffrand, Germain]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, Viscount]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Bonaparte, Napoleon]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Boswell, James]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Boucher, François]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Bougainville, Louis Antoine]]'''<br /> <br /> '''Boyle, Reichard''' See '''[[Burlington]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Brown, Lancelot &quot;Capability&quot;]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Breitinger, Johann Jakob]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Buffon, George-Louis Leclerc, Comte de]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Burke, Edmund]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Burlamaqui, Jean-Jacques]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Burlington]], Richard Boyle, Fourth Earl of Cork and Third Earl of'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Burney, Frances (Fanny)]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Burns, Robert]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Butler, Joseph]]'''</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Main_Page&diff=1768 2023-09-13T16:42:23Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>== 18th Century Online Encyclopedia: ''&lt;span style=&quot;color:#f00; font-size:26px;&quot;&gt;Enlightenment and Revolution&lt;/span&gt;'' ==<br /> The 18th Century Online Encyclopedia provides free entries on notable men and women who contributed to the Enlightenment and the American or French revolutions. It is an ongoing project which includes information on philosophers, politicians, artists, theologians, writers and statesmen. It contains noteworthy people from Eastern and Western Europe and North America. Every entry has been written by university professors who are expert in their respective fields. This encyclopedia is designed to be a tool for students, scholars, and interested members of the public alike. <br /> <br /> '''Enlightenment and Revolution, an online encyclopedia, has been selected by The Thomas Gray Archive of the University of Oxford as a reliable website for 18th century resource and studies, see http://www.thomasgray.org/materials/links.shtml'''<br /> <br /> Individuals who would like to contribute entries should email their work to [mailto:guy.toubiana@citadel.edu Guy Toubiana]-- Every contribution is submitted to the Editorial board (see About Enlightenment and Revolution).<br /> &lt;span style=&quot;color:#ccc;&quot;&gt;<br /> &lt;/span&gt;<br /> &lt;!--<br /> Qui accumsan augue nulla suscipit volutpat ut quis enim eu ut blandit, molestie, lobortis, ut. Et, iriure minim te dolor aliquip vero magna odio accumsan. Feugait ea augue dolore delenit ea nulla hendrerit exerci feugiat eum dolore accumsan nulla blandit. Tation, duis autem, illum dolore te, autem eros elit lobortis vero hendrerit facilisi dignissim vero, suscipit exerci iriure ipsum. Eu, volutpat ea wisi eum, nibh delenit wisi velit duis vulputate et ut suscipit amet consectetuer erat ad. Blandit veniam hendrerit molestie te veniam suscipit iriure. Duis in commodo aliquip, sed in, enim autem wisi iusto elit nisl feugiat iusto luptatum minim esse. Duis, eu vel. Nulla quis et, dolor eros quis in ex aliquam hendrerit duis et vel hendrerit. Vero eu tation, ullamcorper iriure vulputate iusto ullamcorper molestie te wisi esse ex qui feugiat esse et at. Enim praesent in diam qui praesent lobortis lorem eros illum consequat luptatum commodo illum.<br /> ÁáĆćÉé<br /> <br /> --&gt;<br /> <br /> == Encyclopedia Project ==<br /> [[Volume A]] --<br /> [[Volume B]] --<br /> [[Volume C]] --<br /> [[Volume D]] --<br /> [[Volume E]] --<br /> [[Volume F]] --<br /> [[Volume G]] --<br /> [[Volume H]] --<br /> [[Volume I]] --<br /> [[Volume J]] --<br /> [[Volume K]] --<br /> [[Volume L]] --<br /> [[Volume M]] --<br /> [[Volume N]] --<br /> [[Volume O]] --<br /> [[Volume P]] --<br /> [[Volume Q]] --<br /> [[Volume R]] --<br /> [[Volume S]] --<br /> [[Volume T]] --<br /> [[Volume U]] --<br /> [[Volume V]] --<br /> [[Volume W]] --<br /> [[Volume X]] --<br /> [[Volume Y]] --<br /> [[Volume Z]]<br /> <br /> == Founder ==<br /> <br /> Guy Toubiana -- The Citadel<br /> <br /> Co-Founder: Kevin Dodson -- Lamar University<br /> <br /> == Editor ==<br /> <br /> [mailto:guy.toubiana@citadel.edu Guy Toubiana] -- The Citadel<br /> <br /> Co-Editor: Max-David Toubiana</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1765 2023-03-13T14:24:59Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old. Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education where she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. She left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died in early childhood from the smallpox.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing but she managed to withdraw from this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the great turmoil that was shaking France. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and contribute to her subsequent fame. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates.<br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Pétion, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Fabre d'Eglantine]], and[[ Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]]. In January 1790, she founded a political club, ''La Société des Amis de la Loi'', with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel on the Bouloi Street but it was short-lived and with very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities and her demands for freedom for Jews, women and the press, she became a target of vicious attacks from the royalists. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin à l’Usage des Filles de Joie et des Demoiselles qui se Destinent à Embrasser cette Profession'' (Libertine Catechism for the Use of Prostitutes and Young Ladies who Intend to Embrace this Profession) (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. Unfortunately, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. There, she wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, in October 1791, she met Emperor Leopold II. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover her travel expenses. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. The accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Yet, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793. She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman.<br /> <br /> Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in the killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondins. This attack had a physically profound effect on Théroigne, but it also greatly destabilized her mentally.<br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that his sister was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. In Spring 1794, she was jailed until September for being Brissot’s friend and for making suspicious remarks. The worsening of her mental health caused her to be locked up at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795. In 1797, she was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital and finally transferred on December 9, 1799 at the Salpêtrière Hospital where she passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his &quot;Liberty Leading the People&quot; painting (1830).<br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe'', 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution'', 1991.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1764 2023-03-10T15:04:25Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old. Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education where she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. She left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died in early childhood from the smallpox.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing but she managed to withdraw from this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the great turmoil that was shaking France. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and contribute to her subsequent fame. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates.<br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Pétion, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Fabre d'Eglantine]], and[[ Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]]. In January 1790, she founded a political club, ''La Société des Amis de la Loi'', with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel on the Bouloi Street but it was short-lived and with very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities and her demands for freedom for Jews, women and the press, she became a target of vicious attacks from the royalists. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin à l’Usage des Filles de Joie et des Demoiselles qui se Destinent à Embrasser cette Profession'' (Libertine Catechism for the Use of Prostitutes and Young Ladies who Intend to Embrace this Profession) (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. Unfortunately, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. There, she wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, in October 1791, she met Emperor Leopold II. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover her travel expenses. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. The accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Yet, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793. She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman.<br /> <br /> Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in the killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondins. This attack had a physically profound effect on Théroigne, but it also greatly destabilized her mentally.<br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that his sister was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. In Spring 1794, she was jailed until September for being Brissot’s friend and for making suspicious remarks. The worsening of her mental health caused her to be locked up at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795. In 1797, she was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital and finally transferred on December 9, 1799 at the Salpêtrière Hospital where she passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his &quot;Liberty Leading the People&quot; painting (1830).<br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt'', Rose Lacombe, 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution'', 1991.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1763 2023-03-09T17:32:53Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old. Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education where she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. She left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died in early childhood from the smallpox.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing but she managed to withdraw from this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the great turmoil that was shaking France. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and contribute to her subsequent fame. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates.<br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Pétion, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Fabre d'Eglantine]], and[[ Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]]. In January 1790, she founded a political club, ''La Société des Amis de la Loi'', with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel on the Bouloi Street but it was short-lived and with very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities and her demands for freedom for Jews, women and the press, she became a target of vicious attacks from the royalists. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin à l’Usage des Filles de Joie et des Demoiselles qui se Destinent à Embrasser cette Profession'' (Libertine Catechism for the Use of Prostitutes and Young Ladies who Intend to Embrace this Profession) (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. Unfortunately, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. There, she wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, in October 1791, she met Emperor Leopold II. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover her travel expenses. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. The accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Yet, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793. She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman.<br /> <br /> Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in the killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondins. This attack had a physically profound effect on Théroigne, but it also greatly destabilized her mentally.<br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that his sister was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. In Spring 1794, she was jailed until September for being Brissot’s friend and for making suspicious remarks. The worsening of her mental health caused her to be locked up at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795. In 1797, she was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital and finally transferred on December 9, 1799 at the Salpêtrière Hospital where she passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his &quot;Liberty Leading the People painting&quot; (1830).<br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt'', Rose Lacombe, 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution'', 1991.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1762 2023-03-09T17:19:39Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old. Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education where she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. She left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died in early childhood from the smallpox.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing but she managed to withdraw from this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the great turmoil that was shaking France. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and contribute to her subsequent fame. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates.<br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Pétion, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Fabre d'Eglantine]], and[[ Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]]. In January 1790, she founded a political club, ''La Société des Amis de la Loi'', with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel on the Bouloi Street but it was short-lived and with very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities and her demands for freedom for Jews, women and the press, she became a target of vicious attacks from the royalists. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin à l’Usage des Filles de Joie et des Demoiselles qui se Destinent à Embrasser cette Profession'' (Libertine Catechism for the Use of Prostitutes and Young Ladies who Intend to Embrace this Profession) (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. Unfortunately, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. There, she wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, in October 1791, she met Emperor Leopold II. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover her travel expenses. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. The accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Yet, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793. She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman.<br /> <br /> Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a physically profound effect on Théroigne, but it also greatly destabilized her mentally.<br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that his sister was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. In Spring 1794, she was jailed until September for being Brissot’s friend and for making suspicious remarks. The worsening of her mental health caused her to be locked up at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795. In 1797, she was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital and finally transferred on December 9, 1799 at the Salpêtrière Hospital where she passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his &quot;Liberty Leading the People painting&quot; (1830).<br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt'', Rose Lacombe, 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution'', 1991.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1761 2023-03-09T17:09:37Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old. Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education where she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. She left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died in early childhood from the smallpox.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing. However, she was able to break out of this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the great turmoil that was shaking France. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and contribute to her subsequent fame. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates.<br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Pétion, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Fabre d'Eglantine]], and[[ Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]]. In January 1790, she founded a political club, ''La Société des Amis de la Loi'', with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel on the Bouloi Street but it was short-lived and with very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities and her demands for freedom for Jews, women and the press, she became a target of vicious attacks from the royalists. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin à l’Usage des Filles de Joie et des Demoiselles qui se Destinent à Embrasser cette Profession'' (Libertine Catechism for the Use of Prostitutes and Young Ladies who Intend to Embrace this Profession) (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. Unfortunately, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. There, she wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, in October 1791, she met Emperor Leopold II. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover her travel expenses. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. The accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Yet, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793. She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman.<br /> <br /> Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a physically profound effect on Théroigne, but it also greatly destabilized her mentally.<br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that his sister was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. In Spring 1794, she was jailed until September for being Brissot’s friend and for making suspicious remarks. The worsening of her mental health caused her to be locked up at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795. In 1797, she was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital and finally transferred on December 9, 1799 at the Salpêtrière Hospital where she passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his &quot;Liberty Leading the People painting&quot; (1830).<br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt'', Rose Lacombe, 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution'', 1991.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1760 2023-03-09T17:07:57Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old. Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education where she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. She left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died in early childhood from the smallpox.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing. However, she was able to break out of this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the great turmoil that was shaking France. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and contribute to her subsequent fame. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates.<br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Pétion, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Fabre d'Eglantine]], and[[ Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]]. In January 1790, she founded a political club, ''La Société des Amis de la Loi'', with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel on the Bouloi Street but it was short-lived and with very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities and her demands for freedom for Jews, women and the press, she became a target of vicious attacks from the royalists. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin à l’Usage des Filles de Joie et des Demoiselles qui se Destinent à Embrasser cette Profession'' (Libertine Catechism for the Use of Prostitutes and Young Ladies who Intend to Embrace this Profession) (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. Unfortunately, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. There, she wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, in October 1791, she met Emperor Leopold II. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover her travel expenses. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. The accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Yet, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793. She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman.<br /> <br /> Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a physically profound effect on Théroigne, but it also greatly destabilized her mentally.<br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that his sister was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. In Spring 1794, she was jailed until September for being Brissot’s friend and for making suspicious remarks. The worsening of her mental health caused her to be locked up at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795. In 1797, she was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital and finally transferred on December 9, 1799 at the Salpêtrière Hospital where she passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his &quot;Liberty Leading the People painting&quot; (1830).<br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe, 2016.<br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution. 1991.<br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1759 2023-03-09T17:06:47Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old.<br /> <br /> Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education where she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. She left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died in early childhood from the smallpox.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing. However, she was able to break out of this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the great turmoil that was shaking France. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and contribute to her subsequent fame. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates.<br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Pétion, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Fabre d'Eglantine]], and[[ Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]]. In January 1790, she founded a political club, ''La Société des Amis de la Loi'', with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel on the Bouloi Street but it was short-lived and with very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities and her demands for freedom for Jews, women and the press, she became a target of vicious attacks from the royalists. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin à l’Usage des Filles de Joie et des Demoiselles qui se Destinent à Embrasser cette Profession'' (Libertine Catechism for the Use of Prostitutes and Young Ladies who Intend to Embrace this Profession) (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. Unfortunately, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. There, she wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, in October 1791, she met Emperor Leopold II. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover her travel expenses. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. The accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Yet, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793. She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman.<br /> <br /> Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a physically profound effect on Théroigne, but it also greatly destabilized her mentally.<br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that his sister was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. In Spring 1794, she was jailed until September for being Brissot’s friend and for making suspicious remarks. The worsening of her mental health caused her to be locked up at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795. In 1797, she was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital and finally transferred on December 9, 1799 at the Salpêtrière Hospital where she passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his &quot;Liberty Leading the People painting&quot; (1830).<br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe, 2016.<br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution. 1991.<br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1758 2023-03-07T14:51:44Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old.<br /> <br /> Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education where she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. She left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died in early childhood from the smallpox.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing. However, she was able to break out of this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the great turmoil that was shaking France. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and contribute to her subsequent fame. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. <br /> In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates. <br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Pétion, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Fabre d'Eglantine]],and [[Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]]. In January 1790, she founded a political club, La Société des Amis de la Loi, with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel on the Bouloi Street but it was short-lived and with very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities and her demands for freedom for Jews, women and the press, she became a target of vicious attacks from the royalists. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin'' (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. Unfortunately, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. There, she wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, in October 1791, she met Emperor Leopold II. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover her travel expenses. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. Pétion was then Mayor of Paris, Romme a deputy at the Legislative Assembly, and the accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. <br /> A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Yet, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793. She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman. <br /> <br /> Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a physically profound effect on Théroigne, but it also greatly destabilized her mentally.<br /> <br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that his sister was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. In Spring 1794, she was jailed until September for being Brissot’s friend and for making suspicious remarks. The worsening of her mental health caused her to be locked up at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795. In 1797, she was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital and finally transferred on December 9, 1799 at the Salpêtrière Hospital where she passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his Liberty Leading the People painting (1830).<br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe'', 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution''. 1991.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1757 2023-03-07T03:38:29Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old.<br /> <br /> Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education where she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. She left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died in early childhood from the smallpox.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing. However, she was able to break out of this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the great turmoil that was shaking France. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and contribute to her subsequent fame. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. <br /> In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates. <br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Pétion, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Fabre d'Eglantine]],and [[Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]]. In January 1790, she founded a political club, La Société des Amis de la Loi, with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel on the Bouloi Street but it was short-lived and with very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities and her demands for freedom for Jews, women and the press, she became a target of vicious attacks from the royalists. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin'' (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. Unfortunately, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. There, she wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, in October 1791, she met Emperor Leopold II. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover her travel expenses. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. Pétion was then Mayor of Paris, Romme a deputy at the Legislative Assembly, and the accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. <br /> A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Men and women should share the same duties, and be equal. Yet, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793. She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman. <br /> <br /> Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a physically profound effect on Théroigne, but it also greatly destabilized her mentally.<br /> <br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that his sister was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. In Spring 1794, she was jailed until September for being Brissot’s friend and for making suspicious remarks. The worsening of her mental health caused her to be locked up at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795. In 1797, she was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital and finally transferred on December 9, 1799 at the Salpêtrière Hospital where she passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his Liberty Leading the People painting (1830).<br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe'', 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution''. 1991.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1756 2023-03-07T03:24:07Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old.<br /> <br /> Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education. There, she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. She left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died in early childhood from the smallpox.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing. However, she was able to break out of this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the great turmoil that was shaking France. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and contribute to her subsequent legend. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. <br /> In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates. <br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Pétion, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Fabre d'Eglantine]], [[Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]]. In January 1790, she founded a political club, La Société des Amis de la Loi, with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel on the Bouloi Street but it was short-lived and with very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities and her demands for freedom for Jews, women and the press, she became a target of vicious attacks from the royalists. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin'' (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. However, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. There, she wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, in October 1791, she met Emperor Leopold II. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover her travel expenses. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. Pétion was then Mayor of Paris, Romme a deputy at the Legislative Assembly, and the accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. <br /> A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Men and women should share the same duties, and be equal. Yet, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793. She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman. <br /> <br /> Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a physically profound effect on Théroigne, but it also greatly destabilized her mentally.<br /> <br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that his sister was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. In Spring 1794, she was jailed until September for being Brissot’s friend and for making suspicious remarks. The worsening of her mental health caused her to be locked up at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795. In 1797, she was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital and finally transferred on December 9, 1799 at the Salpêtrière Hospital where she passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his Liberty Leading the People painting (1830).<br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe'', 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution''. 1991.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1755 2023-03-06T14:56:14Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old.<br /> <br /> Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education. There, she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. However, she left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died from the smallpox in 1788, in her early childhood.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing. However, she was able to break out of this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the French events. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and participate in her subsequent legend. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. <br /> In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates. <br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Pétion, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Fabre d'Eglantine]], [[Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]]. In January 1790, she founded a political club, La Société des Amis de la Loi, with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel, on the Bouloi Street. It was short-lived, with a very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities and her demands for freedom for Jews, women and the press, she became a target of vicious attacks from the royalists. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin'' (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. However, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. There, she wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, she also met Emperor Leopold II, in October 1791. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover her travel expenses. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. Pétion was then Mayor of Paris, Romme a deputy at the Legislative Assembly, and the accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. <br /> A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Men and women should share the same duties, and be equal. However, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793. She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman. <br /> <br /> Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a profound effect physically on Théroigne, but it also destabilized her mentally.<br /> <br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that Théroigne was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. In Spring 1794, she was jailed until September for being Brissot’s friend and for making suspicious remarks. She was then locked up at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795. In 1797, she was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital and finally transferred on December 9, 1799 at the Salpêtrière Hospital where she passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his Liberty Leading the People painting (1830).<br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe'', 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution''. 1991.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1754 2023-03-06T14:54:57Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old.<br /> <br /> Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education. There, she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. However, she left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died from the smallpox in 1788, in her early childhood.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing. However, she was able to break out of this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the French events. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and participate in her subsequent legend. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. <br /> In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates. <br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Pétion, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Fabre d'Eglantine]], [[Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]]. In January 1790, she founded a political club, La Société des Amis de la Loi, with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel, on the Bouloi Street. It was short-lived, with a very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities and her demands for freedom for Jews, women and the press, she became a target of vicious attacks from the royalists. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin'' (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. However, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. There, she wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, she also met Emperor Leopold II, in October 1791. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover her travel expenses. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. Pétion was then Mayor of Paris, Romme a deputy at the Legislative Assembly, and the accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. <br /> A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Men and women should share the same duties, and be equal. However, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793. She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman. <br /> <br /> Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a profound effect physically on Théroigne, but it also destabilized her mentally.<br /> <br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that Théroigne was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. In Spring 1794, she was jailed until September for being Brissot’s friend and for making suspicious remarks. She was then locked up at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795. In 1797, she was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital and finally transferred on December 9, 1799 at the Salpêtrière Hospital where she passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his Liberty Leading the People painting (1830).<br /> <br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe'', 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution''. 1991.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1753 2023-03-06T14:45:24Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old.<br /> <br /> Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education. There, she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. However, she left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died from the smallpox in 1788, in her early childhood.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing. However, she was able to break out of this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the French events. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and participate in her subsequent legend. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. <br /> In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates. <br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Pétion, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Fabre d'Eglantine]], [[Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]]. In January 1790, she founded a political club, La Société des Amis de la Loi, with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel, on the Bouloi Street. It was short-lived, with a very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities and her demands for freedom for Jews, women and the press, she became a target of vicious attacks from the royalists. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin'' (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. However, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. There, she wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, she also met Emperor Leopold II, in October 1791. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover her travel expenses. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. Pétion was then Mayor of Paris, Romme a deputy at the Legislative Assembly, and the accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. <br /> A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Men and women should share the same duties, and be equal. However, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793. She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman. <br /> <br /> Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a profound effect physically on Théroigne, but it also destabilized her mentally.<br /> <br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that Théroigne was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. At about the same time, Théroigne was the subject of a denunciation, which led to her subsequent arrest on June 17, 1794. The intervention of her brother saved her.<br /> She was at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795, and was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in 1797, and at the Salpêtrière Hospital on December 9, 1799. She passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his Liberty Leading the People painting (1830).<br /> <br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe'', 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution''. 1991.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1752 2023-03-06T14:36:01Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old.<br /> <br /> Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education. There, she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. However, she left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died from the smallpox in 1788, in her early childhood.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing. However, she was able to break out of this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the French events. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and participate in her subsequent legend. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. <br /> In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates. <br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Pétion, [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Fabre d'Eglantine]], [[Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph]]. In January 1790, she founded a political club, La Société des Amis de la Loi, with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel, on the Bouloi Street. It was short-lived, with a very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities, and certainly accentuated because of her status as a woman, Théroigne became a victim of the Royalist press. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin'' (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. However, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. She wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, she also met Emperor Leopold II, in October 1791. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover the expenses for her travels. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. Pétion was then Mayor of Paris, Romme a deputy at the Legislative Assembly, and the accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. <br /> A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Men and women should share the same duties, and be equal. However, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793.<br /> <br /> She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman. Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a profound effect physically on Théroigne, but it also destabilized her mentally.<br /> <br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that Théroigne was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. At about the same time, Théroigne was the subject of a denunciation, which led to her subsequent arrest on June 17, 1794. The intervention of her brother saved her.<br /> She was at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795, and was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in 1797, and at the Salpêtrière Hospital on December 9, 1799. She passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his Liberty Leading the People painting (1830).<br /> <br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe'', 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution''. 1991.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1751 2023-03-06T14:33:07Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old.<br /> <br /> Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education. There, she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. However, she left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died from the smallpox in 1788, in her early childhood.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing. However, she was able to break out of this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the French events. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and participate in her subsequent legend. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. <br /> In France, she first attended the debates at the National Assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates. <br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Jérome Pétion, Brissot, [[Fabre d’Églantine]], Siéyès. In January 1790, she founded a political club, La Société des Amis de la Loi, with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel, on the Bouloi Street. It was short-lived, with a very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities, and certainly accentuated because of her status as a woman, Théroigne became a victim of the Royalist press. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin'' (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. However, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. She wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, she also met Emperor Leopold II, in October 1791. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover the expenses for her travels. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. Pétion was then Mayor of Paris, Romme a deputy at the Legislative Assembly, and the accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. <br /> A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Men and women should share the same duties, and be equal. However, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793.<br /> <br /> She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman. Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a profound effect physically on Théroigne, but it also destabilized her mentally.<br /> <br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that Théroigne was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. At about the same time, Théroigne was the subject of a denunciation, which led to her subsequent arrest on June 17, 1794. The intervention of her brother saved her.<br /> She was at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795, and was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in 1797, and at the Salpêtrière Hospital on December 9, 1799. She passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his Liberty Leading the People painting (1830).<br /> <br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe'', 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution''. 1991.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1750 2023-03-06T14:29:40Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old.<br /> <br /> Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education. There, she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. However, she left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died from the smallpox in 1788, in her early childhood.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing. However, she was able to break out of this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the French events. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and participate in her subsequent legend. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. <br /> In France, she first attended the debates at the assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates. <br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Jérome Pétion, Brissot, Fabre d’Églantine, Siéyès. In January 1790, she founded a political club, La Société des Amis de la Loi, with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel, on the Bouloi Street. It was short-lived, with a very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities, and certainly accentuated because of her status as a woman, Théroigne became a victim of the Royalist press. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin'' (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. However, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. She wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, she also met Emperor Leopold II, in October 1791. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover the expenses for her travels. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. Pétion was then Mayor of Paris, Romme a deputy at the Legislative Assembly, and the accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. <br /> A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Men and women should share the same duties, and be equal. However, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793.<br /> <br /> She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman. Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a profound effect physically on Théroigne, but it also destabilized her mentally.<br /> <br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that Théroigne was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. At about the same time, Théroigne was the subject of a denunciation, which led to her subsequent arrest on June 17, 1794. The intervention of her brother saved her.<br /> She was at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795, and was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in 1797, and at the Salpêtrière Hospital on December 9, 1799. She passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his Liberty Leading the People painting (1830).<br /> <br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe'', 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution''. 1991.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1749 2023-03-06T14:28:53Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Méricourt, Théroigne de''' (1762-1817): Feminist, Belgian Revolutionary Woman<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old.<br /> <br /> Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education. There, she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. However, she left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died from the smallpox in 1788, in her early childhood.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing. However, she was able to break out of this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the French events. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and participate in her subsequent legend. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. <br /> In France, she first attended the debates at the assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates. <br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Jérome Pétion, Brissot, Fabre d’Églantine, Siéyès. In January 1790, she founded a political club, La Société des Amis de la Loi, with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel, on the Bouloi Street. It was short-lived, with a very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities, and certainly accentuated because of her status as a woman, Théroigne became a victim of the Royalist press. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin'' (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. However, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. She wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, she also met Emperor Leopold II, in October 1791. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover the expenses for her travels. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. Pétion was then Mayor of Paris, Romme a deputy at the Legislative Assembly, and the accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. <br /> A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Men and women should share the same duties, and be equal. However, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793.<br /> <br /> She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman. Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a profound effect physically on Théroigne, but it also destabilized her mentally.<br /> <br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that Théroigne was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. At about the same time, Théroigne was the subject of a denunciation, which led to her subsequent arrest on June 17, 1794. The intervention of her brother saved her.<br /> She was at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795, and was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in 1797, and at the Salpêtrière Hospital on December 9, 1799. She passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his Liberty Leading the People painting (1830).<br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran, ''Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe'', 2016.<br /> <br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth, ''Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution''. 1991.<br /> <br /> '''Caroline Strobbe'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Theroigne_de_Mericourt&diff=1748 2023-03-06T14:21:51Z

<p>Toubiana: New page: Méricourt, Théroigne de (1762-1817): Feminist, Revolutionary Woman, Belgium Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first c...</p> <hr /> <div>Méricourt, Théroigne de (1762-1817): Feminist, Revolutionary Woman, Belgium<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt was born Anna-Josépha, in Marcourt, Belgium on August 13, 1762. She was the first child of Pierre Terwagne, a peasant, and his wife Anne-Elizabeth Lahaye. She had two brothers: Pierre-Joseph, born in 1764, and Nicolas Joseph, born in 1767. Elizabeth Lahaye passed away 3 months after the birth of her second son, when Anna-Josepha was 5 years old.<br /> <br /> Her aunt sent her to a convent for her education. There, she learned to read, but not write. At 9 years old, she came back from the convent to serve as a cowherd, and, in 1773, as a domestic to take care of her father’s children from his second wife, Thérèse Ponsard. However, she left her father’s house in 1774, with her two brothers. In 1777, she became a companion to the daughter of an English lady, Madame Colbert, who provided her with education and singing lessons. However, she fell in love and soon followed an English man who had promised to marry her as soon as he would inherit, but he instead abandoned her. He nevertheless gifted her 200,000 pounds. She had one daughter with him, Francoise Louise Septenville, who died from the smallpox in 1788, in her early childhood.<br /> <br /> Théroigne then followed Ferdinand-Justin Tenducci, an Italian castrato and a crook, who had her sign a contract that would force her to pay him each time she would refuse to sing. However, she was able to break out of this contract. While in Italy, Théroigne discovered that she suffered from the syphilis, and she started to be treated with mercury. In May 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. At age 27, Théroigne left Italy for Versailles, in order to witness and perhaps participate in the French events. On July 17, 1789, she was with the people when the king visited Paris, wearing a white amazon and a round hat, a costume that would make her famous and participate in her subsequent legend. She was symbolically setting herself apart, as long Amazon skirts were usually worn only by women riding horses. <br /> In France, she first attended the debates at the assembly, and became close to important revolutionary men such as Jérome Pétion, then a deputy for the Third Estate. Contrarily to some later accusations, she did not participate in the Women’s March on Versailles on October 5-6, 1789, that brought the Royal Family back to Paris. She was instead at the Assembly, focused on its debates. <br /> <br /> Back in Paris, she held a Salon that would gather Jérome Pétion, Brissot, Fabre d’Églantine, Siéyès. In January 1790, she founded a political club, La Société des Amis de la Loi, with Gilbert Romme. The club met at her place, at the Grenoble Hotel, on the Bouloi Street. It was short-lived, with a very limited influence. In both her Salons and her political club, Théroigne was often the only woman. Because of her political activities, and certainly accentuated because of her status as a woman, Théroigne became a victim of the Royalist press. The French particle “de” was added to her name, so she would appear as nobility. A ''Catéchisme Libertin'' (1791) was published under her name in an attempt to sully her reputation and activities.<br /> <br /> Accused of having violently participated in the Women’s March, Théroigne avoided an imminent arrestation by fleeing from Paris to Liege. However, she was abducted by two former French officers, and was turned in to Austria after a ten day-travel period. Imprisoned in the Fortress of Kufstein, Austria, she was suspected of acting as a spy on behalf of the Jacobins. She wrote her Confessions – originally at the demand of her interrogator, Aulic councilor Francois de Blanc. Convinced of her innocence, he succeeded in having her heard by Prince Kaunitz. At her request, she also met Emperor Leopold II, in October 1791. After a fruitful conversation with her, Leopold II ordered Théroigne’s release. She was given 600 florins to cover the expenses for her travels. She left for Brussels, and then Paris, where the Jacobins gave her a triumphal welcome. Pétion was then Mayor of Paris, Romme a deputy at the Legislative Assembly, and the accusation of “crimes against the queen”, because of her supposed participation in the Women’s March, no longer stood, thanks to the amnesty law of 1791. <br /> A feminist, Théroigne kept fighting for equality between men and women whether in political participation to clubs or even in the physical defense of the nation. In 1792, she created some female battalions, the Amazons, as a means to both defend the country and to attempt to have equality recognized between men and women. Men and women should share the same duties, and be equal. However, women’s Clubs were forbidden on October 1793.<br /> <br /> She was opposed by Royalists and Patriots on that front. On April 23rd, 1792, the Deputy Chabot notoriously affirmed that “a man must not be blinded by a female” – “femelle” being a French derogatory word when it refers to a woman. Théroigne participated in the Insurrection of August 10, 1792 and was rumored to have murdered the journalist and polemist, Francois-Louis Suleau. This was also part of the campaign against Théroigne, even though she did not participate in his killing. On May 15, 1793, she was partially undressed and publicly beaten, in front of the Convention by Jacobine women who were accusing her of supporting Brissot, a leader of the Girondin group. This attack had a profound effect physically on Théroigne, but it also destabilized her mentally.<br /> <br /> In the Spring 1794, her brother Nicolas-Joseph Terwagne, a laundryman in Paris, sent a letter to the judge and president of the first arrondissement, declaring that Théroigne was in a state of “absolute dementia”. This was certainly done in the hopes of sparing her an arrest as an “enemy of liberty” for participating in the assault of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792. At about the same time, Théroigne was the subject of a denunciation, which led to her subsequent arrest on June 17, 1794. The intervention of her brother saved her.<br /> She was at the Asylum on the Faubourg Saint-Marceau in July 1795, and was interned at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in 1797, and at the Salpêtrière Hospital on December 9, 1799. She passed away on June 8th, 1817. Her body was autopsied by Esquirol’s students, and her cranium molded by Dumontier.<br /> <br /> Théroigne de Méricourt inspired numerous artists and writers, such as Baudelaire, Jules Michelet, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. She also inspired Delacroix in his Liberty Leading the People painting (1830).<br /> <br /> Further readings:<br /> Hervieu, Paul. Théroigne de Méricourt : Pièce en Six Actes. Paris : L’Illustration, 1902.<br /> Goncourt, Edmond de, and Jules de Goncourt. Portraits Intimes du Dix-huitième Siècle : Études Nouvelles d'après les Lettres Autographes et les Documents Inédits. Paris : E. Fasquelle, 1908.<br /> Lacour, Léopold, and Ligaran. Trois Femmes de la Révolution : Olympe De Gouges, Théroigne de Méricourt, Rose Lacombe. [S.l.]: Ligaran, 2016.<br /> Lairtullier, Ed. Les Femmes Célèbres de 1789 à 1795 : et Leur Influence Dans La Révolution, Pour Servir De Suite et de Complément à Toutes Les Histoires de la Révolution Française. Paris: Librairie Politique, 1840.<br /> Michelet, Jules, and Meta Roberts Pennington. The Women of the French Revolution. Philadelphia: Henry Carey Baird, 1855.<br /> Moore, Lucy. Liberty: the Lives and Times of Six Women In Revolutionary France. 1st U.S. ed. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.<br /> Roudinesco, Elisabeth. Théroigne de Méricourt : a Melancholic Woman During the French Revolution. London: Verso, 1991.</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Volume_T&diff=1747 2023-03-06T13:57:42Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>Tallien Madame see '''[[Cabarrus, Thérèse]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Tatishchev,Vasily Nikitich]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Telemann, Georg Philip]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Tetens, Johann Nicolaus]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Thelwall, John]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Theroigne de Mericourt]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Thomasius, Christian]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Tieck, Ludwig]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Tindal, Matthew]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Toland, John]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Tooke, John Horne]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Tronchin, François]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Tronchin, Jean-Robert]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Tronchin, Théodore]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques]]'''</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Fabre_d%27Eglantine&diff=1746 2023-03-01T04:36:19Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Philippe-François-Nazaire Fabre '''(1750-1794): French playwright and Revolutionaire<br /> <br /> Philippe-François-Nazaire Fabre was born on 28 July 1750 in Carcassonne, a city in the Southwest of France. His family was from the low middle class and his father was a linen draper. In 1757, the family moved to Limoux, a neighboring city to Carcassonne. Young Fabre studied in Toulouse where he learned Greek and Latin languages and literatures, music, painting, drawing and engraving and in 1771, was hired as a teacher. That same year, he competed in the Academy of Floral Sports, a literary society founded by the Troubadours in the XIVth Century. He composed a poem in the honor of the Virgin Mary. His success is still a subject of a controversy, he won the lys d’argent (silver lily) but did not win the top prize, the eglantine d’argent (silver briar rose). However, judging his name much too common (Fabre being the equivalent of Smith in English) he chose to add “d’Eglantine” to his last name and that is the name that history and posterity retained.<br /> <br /> Fabre d’Eglantine decided to join a company of strolling actors and for the next fifteen years he acted on stage across France and part of Europe. In December 1776, while in the Austrian Netherlands (roughly present-day Belgium and Luxembourg), he seduced a young member of the troop, a fifteen-year-old girl, Catherine Deresmond, and convinced her to elope with him. Deresmond being the daughter of the troop directors, her mother accused Fabre of rape and seduction. Fabre avoided jail and execution thanks to his fellow actors who addressed a petition letter to the Governor. The latter changed the punishment into banishment. <br /> <br /> Fabre started to write on his own, he composed three poems in honor of the famed French scientist, [[Buffon, George-Louis Leclerc, Comte de]]. In 1778, he married Marie-Nicole Godin, granddaughter of [[Lesage, Alain-René]], famous early XVIIIth Century French writer. In 1779, he wrote the libretto for a comic opera, ''Laure et Petrarque'', which contained a very well-known song, ''Il pleut, il pleut bergère'' still taught in preschool and kindergarten and still used as a popular lullaby. He also started his own theater company but must give it up for lack of success. He wrote poems in honor of several great aristocrats such as Gustavus III of Sweden. In 1781, because of financial trouble he left his infant with a nurse. Finally, in 1787, he settled in Paris with his wife and for the next years produced several works, all in verse, comedies, tragedies, comic operas and farces. Most were played on stage with a limited degree of success, some were quickly rejected because of their strong satirical twists of society and politics. <br /> <br /> In 1789, he left his wife for another woman, Caroline Remy, who will give him three children, the first two dying at a very early age. In 1790, at 40 years of age, he composed and produced his most successful and famous play, ''Le Philinte de Molière'', which was intended to be a continuation of Molière’s play, ''Le Misanthrope''. His success motivated him to create more plays, among the more notable ''L’Apothécaire'', ''Isabelle de Salisbury'', ''L’ Intrigue Epistolaire'' and ''Le Convalescent'', the last one being staged in 1799, five years after his death. Fabre d ’Eglantine’s literary talent has not been recognized because of the strong political and moralist overtones included in his writings. Being a Montagnard (more extreme revolutionaries opposed to the Girondins, more moderate ones led by [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]], [[Louvet]] and [[Vergniaud, Pierre]]) and a Dantonist, his plays tended to be political propaganda. He espoused the revolution ideals with great fervor, he joined the Cordeliers club and soon became the president of it. There, he met [[Marat, Jean-Paul]] and the great revolutionary orator, [[Danton, Georges]] and was going to become one of his closest allies. <br /> <br /> Early in the revolution, he was still a royalist but Louis XVI’s flight to Varennes, the king's failed attempt to join the royalist troops, changed the tone of the revolution and gave it a republican impetus. Therefore, Fabre’s inclination changed and in September 1792, he took part in the attacks on the Tuileries but paradoxically was also accused to have offered his help to the court. 1792 and 1793 are the two years that saw Fabre reached the height of his political career, he was elected Convention Deputy, was chosen by Danton to be his secretary (along with [[Desmoulins, Camille]]), participated in attempt of reconciliation with the Girondins, and was member of the war committee and the powerful committee of public safety. However, qualms of corruption crept up and will be used in 1794 during his trial. He was suspected of selling 10,000 pairs of defective army boots with a large benefit which fell apart after twelve hours of use. <br /> <br /> Fabre was criticized for regarding the revolution in the same way he viewed his plays and was said to observe the Assembly through his pair of lorgnette like a spectator at the theater which had a knack for irritating [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]]. As a member of the Convention, he followed Danton’s politics. He voted for the king’s death and after general [[Dumouriez]]’s defection to the Austrians in 1793, he turned against the Girondins and led a campaign against them as the chief editor of ''La Gazette de France nationale''. His main reproach to the Girondins was that he believed they used the common people to generate turmoil when needed but discarded them when making political decisions. <br /> <br /> In October 1793, the Convention wanted to get rid of the Gregorian calendar to adopt a calendar starting the year on September 22 -the day of the monarchy’s abolishment- renaming the days and months on republican and agricultural principles. Because of his literary reputation, Fabre was the main member of the committee in charge of the task comprising Marie-Joseph Chénier (brother of the revolution poet, André Chénier) and the famous painter, [[David, Jacques-Louis]]. Fabre was credited with the new names’ creativity. He considered the Gregorian calendar a tool used by the church to keep the people in a life of superstition contaminated with bigotry, deceit and falseness. Every month lasted thirty days. Starting September 22nd, Vendémiaire (Vintage month) was the first month, October 22nd came Brumaire (Misty), November 22nd came Frimaire (Frosty), December 22nd came Nivose (Snowy), January 22nd came Pluviose (Rainy), February 22nd came Ventose (Windy), March 22nd came Germinal (Buddy), April 22nd came Floréal (Flowery), May 22nd came Prairial (Meadowy), June 22nd came Messidor (Harvesty), July 22nd came Thermidor (Sunny) and August 22nd came Fructidor (Fruty). The five missing days to complete the year were devoted to different holidays at the end of the year, the first devoted to Virtue, the second to Intelligence, the third to Labor, the fourth to Opinion and the fifth one to Rewards. On a leap year, the extra day would be devoted to celebrate liberty, equality and fraternity to strengthen national unity. <br /> <br /> Earlier in the same year, in the month of August, he got implicated with the French East India Company which was going to be one the main causes of his demise. In October, he accused two deputies, François Chabaud and Hérault de Seychelles for their association to a foreign conspiracy led by Pitt to ruin French economy. Then Fabre along with Delaunay, another Convention member, falsified a decree of liquidation of the India Company. The fraud consisted in liquidating first the company which shares would drop tremendously then at a later point to pass a new decree favorable to the company. Shares would come back up and could be sold with a huge profit. Delaunay and Fabre d’Eglantine falsified signatures to let believe the government had already approved the liquidation. However, when Chabaud, Delaunay and several other Convention members were detained, Fabre, [[Danton, Georges]] and [[Hebert, Jacques]] (the last two also suspected) were not arrested. Fabre made the mistake to try too hard to divert attention from him and overexaggerate the role and responsibility of a foreign conspiracy and accused the India Company to disregard government laws, to have foreign agents in every branch of the government and to promote dishonest concepts of equality and liberty. <br /> <br /> Unfortunately, his efforts had the opposite effect and instead of distancing himself from his connection, it shed more light on his fraudulent activities. In January 1794, Amar, a Convention deputy, denounced Fabre’s misdeeds who was arrested on the 18th . When [[Danton, Georges]] attempted to save his friend he only managed to cast more doubt upon his own involvement. In March, Robespierre and [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]] seized the opportunity to get rid of their more dangerous rivals in their own party, the Montagne, and transform a financial scandal into a political scheme. A few days before, they had eliminated [[Hebert, Jacques]] and his followers, the Enragés (the Enraged, the Ultra-Revolutionary Montagnards), they could now strike a fatal blow to Danton’s faction, the Indulgents (the more moderate Montagnards) who had pointed out the excess committed during the Terror. On 16 March 1794, Amar presented a second report and consequently Fabre d’Eglantine was brought to the revolutionary tribunal. While in prison, he wrote a ''Précis apologétique'', in which he tried to exonerate himself of all charges regarding the India Company. The trial started on March 30. Robespierre and [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]] strongly expected Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, to influence the issue of the judgment. The jury quickly rendered a guilty verdict. Fabre was guillotined on 5 April along with Danton and other Dantonists. The falsified decree was not even shown at the trial. Like [[Desmoulins, Camille]], Fabre d’Eglantine was one of Danton’s close supporters and that by itself was enough to send him to the scaffold.<br /> <br /> <br /> Further Reading:<br /> <br /> Louis Jacob, ''Fabre d'Eglantine, Chef des fripons'', 1946.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Guy Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Madame_Roland&diff=1745 2023-01-31T16:30:00Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>Madame Roland (1754-1793): French salonniere and writer <br /> <br /> Madame Roland, also known as Manon Roland, was born Jeanne-Marie Phlipon on 17 March 1754 in Paris. Her parents were well off and had seven children. Except for Jeanne-Marie, all the children died at a young age. As a result, she received all her parents’ affection. Her father was a master-engraver. As a child, she was a very avid reader; she read the bible, Plutarch, Fénelon, and Tasso. As a young adult, she read [[Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de]], [[Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de]], Shakespeare, Richardson and [[Rousseau, Jean-Jacques]]. The latter exercised great influence in her life.<br /> <br /> When she was 10 years of age, one of her father’s apprentices attempted to force her into sexual acts. (She was not raped but forced to help the apprentice to gratify himself). This episode had a profound and painful impact on her life; she recounted this moment in her Mémoires because of its lasting effect on her character. In 1765, she entered a convent where she met Sophie and Henriette Cannet, with whom she would keep a lifelong friendship and epistolary exchange. In 1776, the Cannet sisters introduced her to Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière. Roland was twenty years older, grim, morose, and anxious; he worked as an Inspector of Commerce. The courtship lasted a few years due to her father’s reluctance to the wedding. After much hesitation from her part, they married in 1780. She was 26 and he, 46. They had one daughter in 1781. She clearly held the leadership in their couple. Their relation was very platonic, more philosophical than carnal, and her love regressed into simple friendship. Roland, thanks to his ''Dictionnaire des Manufactures, Arts et Métiers'', was promoted General Inspector. <br /> <br /> When the revolution started, she embraced it with great passion, pouring her soul into it. She pushed her husband into politics because she herself wanted to be in the heart of the new movement that was shaking France. In 1790, he was elected representative to the General Council of his Lyon commune. Both husband and wife got more involved in the revolution. The couple wrote accounts of their new views for France which they sent to [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and [[Desmoulins, Camille]] to be published in their journals. Always encouraged and pushed by his wife, Roland was chosen to go to the National Assembly to inform deputies of the situation that paralyzed trade in Lyon. His wife accompanied him to Paris, convinced that there was the real theater of the revolution and felt she had an important role to play in its development. <br /> Once in Paris, one of her admirers, Bosc d’Antic, helped the couple to find lodging. She finally met Brissot in person and got acquainted with Petion, Buzot, Claviere, [[Danton, Georges]] and Robespierre. She attended meetings of the Assembly and formed her opinion on most men whom she judged mediocre because of the Ancien Regime’s influence on them. She opened her house to the men of the left four days a week to discuss the future of the country, and that was the making of her first salon. She saw herself continuing the centuries old tradition of great women who through their salon contributed to the brilliance of France such as Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Rambouillet, Mademoiselle de Scudéry or Madame du Deffand. Madame Roland rarely invited other women and neither did she attend herself other salons. Petion, Buzot, Bosc d’Antic, Lanthenas and her husband formed the nucleus of her first salon. The king’s flight to Varennes in June 1791 had greatly upset her. She believed that a successful escape would have been more beneficial to France because it would have caused a civil war. According to her war regenerated men. She had lost confidence in Lafayette; despite her mistrust of [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]], she believed only the men on the left were the ones able to save the nation. Early autumn 1791, the couple returned to Lyon but she did not stop publishing anonymous articles. Roland lost his job and decided to take his wife and daughter back to Paris hoping to get a pension from the government. Unable to get a pension, his desire was to go back to a tranquil life in Lyon countryside but Madame Roland did not want to leave Paris and abandon the possibility of being in the center of the political turmoil that roused French society. She not only convinced her husband to remain in Paris but also to go back into politics. She surrounded herself with a group of admirers and threw the base of her second salon with many Gironde members, particularly Bosc d’Antic who harbored a deep unrequited love for her. <br /> <br /> In 1792, the king was faced with a new crisis and had to form a new government. In an attempt to stop the looming calamity, Louis XVI called on Dumouriez to choose the new ministers. With his own ambition in mind, [[Dumouriez]] offered many portfolios to Brissotins (Brissot’s followers) later on called Girondins. Deputies were not eligible to ministry appointment, Brissot, [[Vergniaud, Pierre]] and Louvet consequently could not be selected. The Ministry of the Interior was given to Roland thanks to Brissot’s friendship and more specifically to the friendship between [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and Madame Roland. Roland was dubious about the appointment but Manon Roland saw it as her opportunity to be the real Minister of the Interior. She took charge and composed many of his speeches and checked on much of his official writings. Barbaroux, Buzot, Gaudet, Brissot, Petion, [[Louvet]] all frequented her salon, which was firmly under her aegis. She had her theories on the revolution and managed to impose them on her admirers; the Sans-Culottes were just dangerous rabble and riffraff, Robespierre could not be trusted since he did not show her much respect and did not make much effort to be included in her circle. She also disliked [[Dumouriez]] and Danton who refused to accept her influence like so many Girondins did. She believed that to be true to France and its future, she must be in the center of the action, unyielding and steadfast, willing and ready to give her life for the good of her country. She considered her salon the real Ministry of the Interior. <br /> <br /> The Girondins were opposed to the Montagnards because the former wanted to declare war to Austria, Prussia and England, following Madame Roland’s policy. She regarded [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] as a political rival and her hostility had been considered a significant source of the divide between Girondins and Montagnards. According to her, for the sake of liberty, aristocracy should lose all power and the king should strictly follow Girondin policy. She wrote Robespierre criticizing his political stance and expected him to understand her obligation to show him his errors. Robespierre chose to ignore her, which grieved her further. The new ministry only lasted three months, March to June 1792. A few days before the end of his ministry, Roland had sent a letter to the king admonishing him on his constitutional obligations. The letter had been written by Manon. The king, anticipating yet another crisis, and unpleased with the letter’s tone dismissed his Girondin administration with Roland, Claviere and Servan. Roland decided then to read the letter directly to the National Assembly, which won him much ovation from the deputies. After the fall of the monarchy and with the king’s arrest on August 10, Roland gained back his position as Minister of the Interior; however, the Girondins’ influence was weakening. They held an ambiguous position during the king’s trial; in spite of violently criticizing Louis XVI they were hesitant to condemn him. They only did so not to lose their popularity, this edging stance backfired on them. The defection to the Austrians of General [[Dumouriez]] who was a great Girondin supporter contributed to their decline. The divergence between Robespierre’s party and Brissot’s was growing stronger. Manon blamed Danton, Robespierre and Marat for the September 1792 massacre in which the crowd brutally killed thousands of royalist sympathizers and refractory priests (priests which rejected the constitution). In order to limit the influence of Paris on French politics, she wanted to create a federation of provinces which could balance the domination of the capital. Buzot, her new impassionate admirer, was still a Convention member and fervently espoused all her ideas. This new platform only served to further accentuate the split between Montagnards and Girondins. Two days after Louis XVI’s execution on 21 January 1793, Roland gave his resignation as Interior Minister. [[Danton, Georges]] along with [[Fabre d'Eglantine]] tried reconciliation with some Girondin leaders but completely dismissed Madame Roland which enraged her to no end. <br /> <br /> Manon Roland had formed a “Bureau de l’Esprit publique” in her husband’s name in order to educate people but quickly transformed it into Girondin propaganda and a tool against the Montagnards. The Convention suspected her of conspiracy against the government; she successfully deflected blame, but her attacks on Danton did not cease. Danton, who first attempted to work as an intermediary with the Girondins, ended up by abandoning them and joining Robespierre, [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]] and [[Marat, Jean-Paul]] against them. Madame Roland chose this crucial period to inform her husband of her remorseless and ardent love for another man, Buzot. She expected her spouse to understand her infidelity because in her eyes he was supposed to be her friend, loyal and sensitive to her feelings. <br /> <br /> In the Spring of 1793, the worsening of the economy infuriated Parisians who hold the Girondins responsible for the crisis. Camille Desmoulins’s ''Histoire des Brissotins'', a vitriolic attack on the Girondins, combined with [[Corday, Charlotte]]’s assassination of Marat sounded the final blows to Brissot’s party. Roland’s ''Observations de l’ex-ministre Roland'' written under his wife’s dictation, to counter the Montagnards’ accusations, did not have the expected outcome. Manon decided then to write letters hoping to trigger a revolt in the provinces against the Convention but that was to no avail. At the end of May, foreseeing the approaching downfall, she sent letters to the Convention President but the Sans-Culottes were already demanding Girondins’ arrest. On 31st May, the Paris Commune, the governing body of Paris, demanded the arrest of Girondin deputies. Robespierre and Saint-Just supported the request. On June 1st 1793, the Paris Commune declared an insurrection against the Convention to ensure the Girondin deputies would be arrested. On the night of June 1st, 1793 the comité insurrectionnel led by François Hanriot, a sans-culotte leader, along with 40,000 men surrounded the Convention and required the arrest of several leaders of the Gironde. The Montagnards were now in control of the Convention; thus began the Reign of Terror. She had chosen to stay in Paris even though her husband had fled to Rouen some days before. She was arrested on that very night. She hoped Buzot would rally the provinces and march with an army to save her and punish the Montagnards. During her imprisonment, she continued writing letters to the Convention, to different ministries, to journalists to prove her innocence. After one month, she was interrogated by the police, she was first set free on June 24th but was immediately re-arrested and sent to Sainte-Pélagie prison. She was charged because of her husband’s escape, her involvement with conspirators, and her discovered letters revealing her ambition to incite the provinces. She denied all the charges and started writing her Mémoires. She then went on a hunger strike but was transferred to the prison hospital. She planned to publicly poison herself at the coming Girondin trial after exposing all the treacheries and duplicities of the Montagnard leaders. She relied on Bosc d’Antic to supply the poison but he refused her request. The trial came but she did not have a chance to express herself. She still had the need to write and plead her emotions and unfair experience. She was moved to the Conciergerie under suspicion of promoting civil war. On November 8th, 1793, she was condemned to death by the very law that her husband’s ministry had passed previously, anyone attempting to divide the unity of the government or the republic was subjected to the guillotine. She went to the scaffold the same day with another man, Lamarche. Some sources suggested that she asked the executioner to be guillotined after Lamarche. Custom was to have women go first to save them from witnessing the savagery and violence of decapitation. Realizing that the man was significantly more distressed than she was she asked the executioner to break away from usual practice. Upon seeing her courage and resolve, the executioner accepted her request. This anecdote has not been verified. After learning the news of her death, her husband stabbed himself with a sword. <br /> <br /> In her utmost devotion to her country, Madame Roland sacrificed her husband, her lover, her friends and the Girondins. Her antipathies and rage for [[Danton, Georges]] was undoubtedly the biggest of her mistakes. The Girondins’ refusal for reconciliation with the Montagnards was partly due to Manon’s rage for Danton. She could not stand how he casually dismissed her tragic and grand posture. Madame Roland’s critical fault was to let her sentiments affect her politics. <br /> <br /> <br /> '''Guy Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Brissot,_Jacques_Pierre&diff=1744 2023-01-22T02:30:17Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Brissot, Jacques Pierre''' (1754-1793): French Journalist and Revolutionary.<br /> <br /> Jacques Pierre Brissot was born in Chartres, a small town sixty miles southwest of Paris. He was the thirteenth child in a family of seventeen children. His father, owned a restaurant, and soon realized that the passion for learning his son demonstrated should enable him to become a barrister. Young Brissot displayed a great memory which helped him master English and Italian and gave him some knowledge of Greek, Spanish and German. Later in his life, he would change his name to Brissot de Warville.<br /> <br /> Brissot’s characterized romanticism did not agree with the exactness, and stoic objectivity needed to be a lawyer, he therefore chose to embrace the career of journalist. Before he reached thirty years of age, he had already published much work of diversified interests such as treatises on criminal law, ''Théorie des lois criminelles'' (1781) and ''Bibliothèque philosophique du législateur'' (1782), essays on literature, a short philosophical book, ''Universal Pyrrhonism'', all the while writing for the ''Mercure de France'' and the ''Courrier de l’Europe''. He also maintained an intense correspondence with [[Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’]], [[Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de]] and [[Bentham, Jeremy]]. His liberalism has often been explained by his reading of Locke, [[Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de]] and Montaigne. In 1784, upon his return from London, he was jailed in the Bastille for two months for writing a libel against the government. Between 1784 and 1788, he lived in Paris where he became gradually involved with the social and political events of the period. He developed a close friendship to Roland and his wife, acted as secretary of the Gallo-American Society supporting trade exchange between the two countries and founded the “Ami des Noirs” society to protect the black population of the West Indies. His simplicity, love of his fellow-men, utopian ideals and taste for adventures led him to sail to Pennsylvania in June 1788 but returned to France six months later when hearing the news of the revolution. In July 1789, he founded his journal, ''Le Patriote français'', which gained him popularity and built for himself a reputation of a philanthropist and an expert in international law. His political career really took off in this period; in 1791, he was elected at the Legislative Assembly and then later at the National Convention. Meanwhile in June of the same year, the King and the Queen‘s flight to Varennes had greatly contributed to destabilize the political situation. In July, the National Guards fired upon the crowd at the Champ de Mars and it was an open secret that the king felt compelled to accept the new Constitution of September, which abolished the privileges of the French nobility.<br /> <br /> Brissot and his followers opted to militate in favor of the war against Austria and the “émigrés”, royalists that fled France hoping to lead foreign armies back to Paris and reestablished an absolute monarchy. The Brissotins also hoped to take over the Rhineland, Poland and Holland to spread the revolution through Europe. They represented the strong resentment of many in France against the “émigrés” and the counterrevolutionaries and were betting on a French victory that would place them in a favorable political stand and consequently able to manipulate the king and control the Montagnards, more extreme revolutionaries led by [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] and [[Danton, Georges]]. Using his journal to spread his vision, Brissot rallied many patriots around him but unfortunately became Robespierre’s principal foe. When the latter, who did not believe in a French victory at the time, pointed out that the court would likely side with foreign powers in case of war, Brissot replied in what was later judged very poor political foresight that the country needed betrayal so that traitors could be identified and then eliminated. War meant to him the riddance of external as well as internal enemies. <br /> <br /> In March 1792, war arrived followed by disastrous defeat which increased resentment against the King. A new ministry was chosen among many of Brissot’s friends, Roland, Claviere and Servan being the most prominent ones. However, the situation worsened within a few weeks and anger roused against the new ministers. On June 20 1792, Brissotins’sympathizers directed the people in an attack on the Tuileries hoping that this show of force would help them gain influence on the Assembly and on Louis XVI. The king’s lack of reaction resulted into the Brissotins’failure and one month later when the members of the Cordelier Club, all partisans of Robespierre and Marat, led their own attack on the Tuileries, it had the expected outcome. Their display of force seemed to have paralyzed their opponents and Vergniaud, Gensonné and Guadet, all Girondins - this name started to be used in the XIXth Century to describe the Brissotins because so many were originally from the Gironde, the soutwestern part of France - and all leaders of the Assembly, stayed passive and unable to turn the negative spiral of events against them. After the September 1792 massacres in which the Parisian mob murdered 1,600 inmates (mainly royalist sympathizers and refractory priests), Vergniaud and Brissot blamed the Commune (the revolutionary governing body of Paris) and pointed at its tyrannical leaders, [[Marat, Jean-Paul]] and Robespierre. At this stage, Brissot had already become the main target of the Ultrarevolutionaries or Hebertists led by [[Hebert, Jacques]] who vehemently criticized him in his journal ''Le Père Duchesne'' and openly accused him of being traitor to the revolution. Brissot was politically cornered and proposed another change of the King’s ministers. The Girondins had been incapable to seize the opportunity to be in charge of the country. From then on, the Montagnards and the Girondins were opposed on most political issues. The Girondins proceeded to accuse the Montagnards to back an Orleanist conspiracy with [[Philippe Egalité]], Duke of Orleans, at his head who would serve as Robespierre's puppet after the elimination of Louis XVI. The Girondins mistakenly hoped this accusation would demonstrate the Montagne's royalist inclination. <br /> <br /> The Montagnards, led by Robespierre, Danton, Saint-Just and [[Marat, Jean-Paul]], wanted a centralized power in Paris whereas the Girondins led by Brissot, [[Vergniaud, Pierre]], [[Louvet]], Roland and his wife [[Madame Roland]] stood for decentralization and more political and economic strength for the provinces. The Girondins were not a tight political party but rather regrouped loosely together many deputies with similar views. In spite of their desire to rid the country of the violence inspired by the Jacobins they took on some paradoxical stands. They voted to send Louis XVI to the scaffold but on the other hand attempted to save him; they initiated committees and tribunals but were powerless to control them.<br /> Very instrumental in France’s foreign policy, Brissot was again in favor of war against Austria and Great Britain; he considered conflicts necessary propaganda for the revolution. War was declared in February 1793. However, the tide was definitely turning against Brissot and his allies. [[Hebert, Jacques]] was relently asking for his execution, [[Fabre d'Eglantine]] in ''La Gazette de France nationale'' condemned the Girondin leaders for their use of the commoners to produce turmoil when needed and [[Desmoulins, Camille]] published his vitriolic ''History of the Brissotins'' for which he would be remorseful later but that precipitated their end. On May 22 1793, Brissot reacted and denounced in one article the Jacobins’conspiracy but the Montagne had already gained Paris popular support. On May 29, the Commune decreed the Girondins’arrest that prompted many to flee their home. Brissot quickly left Paris but was soon arrested in Moulins and on July 8, [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]] demanded to the Committee of Public Safety the immediate arrest and execution of all the Girondins that went into hiding. Brissot was found guilty along with twenty-one other Girondins to be counterrevolutionaries and agents of foreign powers, accusations that he had refuted at length during the trial. He was guillotined on October 31st. The reign of the Terror had already begun and was going to end only with Robespierre’s demise. With Brissot’s death, the Montagnards killed a dangerous political opponent but also eliminated his idea of a federalized republic in France.<br /> <br /> Further Readings:<br /> <br /> Leonore Loft, ''Passion, politics, and philosophie : rediscovering J.-P. Brissot,'' 2002.<br /> <br /> Eloise Ellery, ''Brissot de Warville; a study in the history of the French Revolution,'' 1970. <br /> <br /> <br /> '''Guy David Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Volume_R&diff=1743 2023-01-22T02:23:29Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''[[Radcliffe, Ann]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Radischev, Alexander]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Rameau, Jean Philippe]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Ramsay, David]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Rastrelli, Bartolommeo Francesco]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Raynal, Guillaume Tomas François]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Reid, Thomas]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Hermann Samuel Reimarus]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Repton, Humphry]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Reynolds, Sir Joshua]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Richardson, Samuel]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Richter, Jean Paul Friedrich]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Robertson, William]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]]'''<br /> <br /> '''Roland''' see '''[[Madame Roland]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Rousseau, Jean-Jacques]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Rush, Benjamin]]'''<br /> <br /> '''[[Rutledge, Edward]]'''</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Louvet&diff=1742 2023-01-22T02:20:26Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Louvet, Jean-Baptiste''' (1760-1797): French Author and Revolutionary<br /> <br /> Jean-Baptiste Louvet also known as Jean Baptiste Louvet de Couvray (an addition that he added to differentiate himself from his older brother) was born in Paris on 12 June 1760. His father, known to be brutal, owned a stationer’s shop. At 17 years of age, Jean Baptiste was working as a printer’s foreman, then became secretary for a famed mineralogist, Philippe-Frederic de Dietrich, and also worked as an assistant bookseller. <br /> <br /> Very early on, he saved enough money to devote much of his time to writing love novels that enjoyed great success in France. In 1787, he published at his own expenses, the first volume of his novel ''Faublas'', titled ''Les Amours du Chevalier de Faublas''. In 1788, a second part is published, ''Six Semaines de la vie du Chevalier de Faublas'' followed in 1790 by ''Fin des amours du Chevalier de Faublas''. The novel is much inspired by the love he had since childhood for Marguerite Denuelle who was unhappily married with a jeweler. After many attempts to divorce her husband, she finally managed to leave him and in 1789 moved in with Louvet. The latter chose to change her name to Lodoiska, who was the main female protagonist of ''Faublas''. In 1791, he published ''Emilie de Varmont ou le divorce nécessaire et les amours du curé Sévin'', a melodramatic novel based on Marguerite Denuelle’s failed attempts to divorce her husband. Louvet also composed three highly satirical plays, ''La Grande Revue des armées blanche et noire'' (a satire of the émigré army), ''L’Annobli Conspirateur'' (a critic of the royalists), and ''L’Election et l’audience du grand Lama Sispi'' (a mockery of Pope Pius VI). <br /> <br /> In 1789, he embraced the revolution ideals with great passion. In October, he answered Jean-Joseph Mounier, a member of the new French National Assembly, who had blamed people for their march to Versailles with a pamphlet, ''Paris Justifié'', which gained him admittance to the Jacobin club and put him in the public eye. He first hesitated to take leadership positions but as the revolution progressed he was swallowed by its great turmoil. After consulting his mistress, “Lodoiska”, he decided to get fully involved and in December 1791, presented a discourse at the Assembly that he considered as one of his best, “Petition against the Princes”, in which he demanded the Princes and émigrés ’arrestations. He never wrote another romance after that speech. <br /> <br /> On 17 January 1792, at the Jacobin club, Louvet made a pivotal presentation which captured his vision of French politics. He stated that there were four dominant parties. First, the Feuillants who were in favor of a constitutional monarchy and did not want to overthrow the king Louis XVI. Second, the Cordeliers (led by [[Danton, Georges]], [[Marat, Jean-Paul]], and [[Desmoulins, Camille]]) which associated themselves with the Jacobins (led by [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]], [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]] and Collot d'Herbois); the two clubs joined to become the Montagnard party. Third, the Girondins or Brissotins led by [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and [[Vergniaud, Pierre]]. Fourth, the party of the court which according to Louvet hoped for an invasion of foreign armies to get rid of the 1791 constitution. The Girondins were opposed to the Montagnards because the formers wanted to rush to war against foreign armies but the latter considered France was not yet ready to fight England, Austria and Prussia. <br /> <br /> Louvet clearly positioned himself for the war and rallied Brissot, Vergniaud and Roland. His speech against the Princes had been so successful that [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] praised it on his own journal, ''Le Patriote français''. By siding with the Girondins, he was making himself Robespierre’s adversary. In March 1792, encouraged by [[Madame Roland]] and her husband, he started his newspaper ''La Sentinelle''. In September, he was elected deputy at the Convention where he directly confronted Robespierre accusing him of being involved in the massacre of September when the Parisian mob murdered 1,600 inmates (mainly royalist sympathizers and refractory priests -priests that rejected the new constitution-) as well as scheming against the lives of the Girondin leaders. Robespierre was given a week to clear himself which he did with the approval of the majority of the Convention’s deputies. Louvet wrote a reply “A Maximilien Robespierre et à ses royalistes” in which he maintained his attacks. From then on, Louvet was targeted for elimination by Robespierre. <br /> <br /> The balance of popularity between Girondins and Montagnards was switching in favor of the latter after important developments. The first was the king’s trial. The ambiguous position of the Girondins who violently criticized Louis XVI but were hesitant to condemn him but did so not to lose their popularity backfired on them. Louvet himself was ambivalent. He strongly slated the king, voted for his death but also voted the final decision to be decided by the people. The second was General [[Dumouriez]]’s defection to the Austrians who was one of the Girondins’ strongest supporters. His betrayal incited [[Fabre d'Eglantine]], an important member of the Montagne and close ally to Danton, to use his journal &quot;La Gazette de France nationale&quot; to lead a violent campaign against the Gironde. Louvet justified Dumouriez’s double-crossing as a Montagnard’s orchestration to discredit the Girondins. Louvet even imputed Dumouriez’s defeat at Neerwinden to Pache, the minister of war, who conspired to ill-provide [[Dumouriez]]’s army to cause defeat and by repercussion to shame and disrepute the Girondins. Louvet was persuaded that Robespierre, [[Danton, Georges]] and even Marat were royalists who only wanted to get rid of Louis XVI to replace him with his cousin, [[Philippe Egalité]], Duke of Orléans, whom they would easily control. Louvet was so convinced of it that he wrote a pamphlet to the Convention ''A La Convention National et à mes Commettants sur la Conspiration du 10 Mars et la Faction d’Orléans''. <br /> <br /> The worsening of the economy infuriated Parisians who hold the Girondin ministers responsible for the crisis. On 31st May, the Paris Commune, the governing body of Paris, demanded the arrestation of 22 Girondin deputies. Robespierre, Marat and Saint-Just seized the opportunity to blame the Girondins and supported the request. On June 1st 1793, the Paris Commune declared an insurrection against the Convention to ensure the Girondin deputies would be arrested. On the night between June 1st and 2nd, the comité insurrectionnel led by François Hanriot, a sans-culotte leader, along with 40,000 men surrounded the Convention and required the arrest of several leaders of the Gironde. On the 2nd, the Convention put those leaders, Louvet included, on house arrest. The Montagnards were now in control of the Convention, it was the start of the Reign of Terror. The assassination of Marat by [[Corday, Charlotte]] on 13 July 1793 was the coup de grâce to the Gironde. Marat's murder had the opposite effect expected by Charlottte Corday; it incited the Montagnards to take harsher measures on anyone suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. <br /> <br /> On the 28, the Convention decreed the arrest of more Girondins. The purge of the Girondins was acted. Some like Vergniaud, Pétion, and Gensonnet accepted their house arrest, others like Brissot, Roland, [[Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicholas Caritat, Marquis de]] and Louvet did not believe in the justice of the revolutionary tribunal and fled in the hope to gather the provinces to lead a movement against Paris and the Convention. Louvet first went to Caen in Normandy then moved around France but finally decided to hide in the Jura and in Switzerland. He spent the first months unaware of what happened to other Girondins and to his mistress Lodoiska. The latter managed to join him and having obtained her divorce in 1792 was finally able to marry him. While in hiding, Louvet had begun his Memoirs, which would be partly published in 1795. A lot of it is devoted to his hardships and his emotions caused by his wanderings. Many have considered it one of the best refugee-story of the time. <br /> <br /> After 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794) and the demise of Robespierre, the Reign of Terror ended. Louvet therefore wrote his ''Appel des victimes du 31 mai aux Parisiens du 9 Thermidor'' in which he requested the Convention to clear all the proscribed Girondins. Upon his return to Paris in October 1794, he opened a little bookstore. In March 1795, he was readmitted as a member of the Convention. In April, he was part of the committee to first revise the constitution and thereafter to completely rewrite it. After the attempted royalist reaction of 13 vendémiaire an IV (5 October 1795) he stayed true to his republican ideals and did not give up to the street hostility that targeted him. On 23 Vendémiare (15 October), he was elected member of the Conseil des Cinq Cents which functioned as the new French senate. The Directoire, the new French Revolutionary government (1795-1799) had selected him to be Consul to Palermo but unfortunately Louvet could not occupy his new position since he died at only 37 years of age of exhaustion and probably tuberculosis on 25 August 1797. <br /> <br /> In spite of the political changes and instability, Louvet remained republican till the end. His last speech was against a decree excluding royalists from public employment. His tolerance stemmed from his own miseries and distresses while in hiding. Louvet is one of the very few Girondins that died of natural causes. Vergniaud, Barbaroux, Brissot, Gensonné, Madame Roland died at the guillotine. Condorcet, Guadet, Roland, Pétion and Buzot committed suicide.<br /> <br /> <br /> Further Reading:<br /> <br /> Bette W. Oliver, ''Witness to the Revolution: Jean-Baptiste Louvet, 1760–1797'', 2020.<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Guy Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Madame_Roland&diff=1741 2023-01-22T02:17:39Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>Madame Roland (1754-1793): French salonniere and writer <br /> <br /> Madame Roland, also known as Manon Roland, was born Jeanne-Marie Phlipon on 17 March 1754 in Paris. Her parents were well off and had seven children. Except for Jeanne-Marie, all the children died at a young age. As a result, she received all her parents’ affection. Her father was a master-engraver. As a child, she was a very avid reader; she read the bible, Plutarch, Fénelon, and Tasso. As a young adult, she read [[Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de]], [[Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de]], Shakespeare, Richardson and [[Rousseau, Jean-Jacques]]. The latter exercised great influence in her life.<br /> <br /> When she was 10 years of age, one of her father’s apprentices attempted to force her into sexual acts. (She was not raped but forced to help the apprentice to gratify himself). This episode had a profound and painful impact on her life; she recounted this moment in her Mémoires because of its lasting effect on her character. In 1765, she entered a convent where she met Sophie and Henriette Cannet, with whom she would keep a lifelong friendship and epistolary exchange. In 1776, the Cannet sisters introduced her to Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière. Roland was twenty years older, grim, morose, and anxious; he worked as an Inspector of Commerce. The courtship lasted a few years due to her father’s reluctance to the wedding. After much hesitation from her part, they married in 1780. She was 26 and he, 46. They had one daughter in 1781. She clearly held the leadership in their couple. Their relation was very platonic, more philosophical than carnal, and her love regressed into simple friendship. Roland, thanks to his ''Dictionnaire des Manufactures, Arts et Métiers'', was promoted General Inspector. <br /> <br /> When the revolution started, she embraced it with great passion, pouring her soul into it. She pushed her husband into politics because she herself wanted to be in the heart of the new movement that was shaking France. In 1790, he was elected representative to the General Council of his Lyon commune. Both husband and wife got more involved in the revolution. The couple wrote accounts of their new views for France which they sent to [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and [[Desmoulins, Camille]] to be published in their journals. Always encouraged and pushed by his wife, Roland was chosen to go to the National Assembly to inform deputies of the situation that paralyzed trade in Lyon. His wife accompanied him to Paris, convinced that there was the real theater of the revolution and felt she had an important role to play in its development. <br /> Once in Paris, one of her admirers, Bosc d’Antic, helped the couple to find lodging. She finally met Brissot in person and got acquainted with Petion, Buzot, Claviere, [[Danton, Georges]] and Robespierre. She attended meetings of the Assembly and formed her opinion on most men whom she judged mediocre because of the Ancien Regime’s influence on them. She opened her house to the men of the left four days a week to discuss the future of the country, and that was the making of her first salon. She saw herself continuing the centuries old tradition of great women who through their salon contributed to the brilliance of France such as Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Rambouillet, Mademoiselle de Scudéry or Madame du Deffand. Madame Roland rarely invited other women and neither did she attend herself other salons. Petion, Buzot, Bosc d’Antic, Lanthenas and her husband formed the nucleus of her first salon. The king’s flight to Varennes in June 1791 had greatly upset her. She believed that a successful escape would have been more beneficial to France because it would have caused a civil war. According to her war regenerated men. She had lost confidence in Lafayette; despite her mistrust of [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]], she believed only the men on the left were the ones able to save the nation. Early autumn 1791, the couple returned to Lyon but she did not stop publishing anonymous articles. Roland lost his job and decided to take his wife and daughter back to Paris hoping to get a pension from the government. Unable to get a pension, his desire was to go back to a tranquil life in Lyon countryside but Madame Roland did not want to leave Paris and abandon the possibility of being in the center of the political turmoil that roused French society. She not only convinced her husband to remain in Paris but also to go back into politics. She surrounded herself with a group of admirers and threw the base of her second salon with many Gironde members, particularly Bosc d’Antic who harbored a deep unrequited love for her. <br /> <br /> In 1792, the king was faced with a new crisis and had to form a new government. In an attempt to stop the looming calamity, Louis XVI called on Dumouriez to choose the new ministers. With his own ambition in mind, [[Dumouriez]] offered many portfolios to Brissotins (Brissot’s followers) later on called Girondins. Deputies were not eligible to ministry appointment, Brissot, [[Vergniaud, Pierre]] and Louvet consequently could not be selected. The Ministry of the Interior was given to Roland thanks to Brissot’s friendship and more specifically to the friendship between [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and Madame Roland. Roland was dubious about the appointment but Manon Roland saw it as her opportunity to be the real Minister of the Interior. She took charge and composed many of his speeches and checked on much of his official writings. Barbaroux, Buzot, Gaudet, Brissot, Petion, [[Louvet]] all frequented her salon, which was firmly under her aegis. She had her theories on the revolution and managed to impose them on her admirers; the Sans-Culottes were just dangerous rabble and riffraff, Robespierre could not be trusted since he did not show her much respect and did not make much effort to be included in her circle. She also disliked [[Dumouriez]] and Danton who refused to accept her influence like so many Girondins did. She believed that to be true to France and its future, she must be in the center of the action, unyielding and steadfast, willing and ready to give her life for the good of her country. She considered her salon the real Ministry of the Interior. <br /> <br /> The Girondins were opposed to the Montagnards because the former wanted to declare war to Austria, Prussia and England, following Madame Roland’s policy. She regarded [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] as a political rival and her hostility had been considered a significant source of the divide between Girondins and Montagnards. According to her, for the sake of liberty, aristocracy should lose all power and the king should strictly follow Girondin policy. She wrote Robespierre criticizing his political stance and expected him to understand her obligation to show him his errors. Robespierre chose to ignore her, which grieved her further. The new ministry only lasted three months, March to June 1792. A few days before the end of his ministry, Roland had sent a letter to the king admonishing him on his constitutional obligations. The letter had been written by Manon. The king, anticipating yet another crisis, and unpleased with the letter’s tone dismissed his Girondin administration with Roland, Claviere and Servan. Roland decided then to read the letter directly to the National Assembly, which won him much ovation from the deputies. After the fall of the monarchy and with the king’s arrest on August 10, Roland gained back his position as Minister of the Interior; however, the Girondins’ influence was weakening. They held an ambiguous position during the king’s trial; in spite of violently criticizing Louis XVI they were hesitant to condemn him. They only did so not to lose their popularity, this edging stance backfired on them. The defection to the Austrians of General [[Dumouriez]] who was a great Girondin supporter contributed to their decline. The divergence between Robespierre’s party and Brissot’s was growing stronger. Manon blamed Danton, Robespierre and Marat for the September 1792 massacre in which the crowd brutally killed thousands of royalist sympathizers and refractory priests (priests which rejected the constitution). In order to limit the influence of Paris on French politics, she wanted to create a federation of provinces which could balance the domination of the capital. Buzot, her new impassionate admirer, was still a Convention member and fervently espoused all her ideas. This new platform only served to further accentuate the split between Montagnards and Girondins. Two days after Louis XVI’s execution on 21 January 1793, Roland gave his resignation as Interior Minister. [[Danton, Georges]] along with [[Fabre d'Eglantine]] tried reconciliation with some Girondin leaders but completely dismissed Madame Roland which enraged her to no end. <br /> <br /> Manon Roland had formed a “Bureau de l’Esprit publique” in her husband’s name in order to educate people but quickly transformed it into Girondin propaganda and a tool against the Montagnards. The Convention suspected her of conspiracy against the government; she successfully deflected blame, but her attacks on Danton did not cease. Danton, who first attempted to work as an intermediary with the Girondins, ended up by abandoning them and joining Robespierre, [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]] and [[Marat, Jean-Paul]] against them. Madame Roland chose this crucial period to inform her husband of her remorseless and ardent love for another man, Buzot. She expected her spouse to understand her infidelity because in her eyes he was supposed to be her friend, loyal and sensitive to her feelings. <br /> <br /> In the Spring of 1793, the worsening of the economy infuriated Parisians who hold the Girondins responsible for the crisis. Camille Desmoulins’s ''Histoire des Brissotins'', a vitriolic attack on the Girondins, combined with [[Corday, Charlotte]]’s assassination of Marat sounded the final blows to Brissot’s party. Roland’s ''Observations de l’ex-ministre Roland'' written under his wife’s dictation, to counter the Montagnards’ accusations, did not have the expected outcome. Manon decided then to write letters hoping to trigger a revolt in the provinces against the Convention but that was to no avail. At the end of May, foreseeing the approaching downfall, she sent letters to the Convention President but the Sans-Culottes were already demanding Girondins’ arrest. On 31st May, the Paris Commune, the governing body of Paris, demanded the arrest of Girondin deputies. Robespierre, Marat and Saint-Just supported the request. On June 1st 1793, the Paris Commune declared an insurrection against the Convention to ensure the Girondin deputies would be arrested. On the night of June 1st, 1793 the comité insurrectionnel led by François Hanriot, a sans-culotte leader, along with 40,000 men surrounded the Convention and required the arrest of several leaders of the Gironde. The Montagnards were now in control of the Convention; thus began the Reign of Terror. She had chosen to stay in Paris even though her husband had fled to Rouen some days before. She was arrested on that very night. She hoped Buzot would rally the provinces and march with an army to save her and punish the Montagnards. During her imprisonment, she continued writing letters to the Convention, to different ministries, to journalists to prove her innocence. After one month, she was interrogated by the police, she was first set free on June 24th but was immediately re-arrested and sent to Sainte-Pélagie prison. She was charged because of her husband’s escape, her involvement with conspirators, and her discovered letters revealing her ambition to incite the provinces. She denied all the charges and started writing her Mémoires. She then went on a hunger strike but was transferred to the prison hospital. She planned to publicly poison herself at the coming Girondin trial after exposing all the treacheries and duplicities of the Montagnard leaders. She relied on Bosc d’Antic to supply the poison but he refused her request. The trial came but she did not have a chance to express herself. She still had the need to write and plead her emotions and unfair experience. She was moved to the Conciergerie under suspicion of promoting civil war. On November 8th, 1793, she was condemned to death by the very law that her husband’s ministry had passed previously, anyone attempting to divide the unity of the government or the republic was subjected to the guillotine. She went to the scaffold the same day with another man, Lamarche. Some sources suggested that she asked the executioner to be guillotined after Lamarche. Custom was to have women go first to save them from witnessing the savagery and violence of decapitation. Realizing that the man was significantly more distressed than she was she asked the executioner to break away from usual practice. Upon seeing her courage and resolve, the executioner accepted her request. This anecdote has not been verified. After learning the news of her death, her husband stabbed himself with a sword. <br /> <br /> In her utmost devotion to her country, Madame Roland sacrificed her husband, her lover, her friends and the Girondins. Her antipathies and rage for [[Danton, Georges]] was undoubtedly the biggest of her mistakes. The Girondins’ refusal for reconciliation with the Montagnards was partly due to Manon’s rage for Danton. She could not stand how he casually dismissed her tragic and grand posture. Madame Roland’s critical fault was to let her sentiments affect her politics. <br /> <br /> <br /> '''Guy Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Vergniaud,_Pierre&diff=1740 2023-01-22T02:14:38Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>'''Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud''' (1753-1793): French Revolutionary.<br /> <br /> Pierre Vergniaud is considered one of the supreme figures of the French Revolution and the revolution’s greatest orator along with Danton.<br /> <br /> Pierre Vergniaud was born 31 May 1753 in Limoges, a city in west-central France in a middle-class family. His father was contractor and purveyor to the king in the Limousin region. Young Vergniaud received his first education in the city’s Jesuit college. [[Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques]], intendent of the province and acquainted with Vergniaud’s father, was astonished by the precocious oratorical abilities of his friend’s son and was instrumental in getting him a grant to study in Paris at the famous Collège du Plessis. Later on, Vergniaud chose to enter the seminary to study theology but realized that the clergy was not a career for him. The following three years, he tried his hand at writing verses and epigrams. In 1778, back in Limoges, Alluaud, his brother-in-law, heard him improvising a speech and was so impressed that he offered to pay for him to study law. On 20 April 1780, Vergniaud arrived in Bordeaux, a major city in the Southwestern part of France, reputed nationwide for its law school. Thanks to his aptitude, he quickly became the protégé of the parlement’s president, Dupaty, who was also one of Bordeaux’s greatest jurists. <br /> <br /> On 13 April 1782, Vergniaud defended his first case, and his talent soon brought him fame and success. He was then in charge of defending Marie Bérigaud, accused of infanticide. His victory sealed his reputation as one of the best lawyers in the region. His eloquence was verified in each of the cases he defended; however, along with his eloquence, he also developed a reputation for being indolent, often accepting cases when in financial straits. Vergniaud liked to plea cases with a lot of drama, which would attract much attention. The Pierre Durieux case was certainly one of his most famous because the accused, Pierre Durieux, was a national guard known for his revolutionary inclinations and the alleged victim, Mr. de la Maze, was a powerful, antirevolutionary aristocrat. The trial started in February 1791 and Vergniaud’s eloquence granted him another triumph which gave him national attention. He turned the case into a revolutionary issue and, upon the release of Durieux, became the defender of the people against social injustices. <br /> <br /> In 1789, by the outbreak of the revolution, one month after the fall of the Bastille, Vergniaud had joined the newly formed Bordeaux National Guard and was elected captain of his company. He then decided to spend a few months in Paris to see firsthand the movements of the revolution. In April 1790, he joined Bordeaux’s Jacobin Society and was quickly recognized for his talent as orator; one month later, his friend Gensonné was elected president of the group and he its secretary. In September 1791, he was elected deputy to the new National Legislative Assembly along with his friends Ducos, Guadet and Gensonné to represent the Gironde region. Upon his arrival in the capital, he joined the Paris Jacobin club where he met [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and [[Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicholas Caritat, Marquis de]], the future leaders of the group later known as the Girondins. His reputation as an eloquent orator had preceded him to Paris, and he was soon elected vice-president of the Assembly. On October 20, Vergniaud delivered a speech against the “émigrés” signaling the beginning of his fame as one of France’s greatest orators. He eloquently presented the dangers of the counterrevolution and demanded for the princes to return to France and for the king to be loyal to the revolution and the constitution. Many deputies saw then in Vergniaud, [[Mirabeau, Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de]]’s long-expected successor. His speech gained him so much success that he was elected president of the Assembly. Very early on, his decisions were characterized by his desire to keep the revolution within the border of justice. Vergniaud, Gensonné, Ducos, Guadet, Condorcet, Roland and Brissot met regularly to discuss the Assembly proceedings. The first four were deputies for the Gironde region. The group was also called “Brissotins” or “Rolandins” by their political adversaries. <br /> <br /> In November 1791, assuming that Austria, Russia, Prussia and Sweden were about to invade France to restore the monarchy, Vergniaud and his group lobbied openly in favor of war against the European powers. [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] who at first favored the war, changed opinion. Believing that the Brissotins were gaining too much influence in the Assembly, he insinuated that the real enemies of the revolution were within the country and even within the Assembly. Vergniaud answered the veiled attacks in the Assembly, revealing that some of the king’s ministers were paving the way for the Austrians to deal a fatal blow to the revolution. Consequently, Louis XVI had no choice but to dismiss his ministers and named a Girondin ministry led by Clavière and Roland. The latter, minister of the interior, was very strongly influenced by his wife, [[Madame Roland]], who regularly invited the Girondin deputies to decide on their policy. Vergniaud seldom attended those house meetings. <br /> <br /> On January 17, 1792, Vergniaud gave one of his most famous speeches at the Assembly in favor of the war on Austria. His eloquence was such that, except for Robespierre and some of the Montagnards, the vast majority of the Assembly was convinced of the benefit of the war. Many compared his talent to speeches by Demosthene and Cicero and Aeschylus’s war songs. Later, the issue was put to a vote, and only Robespierre and seven of his followers voted against the war, an event which transformed his opposition to the Girondins into a real obsession. [[Desmoulins, Camille]], siding with the Montagne, started to write in his ''Tribune des Patriotes'' against the Gironde deputies. In June 1792, vetoing two requests made by the Girondins, the exile of refractory priests (clergy members refusing allegiance to the constitution) as well as the creation of a 20,000 men camp to protect the Assembly, the king asked for the dismissal of the Girondin ministers who, anticipating the king’s decision, presented their resignation. <br /> <br /> In July 1792, with the alliance of Austria and Prussia, and the inertia of Louis XVI facing a likely invasion, Vergniaud, the new voice of France, delivered an eloquent speech on the dire situation of the country and the inaction of the king and the suspicious attitude of Lafayette. On 10 August 1792, the Parisian mob, who had lost faith in their monarch since his failed attempt to flee France on 20-21 June 1791, marched to the Tuileries threatening and insulting the royal family who had to found refuge at the National Assembly under Vergniaud’s protection. That safeguard given to the king would later turn out to be Saint-Just’s and Robespierre’s point of accusation during the Girondins’s trial. Fearing an imminent invasion, Roland, Clavière and Servan suggested the government should immediately flee to Blois, whereas Vergniaud, like [[Danton, Georges]], denounced this plan as a cowardly move that would anger the people of Paris. Hearing news that the city of Verdun had fallen to the invaders, Vergniaud, again like Danton, gave eloquent speeches to motivate the nation to heroically fight the enemies.<br /> After the September 1792 massacres in which the Parisian mob murdered 1,600 inmates (mainly royalist sympathizers and refractory priests), Vergniaud blamed the Commune (the revolutionary governing body of Paris) and pointed at its tyrannical leaders, [[Marat, Jean-Paul]] and Robespierre. Vergniaud, often in agreement with Danton, had this time placed himself in the forefront of Robespierre’s no longer rivals but enemies. He had been reelected deputy in the new National Convention that replaced the National Assembly. Organized more like a republic, the Convention moved away from the monarchy and the king’s executive power and lasted until October 1795. In spite of his election, Vergniaud started to struggle to stay in political life. He remained partly to oppose the dictatorial ambition of Robespierre, hoping to keep France within the limits of justice, equality, and freedom. The Battle of Valmy on 20 September 1792, in which generals [[Dumouriez]] and Kellerman unexpectedly defeated the Prussians of the Duke of Brunswick, hurried the end of the French monarchy. Louvet, a Girondin, incited by [[Madame Roland]], relentlessly attacked Robespierre and Marat for their involvement in the September massacre; a move that Vergniaud, like [[Danton, Georges]], believed was timed very poorly because it would divide the Convention when national unity was much needed. Their fear proved correct since hard-core revolutionaries like Marat and ultra-revolutionaries (also called “enraged”) like Hebert used their newspapers for vitriolic attacks on all Girondins to defend Robespierre. Danton, like Vergniaud, had hoped for a reconciliation between Girondins and Montagnards, which would counterbalance Robespierre’s growing support from the Parisian mob, but Madame Roland’s feelings for Danton, [[Dumouriez]] and [[Fabre d'Eglantine]] made any such rapprochement unlikely.<br /> <br /> After the September massacre, the Parisian mob incited by Marat and [[Hebert, Jacques]] demanded Louis XVI’s head already stripped of his royal title. On 13 December 1792, Vergniaud delivered a speech against the king’s punishment and also attacked Robespierre and Saint-Just for attempting to replace the monarchy with their own dictatorship. At the Convention, the Girondins with [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and Buzot chose to accuse the Montagnards to support [[Philippe Egalité]], Duke of Orleans, who could replace Louis XVI after his elimination and subsequently would be used as Robespierre's puppet. The Girondins mistakenly hoped this accusation would demonstrate the Montagne's royalist inclination. From then on, Robespierre realized the need to eliminate the Girondins if he wanted to survive and, five days later, accused Vergniaud of treason for a note sent by the latter to Louis XVI. Like most Girondins, Vergniaud voted for the King’s death, conscious that voting against it would make them look like counterrevolutionaries. The paradoxical decision captured the political failure of the Gironde deputies who were against the king’s death but voted for it because of their political inability to rally the Convention and the Paris streets around them. After the king’s death, Robespierre used Hebert and Marat to gain the support of the Commune and to eliminate the Girondins in order to completely dominate the Convention.<br /> <br /> Well aware that Robespierre, [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]], and Couthon wanted to send them to the guillotine, the Girondins asked Vergniaud to speak at the Convention to defend them and point out the dangers of the new revolutionary tribunal. The speech was highly successful and was turning the tide in favor of the Gironde; however, an unexpected event sealed the fate of the latter. General [[Dumouriez]]’s attempted coup to overthrow the government and subsequent defection to the Austrians in April 1793 condemned Vergniaud, who had been regarded as one of the general’s closest allies. Desmoulins’s vitriolic ''Brissot Unmasked'' and ''History of the Brissotins'' finalized the mob’s fury for the Girondins’s blood. Danton, who mistrusted Robespierre, let the rage against the Girondins grow unimpeded because of Madame Roland and her coterie incessantly accusing him of corruption. On 10 April 1793, Robespierre delivered a venomous speech against the Girondins using Vergniaud’s letter to the king, supposedly proving the Girondin’s attachment to the monarchy and counterrevolutionary ideal. Pressed by the Mountain and the Parisian mob, on June 2, 1793, the Convention voted a decree of accusation against the Girondins. Many went into hiding but, after one day in a friend’s house, Vergniaud decided to return to his home where he remained under house arrest until early July when he was moved to prison. Danton considering the violent turn taken by the revolution showed remorse about his inability to save the Girondins from the guillotine. [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]] wrote the decree of treason against Vergniaud, Gensonné, Chabot, and Condorcet. The coup de grâce came with [[Corday, Charlotte]]’s assassination of Marat on 13 July 1793 annihilating all hope for salvation for the Girondins. The Parisian mob and the Mountain wanted immediate retribution against the Gironde deputies in revenge for Marat’s death.<br /> <br /> Through manipulations, Robespierre was now in control of the Committee of Public Safety and therefore had superseded Danton as the leader of the revolution. The Great Terror was in full motion. Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, was waiting for Robespierre and Saint-Just to provide him with any evidence of the Girondins’s alleged treason. In October, the prisoners were moved to the Conciergerie, the antechamber for the guillotine; Danton—remorseful and worn out by political intrigues, anticipating the Girondins’s demise—left Paris for his country home. When pressed by his comrades to mount his defense, Vergniaud very realistically admitted that his fate was sealed and that his eloquence would not save him this time. The trial began on 24 October 1793; the charges were absurd but supported by ultra-revolutionaries like [[Hebert, Jacques]] and Chaumette. Vergniaud was accused of protecting the king, allying himself with Dumouriez, and inciting the nation to civil war. The trial was quickly shortened because Robespierre did not want to give Vergniaud the opportunity to elaborate his defense. Vergniaud was guillotined on 31 October 1793 along with twenty-one other deputies for the Gironde. Five months later, on 5 April 1794, Danton, who had republican and anti-clerical views similar to those of Vergniaud , was also sent to the scaffold by Robespierre.<br /> <br /> The Girondins cannot be considered a firm political party with a strong ideology; they are generally viewed as more moderate. Most were united by friendship and many, but not all, by representing the Gironde region in the Assembly and then in the Convention. Many opposed the Montagnards who wanted a strong centralized power in Paris, whereas the Girondins preferred decentralization. <br /> <br /> Further Reading:<br /> <br /> Claude G. Bowers, ''Pierre Vergniaud, Voice of the French Revolution'', 1950<br /> <br /> <br /> '''Guy Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Madame_Roland&diff=1739 2023-01-22T02:06:38Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>Madame Roland (1754-1793): French salonniere and writer <br /> <br /> Madame Roland, also known as Manon Roland, was born Jeanne-Marie Phlipon on 17 March 1754 in Paris. Her parents were well off and had seven children. Except for Jeanne-Marie, all the children died at a young age. As a result, she received all her parents’ affection. Her father was a master-engraver. As a child, she was a very avid reader; she read the bible, Plutarch, Fénelon, and Tasso. As a young adult, she read [[Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de]], [[Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de]], Shakespeare, Richardson and [[Rousseau, Jean-Jacques]]. The latter exercised great influence in her life.<br /> <br /> When she was 10 years of age, one of her father’s apprentices attempted to force her into sexual acts. (She was not raped but forced to help the apprentice to gratify himself). This episode had a profound and painful impact on her life; she recounted this moment in her Mémoires because of its lasting effect on her character. In 1765, she entered a convent where she met Sophie and Henriette Cannet, with whom she would keep a lifelong friendship and epistolary exchange. In 1776, the Cannet sisters introduced her to Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière. Roland was twenty years older, grim, morose, and anxious; he worked as an Inspector of Commerce. The courtship lasted a few years due to her father’s reluctance to the wedding. After much hesitation from her part, they married in 1780. She was 26 and he, 46. They had one daughter in 1781. She clearly held the leadership in their couple. Their relation was very platonic, more philosophical than carnal, and her love regressed into simple friendship. Roland, thanks to his ''Dictionnaire des Manufactures, Arts et Métiers'', was promoted General Inspector. <br /> <br /> When the revolution started, she embraced it with great passion, pouring her soul into it. She pushed her husband into politics because she herself wanted to be in the heart of the new movement that was shaking France. In 1790, he was elected representative to the General Council of his Lyon commune. Both husband and wife got more involved in the revolution. The couple wrote accounts of their new views for France which they sent to [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and [[Desmoulins, Camille]] to be published in their journals. Always encouraged and pushed by his wife, Roland was chosen to go to the National Assembly to inform deputies of the situation that paralyzed trade in Lyon. His wife accompanied him to Paris, convinced that there was the real theater of the revolution and felt she had an important role to play in its development. <br /> Once in Paris, one of her admirers, Bosc d’Antic, helped the couple to find lodging. She finally met Brissot in person and got acquainted with Petion, Buzot, Claviere, [[Danton, Georges]] and Robespierre. She attended meetings of the Assembly and formed her opinion on most men whom she judged mediocre because of the Ancien Regime’s influence on them. She opened her house to the men of the left four days a week to discuss the future of the country, and that was the making of her first salon. She saw herself continuing the centuries old tradition of great women who through their salon contributed to the brilliance of France such as Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Rambouillet, Mademoiselle de Scudéry or Madame du Deffand. Madame Roland rarely invited other women and neither did she attend herself other salons. Petion, Buzot, Bosc d’Antic, Lanthenas and her husband formed the nucleus of her first salon. The king’s flight to Varennes in June 1791 had greatly upset her. She believed that a successful escape would have been more beneficial to France because it would have caused a civil war. According to her war regenerated men. She had lost confidence in Lafayette; despite her mistrust of [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]], she believed only the men on the left were the ones able to save the nation. Early autumn 1791, the couple returned to Lyon but she did not stop publishing anonymous articles. Roland lost his job and decided to take his wife and daughter back to Paris hoping to get a pension from the government. Unable to get a pension, his desire was to go back to a tranquil life in Lyon countryside but Madame Roland did not want to leave Paris and abandon the possibility of being in the center of the political turmoil that roused French society. She not only convinced her husband to remain in Paris but also to go back into politics. She surrounded herself with a group of admirers and threw the base of her second salon with many Gironde members, particularly Bosc d’Antic who harbored a deep unrequited love for her. <br /> <br /> In 1792, the king was faced with a new crisis and had to form a new government. In an attempt to stop the looming calamity, Louis XVI called on Dumouriez to choose the new ministers. With his own ambition in mind, [[Dumouriez]] offered many portfolios to Brissotins (Brissot’s followers) later on called Girondins. Deputies were not eligible to ministry appointment, Brissot, [[Vergniaud, Pierre]] and Louvet consequently could not be selected. The Ministry of the Interior was given to Roland thanks to Brissot’s friendship and more specifically to the friendship between [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and Madame Roland. Roland was dubious about the appointment but Manon Roland saw it as her opportunity to be the real Minister of the Interior. She took charge and composed many of his speeches and checked on much of his official writings. Barbaroux, Buzot, Gaudet, Brissot, Petion, [[Louvet]] all frequented her salon, which was firmly under her aegis. She had her theories on the revolution and managed to impose them on her admirers; the Sans-Culottes were just dangerous rabble and riffraff, Robespierre could not be trusted since he did not show her much respect and did not make much effort to be included in her circle. She also disliked [[Dumouriez]] and Danton who refused to accept her influence like so many Girondins did. She believed that to be true to France and its future, she must be in the center of the action, unyielding and steadfast, willing and ready to give her life for the good of her country. She considered her salon the real Ministry of the Interior. <br /> <br /> The Girondins were opposed to the Montagnards because the former wanted to declare war to Austria, Prussia and England, following Madame Roland’s policy. She regarded [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] as a political rival and her hostility had been considered a significant source of the divide between Girondins and Montagnards. According to her, for the sake of liberty, aristocracy should lose all power and the king should strictly follow Girondin policy. She wrote Robespierre criticizing his political stance and expected him to understand her obligation to show him his errors. Robespierre chose to ignore her, which grieved her further. The new ministry only lasted three months, March to June 1792. A few days before the end of his ministry, Roland had sent a letter to the king admonishing him on his constitutional obligations. The letter had been written by Manon. The king, anticipating yet another crisis, and unpleased with the letter’s tone dismissed his Girondin administration with Roland, Claviere and Servan. Roland decided then to read the letter directly to the National Assembly, which won him much ovation from the deputies. After the fall of the monarchy and with the king’s arrest on August 10, Roland gained back his position as Minister of the Interior; however, the Girondins’ influence was weakening. They held an ambiguous position during the king’s trial; in spite of violently criticizing Louis XVI they were hesitant to condemn him. They only did so not to lose their popularity, this edging stance backfired on them. The defection to the Austrians of General [[Dumouriez]] who was a great Girondin supporter contributed to their decline. The divergence between Robespierre’s party and Brissot’s was growing stronger. Manon blamed Danton for the September 1792 massacre in which the crowd brutally killed thousands of royalist sympathizers and refractory priests (priests which rejected the constitution). In order to limit the influence of Paris on French politics, she wanted to create a federation of provinces which could balance the domination of the capital. Buzot, her new impassionate admirer, was still a Convention member and fervently espoused all her ideas. This new platform only served to further accentuate the split between Montagnards and Girondins. Two days after Louis XVI’s execution on 21 January 1793, Roland gave his resignation as Interior Minister. [[Danton, Georges]] along with [[Fabre d'Eglantine]] tried reconciliation with some Girondin leaders but completely dismissed Madame Roland which enraged her to no end. <br /> <br /> Manon Roland had formed a “Bureau de l’Esprit publique” in her husband’s name in order to educate people but quickly transformed it into Girondin propaganda and a tool against the Montagnards. The Convention suspected her of conspiracy against the government; she successfully deflected blame, but her attacks on Danton did not cease. Danton, who first attempted to work as an intermediary with the Girondins, ended up by abandoning them and joining Robespierre, [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]] and [[Marat, Jean-Paul]] against them. Madame Roland chose this crucial period to inform her husband of her remorseless and ardent love for another man, Buzot. She expected her spouse to understand her infidelity because in her eyes he was supposed to be her friend, loyal and sensitive to her feelings. <br /> <br /> In the Spring of 1793, the worsening of the economy infuriated Parisians who hold the Girondins responsible for the crisis. Camille Desmoulins’s ''Histoire des Brissotins'', a vitriolic attack on the Girondins, combined with [[Corday, Charlotte]]’s assassination of Marat sounded the final blows to Brissot’s party. Roland’s ''Observations de l’ex-ministre Roland'' written under his wife’s dictation, to counter the Montagnards’ accusations, did not have the expected outcome. Manon decided then to write letters hoping to trigger a revolt in the provinces against the Convention but that was to no avail. At the end of May, foreseeing the approaching downfall, she sent letters to the Convention President but the Sans-Culottes were already demanding Girondins’ arrest. On 31st May, the Paris Commune, the governing body of Paris, demanded the arrest of Girondin deputies. Robespierre, Marat and Saint-Just supported the request. On June 1st 1793, the Paris Commune declared an insurrection against the Convention to ensure the Girondin deputies would be arrested. On the night of June 1st, 1793 the comité insurrectionnel led by François Hanriot, a sans-culotte leader, along with 40,000 men surrounded the Convention and required the arrest of several leaders of the Gironde. The Montagnards were now in control of the Convention; thus began the Reign of Terror. She had chosen to stay in Paris even though her husband had fled to Rouen some days before. She was arrested on that very night. She hoped Buzot would rally the provinces and march with an army to save her and punish the Montagnards. During her imprisonment, she continued writing letters to the Convention, to different ministries, to journalists to prove her innocence. After one month, she was interrogated by the police, she was first set free on June 24th but was immediately re-arrested and sent to Sainte-Pélagie prison. She was charged because of her husband’s escape, her involvement with conspirators, and her discovered letters revealing her ambition to incite the provinces. She denied all the charges and started writing her Mémoires. She then went on a hunger strike but was transferred to the prison hospital. She planned to publicly poison herself at the coming Girondin trial after exposing all the treacheries and duplicities of the Montagnard leaders. She relied on Bosc d’Antic to supply the poison but he refused her request. The trial came but she did not have a chance to express herself. She still had the need to write and plead her emotions and unfair experience. She was moved to the Conciergerie under suspicion of promoting civil war. On November 8th, 1793, she was condemned to death by the very law that her husband’s ministry had passed previously, anyone attempting to divide the unity of the government or the republic was subjected to the guillotine. She went to the scaffold the same day with another man, Lamarche. Some sources suggested that she asked the executioner to be guillotined after Lamarche. Custom was to have women go first to save them from witnessing the savagery and violence of decapitation. Realizing that the man was significantly more distressed than she was she asked the executioner to break away from usual practice. Upon seeing her courage and resolve, the executioner accepted her request. This anecdote has not been verified. After learning the news of her death, her husband stabbed himself with a sword. <br /> <br /> In her utmost devotion to her country, Madame Roland sacrificed her husband, her lover, her friends and the Girondins. Her antipathies and rage for [[Danton, Georges]] was undoubtedly the biggest of her mistakes. The Girondins’ refusal for reconciliation with the Montagnards was partly due to Manon’s rage for Danton. She could not stand how he casually dismissed her tragic and grand posture. Madame Roland’s critical fault was to let her sentiments affect her politics. <br /> <br /> <br /> '''Guy Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Madame_Roland&diff=1738 2023-01-20T14:48:45Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>Madame Roland (1754-1793): French salonniere and writer <br /> <br /> Madame Roland, also known as Manon Roland, was born Jeanne-Marie Phlipon on 17 March 1754 in Paris. Her parents were well off and had seven children. Except for Jeanne-Marie, all the children died at a young age. As a result, she received all her parents’ affection. Her father was a master-engraver. As a child, she was a very avid reader; she read the bible, Plutarch, Fénelon, and Tasso. As a young adult, she read [[Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de]], [[Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de]], Shakespeare, Richardson and [[Rousseau, Jean-Jacques]]. The latter exercised great influence in her life.<br /> <br /> When she was 10 years of age, one of her father’s apprentices attempted to force her into sexual acts. (She was not raped but forced to help the apprentice to gratify himself). This episode had a profound and painful impact on her life; she recounted this moment in her Mémoires because of its lasting effect on her character. In 1765, she entered a convent where she met Sophie and Henriette Cannet, with whom she would keep a lifelong friendship and epistolary exchange. In 1776, the Cannet sisters introduced her to Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière. Roland was twenty years older, grim, morose, and anxious; he worked as an Inspector of Commerce. The courtship lasted a few years due to her father’s reluctance to the wedding. After much hesitation from her part, they married in 1780. She was 26 and he, 46. They had one daughter in 1781. She clearly held the leadership in their couple. Their relation was very platonic, more philosophical than carnal, and her love regressed into simple friendship. Roland, thanks to his ''Dictionnaire des Manufactures, Arts et Métiers'', was promoted General Inspector. <br /> <br /> When the revolution started, she embraced it with great passion, pouring her soul into it. She pushed her husband into politics because she herself wanted to be in the heart of the new movement that was shaking France. In 1790, he was elected representative to the General Council of his Lyon commune. Both husband and wife got more involved in the revolution. The couple wrote accounts of their new views for France which they sent to [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and [[Desmoulins, Camille]] to be published in their journals. Always encouraged and pushed by his wife, Roland was chosen to go to the National Assembly to inform deputies of the situation that paralyzed trade in Lyon. His wife accompanied him to Paris, convinced that there was the real theater of the revolution and felt she had an important role to play in its development. <br /> Once in Paris, one of her admirers, Bosc d’Antic, helped the couple to find lodging. She finally met Brissot in person and got acquainted with Petion, Buzot, Claviere, [[Danton, Georges]] and Robespierre. She attended meetings of the Assembly and formed her opinion on most men whom she judged mediocre because of the Ancien Regime’s influence on them. She opened her house to the men of the left four days a week to discuss the future of the country, and that was the making of her first salon. She saw herself continuing the centuries old tradition of great women who through their salon contributed to the brilliance of France such as Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Rambouillet, Mademoiselle de Scudéry or Madame du Deffand. Madame Roland rarely invited other women and neither did she attend herself other salons. Petion, Buzot, Bosc d’Antic, Lanthenas and her husband formed the nucleus of her first salon. The king’s flight to Varennes in June 1791 had greatly upset her. She believed that a successful escape would have been more beneficial to France because it would have caused a civil war. According to her war regenerated men. She had lost confidence in Lafayette; despite her mistrust of [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]], she believed only the men on the left were the ones able to save the nation. Early autumn 1791, the couple returned to Lyon but she did not stop publishing anonymous articles. Roland lost his job and decided to take his wife and daughter back to Paris hoping to get a pension from the government. Unable to get a pension, his desire was to go back to a tranquil life in Lyon countryside but Madame Roland did not want to leave Paris and abandon the possibility of being in the center of the political turmoil that roused French society. She not only convinced her husband to remain in Paris but also to go back into politics. She surrounded herself with a group of admirers and threw the base of her second salon with many Gironde members, particularly Bosc d’Antic who harbored a deep unrequited love for her. <br /> <br /> In 1792, the king was faced with a new crisis and had to form a new government. In an attempt to stop the looming calamity, Louis XVI called on Dumouriez to choose the new ministers. With his own ambition in mind, [[Dumouriez]] offered many portfolios to Brissotins (Brissot’s followers) later on called Girondins. Deputies were not eligible to ministry appointment, Brissot, Vergniaud and Louvet consequently could not be selected. The Ministry of the Interior was given to Roland thanks to Brissot’s friendship and more specifically to the friendship between [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and Madame Roland. Roland was dubious about the appointment but Manon Roland saw it as her opportunity to be the real Minister of the Interior. She took charge and composed many of his speeches and checked on much of his official writings. Barbaroux, Buzot, Gaudet, Brissot, Petion, [[Louvet]] all frequented her salon, which was firmly under her aegis. She had her theories on the revolution and managed to impose them on her admirers; the Sans-Culottes were just dangerous rabble and riffraff, Robespierre could not be trusted since he did not show her much respect and did not make much effort to be included in her circle. She also disliked [[Dumouriez]] and Danton who refused to accept her influence like so many Girondins did. She believed that to be true to France and its future, she must be in the center of the action, unyielding and steadfast, willing and ready to give her life for the good of her country. She considered her salon the real Ministry of the Interior. <br /> <br /> The Girondins were opposed to the Montagnards because the former wanted to declare war to Austria, Prussia and England, following Madame Roland’s policy. She regarded [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] as a political rival and her hostility had been considered a significant source of the divide between Girondins and Montagnards. According to her, for the sake of liberty, aristocracy should lose all power and the king should strictly follow Girondin policy. She wrote Robespierre criticizing his political stance and expected him to understand her obligation to show him his errors. Robespierre chose to ignore her, which grieved her further. The new ministry only lasted three months, March to June 1792. A few days before the end of his ministry, Roland had sent a letter to the king admonishing him on his constitutional obligations. The letter had been written by Manon. The king, anticipating yet another crisis, and unpleased with the letter’s tone dismissed his Girondin administration with Roland, Claviere and Servan. Roland decided then to read the letter directly to the National Assembly, which won him much ovation from the deputies. After the fall of the monarchy and with the king’s arrest on August 10, Roland gained back his position as Minister of the Interior; however, the Girondins’ influence was weakening. They held an ambiguous position during the king’s trial; in spite of violently criticizing Louis XVI they were hesitant to condemn him. They only did so not to lose their popularity, this edging stance backfired on them. The defection to the Austrians of General [[Dumouriez]] who was a great Girondin supporter contributed to their decline. The divergence between Robespierre’s party and Brissot’s was growing stronger. Manon blamed Danton for the September 1792 massacre in which the crowd brutally killed thousands of royalist sympathizers and refractory priests (priests which rejected the constitution). In order to limit the influence of Paris on French politics, she wanted to create a federation of provinces which could balance the domination of the capital. Buzot, her new impassionate admirer, was still a Convention member and fervently espoused all her ideas. This new platform only served to further accentuate the split between Montagnards and Girondins. Two days after Louis XVI’s execution on 21 January 1793, Roland gave his resignation as Interior Minister. [[Danton, Georges]] along with [[Fabre d'Eglantine]] tried reconciliation with some Girondin leaders but completely dismissed Madame Roland which enraged her to no end. <br /> <br /> Manon Roland had formed a “Bureau de l’Esprit publique” in her husband’s name in order to educate people but quickly transformed it into Girondin propaganda and a tool against the Montagnards. The Convention suspected her of conspiracy against the government; she successfully deflected blame, but her attacks on Danton did not cease. Danton, who first attempted to work as an intermediary with the Girondins, ended up by abandoning them and joining Robespierre, [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]] and [[Marat, Jean-Paul]] against them. Madame Roland chose this crucial period to inform her husband of her remorseless and ardent love for another man, Buzot. She expected her spouse to understand her infidelity because in her eyes he was supposed to be her friend, loyal and sensitive to her feelings. <br /> <br /> In the Spring of 1793, the worsening of the economy infuriated Parisians who hold the Girondins responsible for the crisis. Camille Desmoulins’s ''Histoire des Brissotins'', a vitriolic attack on the Girondins, combined with [[Corday, Charlotte]]’s assassination of Marat sounded the final blows to Brissot’s party. Roland’s ''Observations de l’ex-ministre Roland'' written under his wife’s dictation, to counter the Montagnards’ accusations, did not have the expected outcome. Manon decided then to write letters hoping to trigger a revolt in the provinces against the Convention but that was to no avail. At the end of May, foreseeing the approaching downfall, she sent letters to the Convention President but the Sans-Culottes were already demanding Girondins’ arrest. On 31st May, the Paris Commune, the governing body of Paris, demanded the arrest of Girondin deputies. Robespierre, Marat and Saint-Just supported the request. On June 1st 1793, the Paris Commune declared an insurrection against the Convention to ensure the Girondin deputies would be arrested. On the night of June 1st, 1793 the comité insurrectionnel led by François Hanriot, a sans-culotte leader, along with 40,000 men surrounded the Convention and required the arrest of several leaders of the Gironde. The Montagnards were now in control of the Convention; thus began the Reign of Terror. She had chosen to stay in Paris even though her husband had fled to Rouen some days before. She was arrested on that very night. She hoped Buzot would rally the provinces and march with an army to save her and punish the Montagnards. During her imprisonment, she continued writing letters to the Convention, to different ministries, to journalists to prove her innocence. After one month, she was interrogated by the police, she was first set free on June 24th but was immediately re-arrested and sent to Sainte-Pélagie prison. She was charged because of her husband’s escape, her involvement with conspirators, and her discovered letters revealing her ambition to incite the provinces. She denied all the charges and started writing her Mémoires. She then went on a hunger strike but was transferred to the prison hospital. She planned to publicly poison herself at the coming Girondin trial after exposing all the treacheries and duplicities of the Montagnard leaders. She relied on Bosc d’Antic to supply the poison but he refused her request. The trial came but she did not have a chance to express herself. She still had the need to write and plead her emotions and unfair experience. She was moved to the Conciergerie under suspicion of promoting civil war. On November 8th, 1793, she was condemned to death by the very law that her husband’s ministry had passed previously, anyone attempting to divide the unity of the government or the republic was subjected to the guillotine. She went to the scaffold the same day with another man, Lamarche. Some sources suggested that she asked the executioner to be guillotined after Lamarche. Custom was to have women go first to save them from witnessing the savagery and violence of decapitation. Realizing that the man was significantly more distressed than she was she asked the executioner to break away from usual practice. Upon seeing her courage and resolve, the executioner accepted her request. This anecdote has not been verified. After learning the news of her death, her husband stabbed himself with a sword. <br /> <br /> In her utmost devotion to her country, Madame Roland sacrificed her husband, her lover, her friends and the Girondins. Her antipathies and rage for [[Danton, Georges]] was undoubtedly the biggest of her mistakes. The Girondins’ refusal for reconciliation with the Montagnards was partly due to Manon’s rage for Danton. She could not stand how he casually dismissed her tragic and grand posture. Madame Roland’s critical fault was to let her sentiments affect her politics. <br /> <br /> <br /> '''Guy Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Madame_Roland&diff=1737 2023-01-20T14:47:57Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>Madame Roland (1754-1793): French salonniere and writer <br /> <br /> Madame Roland, also known as Manon Roland, was born Jeanne-Marie Phlipon on 17 March 1754 in Paris. Her parents were well off and had seven children. Except for Jeanne-Marie, all the children died at a young age. As a result, she received all her parents’ affection. Her father was a master-engraver. As a child, she was a very avid reader; she read the bible, Plutarch, Fénelon, and Tasso. As a young adult, she read [[Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de]], [[Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de]], Shakespeare, Richardson and [[Rousseau, Jean-Jacques]]. The latter exercised great influence in her life.<br /> <br /> When she was 10 years of age, one of her father’s apprentices attempted to force her into sexual acts. (She was not raped but forced to help the apprentice to gratify himself). This episode had a profound and painful impact on her life; she recounted this moment in her Mémoires because of its lasting effect on her character. In 1765, she entered a convent where she met Sophie and Henriette Cannet, with whom she would keep a lifelong friendship and epistolary exchange. In 1776, the Cannet sisters introduced her to Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière. Roland was twenty years older, grim, morose, and anxious; he worked as an Inspector of Commerce. The courtship lasted a few years due to her father’s reluctance to the wedding. After much hesitation from her part, they married in 1780. She was 26 and he, 46. They had one daughter in 1781. She clearly held the leadership in their couple. Their relation was very platonic, more philosophical than carnal, and her love regressed into simple friendship. Roland, thanks to his ''Dictionnaire des Manufactures, Arts et Métiers'', was promoted General Inspector. <br /> <br /> When the revolution started, she embraced it with great passion, pouring her soul into it. She pushed her husband into politics because she herself wanted to be in the heart of the new movement that was shaking France. In 1790, he was elected representative to the General Council of his Lyon commune. Both husband and wife got more involved in the revolution. The couple wrote accounts of their new views for France which they sent to [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and [[Desmoulins, Camille]] to be published in their journals. Always encouraged and pushed by his wife, Roland was chosen to go to the National Assembly to inform deputies of the situation that paralyzed trade in Lyon. His wife accompanied him to Paris, convinced that there was the real theater of the revolution and felt she had an important role to play in its development. <br /> Once in Paris, one of her admirers, Bosc d’Antic, helped the couple to find lodging. She finally met Brissot in person and got acquainted with Petion, Buzot, Claviere, [[Danton, Georges]] and Robespierre. She attended meetings of the Assembly and formed her opinion on most men whom she judged mediocre because of the Ancien Regime’s influence on them. She opened her house to the men of the left four days a week to discuss the future of the country, and that was the making of her first salon. She saw herself continuing the centuries old tradition of great women who through their salon contributed to the brilliance of France such as Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Rambouillet, Mademoiselle de Scudéry or Madame du Deffand. Madame Roland rarely invited other women and neither did she attend herself other salons. Petion, Buzot, Bosc d’Antic, Lanthenas and her husband formed the nucleus of her first salon. The king’s flight to Varennes in June 1791 had greatly upset her. She believed that a successful escape would have been more beneficial to France because it would have caused a civil war. According to her war regenerated men. She had lost confidence in Lafayette; despite her mistrust of [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]], she believed only the men on the left were the ones able to save the nation. Early autumn 1791, the couple returned to Lyon but she did not stop publishing anonymous articles. Roland lost his job and decided to take his wife and daughter back to Paris hoping to get a pension from the government. Unable to get a pension, his desire was to go back to a tranquil life in Lyon countryside but Madame Roland did not want to leave Paris and abandon the possibility of being in the center of the political turmoil that roused French society. She not only convinced her husband to remain in Paris but also to go back into politics. She surrounded herself with a group of admirers and threw the base of her second salon with many Gironde members, particularly Bosc d’Antic who harbored a deep unrequited love for her. <br /> <br /> In 1792, the king was faced with a new crisis and had to form a new government. In an attempt to stop the looming calamity, Louis XVI called on Dumouriez to choose the new ministers. With his own ambition in mind, [[Dumouriez]] offered many portfolios to Brissotins (Brissot’s followers) later on called Girondins. Deputies were not eligible to ministry appointment, Brissot, Vergniaud and Louvet consequently could not be selected. The Ministry of the Interior was given to Roland thanks to Brissot’s friendship and more specifically to the friendship between [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and Madame Roland. Roland was dubious about the appointment but Manon Roland saw it as her opportunity to be the real Minister of the Interior. She took charge and composed many of his speeches and checked on much of his official writings. Barbaroux, Buzot, Gaudet, Brissot, Petion, [[Louvet]] all frequented her salon, which was firmly under her aegis. She had her theories on the revolution and managed to impose them on her admirers; the Sans-Culottes were just dangerous rabble and riffraff, Robespierre could not be trusted since he did not show her much respect and did not make much effort to be included in her circle. She also disliked [[Dumouriez]] and Danton who refused to accept her influence like so many Girondins did. She believed that to be true to France and its future, she must be in the center of the action, unyielding and steadfast, willing and ready to give her life for the good of her country. She considered her salon the real Ministry of the Interior. <br /> <br /> The Girondins were opposed to the Montagnards because the former wanted to declare war to Austria, Prussia and England, following Madame Roland’s policy. She regarded [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] as a political rival and her hostility had been considered a significant source of the divide between Girondins and Montagnards. According to her, for the sake of liberty, aristocracy should lose all power and the king should strictly follow Girondin policy. She wrote Robespierre criticizing his political stance and expected him to understand her obligation to show him his errors. Robespierre chose to ignore her, which grieved her further. The new ministry only lasted three months, March to June 1792. A few days before the end of his ministry, Roland had sent a letter to the king admonishing him on his constitutional obligations. The letter had been written by Manon. The king, anticipating yet another crisis, and unpleased with the letter’s tone dismissed his Girondin administration with Roland, Claviere and Servan. Roland decided then to read the letter directly to the National Assembly, which won him much ovation from the deputies. After the fall of the monarchy and with the king’s arrest on August 10, Roland gained back his position as Minister of the Interior; however, the Girondins’ influence was weakening. They held an ambiguous position during the king’s trial; in spite of violently criticizing Louis XVI they were hesitant to condemn him. They only did so not to lose their popularity, this edging stance backfired on them. The defection to the Austrians of General [[Dumouriez]] who was a great Girondin supporter contributed to their decline. The divergence between Robespierre’s party and Brissot’s was growing stronger. Manon blamed Danton for the September 1792 massacre in which the crowd brutally killed thousands of royalist sympathizers and refractory priests (priests which rejected the constitution). In order to limit the influence of Paris on French politics, she wanted to create a federation of provinces which could balance the domination of the capital. Buzot, her new impassionate admirer, was still a Convention member and fervently espoused all her ideas. This new platform only served to further accentuate the split between Montagnards and Girondins. Two days after Louis XVI’s execution on 21 January 1793, Roland gave his resignation as Interior Minister. [[Danton, Georges]] along with [[Fabre d'Eglantine]] tried reconciliation with some Girondin leaders but completely dismissed Madame Roland which enraged her to no end. <br /> <br /> Manon Roland had formed a “Bureau de l’Esprit publique” in her husband’s name in order to educate people but quickly transformed it into Girondin propaganda and a tool against the Montagnards. The Convention suspected her of conspiracy against the government; she successfully deflected blame, but her attacks on Danton did not cease. Danton, who first attempted to work as an intermediary with the Girondins, ended up by abandoning them and joining Robespierre, [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]] and [[Marat, Jean-Paul]] against them. Madame Roland chose this crucial period to inform her husband of her remorseless and ardent love for another man, Buzot. She expected her spouse to understand her infidelity because in her eyes he was supposed to be her friend, loyal and sensitive to her feelings. <br /> <br /> In the Spring of 1793, the worsening of the economy infuriated Parisians who hold the Girondins responsible for the crisis. Camille Desmoulins’s ''Histoire des Brissotins'', a vitriolic attack on the Girondins, combined with [[Corday, Charlotte]]’s assassination of Marat sounded the final blows to Brissot’s party. Roland’s Observations de l’ex-ministre Roland written under his wife’s dictation, to counter the Montagnards’ accusations, did not have the expected outcome. Manon decided then to write letters hoping to trigger a revolt in the provinces against the Convention but that was to no avail. At the end of May, foreseeing the approaching downfall, she sent letters to the Convention President but the Sans-Culottes were already demanding Girondins’ arrest. On 31st May, the Paris Commune, the governing body of Paris, demanded the arrest of Girondin deputies. Robespierre, Marat and Saint-Just supported the request. On June 1st 1793, the Paris Commune declared an insurrection against the Convention to ensure the Girondin deputies would be arrested. On the night of June 1st, 1793 the comité insurrectionnel led by François Hanriot, a sans-culotte leader, along with 40,000 men surrounded the Convention and required the arrest of several leaders of the Gironde. The Montagnards were now in control of the Convention; thus began the Reign of Terror. She had chosen to stay in Paris even though her husband had fled to Rouen some days before. She was arrested on that very night. She hoped Buzot would rally the provinces and march with an army to save her and punish the Montagnards. During her imprisonment, she continued writing letters to the Convention, to different ministries, to journalists to prove her innocence. After one month, she was interrogated by the police, she was first set free on June 24th but was immediately re-arrested and sent to Sainte-Pélagie prison. She was charged because of her husband’s escape, her involvement with conspirators, and her discovered letters revealing her ambition to incite the provinces. She denied all the charges and started writing her Mémoires. She then went on a hunger strike but was transferred to the prison hospital. She planned to publicly poison herself at the coming Girondin trial after exposing all the treacheries and duplicities of the Montagnard leaders. She relied on Bosc d’Antic to supply the poison but he refused her request. The trial came but she did not have a chance to express herself. She still had the need to write and plead her emotions and unfair experience. She was moved to the Conciergerie under suspicion of promoting civil war. On November 8th, 1793, she was condemned to death by the very law that her husband’s ministry had passed previously, anyone attempting to divide the unity of the government or the republic was subjected to the guillotine. She went to the scaffold the same day with another man, Lamarche. Some sources suggested that she asked the executioner to be guillotined after Lamarche. Custom was to have women go first to save them from witnessing the savagery and violence of decapitation. Realizing that the man was significantly more distressed than she was she asked the executioner to break away from usual practice. Upon seeing her courage and resolve, the executioner accepted her request. This anecdote has not been verified. After learning the news of her death, her husband stabbed himself with a sword. <br /> <br /> In her utmost devotion to her country, Madame Roland sacrificed her husband, her lover, her friends and the Girondins. Her antipathies and rage for [[Danton, Georges]] was undoubtedly the biggest of her mistakes. The Girondins’ refusal for reconciliation with the Montagnards was partly due to Manon’s rage for Danton. She could not stand how he casually dismissed her tragic and grand posture. Madame Roland’s critical fault was to let her sentiments affect her politics. <br /> <br /> <br /> '''Guy Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Madame_Roland&diff=1736 2023-01-20T14:46:31Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>Madame Roland (1754-1793): French salonniere and writer <br /> <br /> Madame Roland, also known as Manon Roland, was born Jeanne-Marie Phlipon on 17 March 1754 in Paris. Her parents were well off and had seven children. Except for Jeanne-Marie, all the children died at a young age. As a result, she received all her parents’ affection. Her father was a master-engraver. As a child, she was a very avid reader; she read the bible, Plutarch, Fénelon, and Tasso. As a young adult, she read [[Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de]], [[Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de]], Shakespeare, Richardson and [[Rousseau, Jean-Jacques]]. The latter exercised great influence in her life.<br /> <br /> When she was 10 years of age, one of her father’s apprentices attempted to force her into sexual acts. (She was not raped but forced to help the apprentice to gratify himself). This episode had a profound and painful impact on her life; she recounted this moment in her Mémoires because of its lasting effect on her character. In 1765, she entered a convent where she met Sophie and Henriette Cannet, with whom she would keep a lifelong friendship and epistolary exchange. In 1776, the Cannet sisters introduced her to Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière. Roland was twenty years older, grim, morose, and anxious; he worked as an Inspector of Commerce. The courtship lasted a few years due to her father’s reluctance to the wedding. After much hesitation from her part, they married in 1780. She was 26 and he, 46. They had one daughter in 1781. She clearly held the leadership in their couple. Their relation was very platonic, more philosophical than carnal, and her love regressed into simple friendship. Roland, thanks to his ''Dictionnaire des Manufactures, Arts et Métiers'', was promoted General Inspector. <br /> <br /> When the revolution started, she embraced it with great passion, pouring her soul into it. She pushed her husband into politics because she herself wanted to be in the heart of the new movement that was shaking France. In 1790, he was elected representative to the General Council of his Lyon commune. Both husband and wife got more involved in the revolution. The couple wrote accounts of their new views for France which they sent to [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and [[Desmoulins, Camille]] to be published in their journals. Always encouraged and pushed by his wife, Roland was chosen to go to the National Assembly to inform deputies of the situation that paralyzed trade in Lyon. His wife accompanied him to Paris, convinced that there was the real theater of the revolution and felt she had an important role to play in its development. <br /> Once in Paris, one of her admirers, Bosc d’Antic, helped the couple to find lodging. She finally met Brissot in person and got acquainted with Petion, Buzot, Claviere, [[Danton, Georges]] and Robespierre. She attended meetings of the Assembly and formed her opinion on most men whom she judged mediocre because of the Ancien Regime’s influence on them. She opened her house to the men of the left four days a week to discuss the future of the country, and that was the making of her first salon. She saw herself continuing the centuries old tradition of great women who through their salon contributed to the brilliance of France such as Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Rambouillet, Mademoiselle de Scudéry or Madame du Deffand. Madame Roland rarely invited other women and neither did she attend herself other salons. Petion, Buzot, Bosc d’Antic, Lanthenas and her husband formed the nucleus of her first salon. The king’s flight to Varennes in June 1791 had greatly upset her. She believed that a successful escape would have been more beneficial to France because it would have caused a civil war. According to her war regenerated men. She had lost confidence in Lafayette; despite her mistrust of [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]], she believed only the men on the left were the ones able to save the nation. Early autumn 1791, the couple returned to Lyon but she did not stop publishing anonymous articles. Roland lost his job and decided to take his wife and daughter back to Paris hoping to get a pension from the government. Unable to get a pension, his desire was to go back to a tranquil life in Lyon countryside but Madame Roland did not want to leave Paris and abandon the possibility of being in the center of the political turmoil that roused French society. She not only convinced her husband to remain in Paris but also to go back into politics. She surrounded herself with a group of admirers and threw the base of her second salon with many Gironde members, particularly Bosc d’Antic who harbored a deep unrequited love for her. <br /> <br /> In 1792, the king was faced with a new crisis and had to form a new government. In an attempt to stop the looming calamity, Louis XVI called on Dumouriez to choose the new ministers. With his own ambition in mind, [[Dumouriez]] offered many portfolios to Brissotins (Brissot’s followers) later on called Girondins. Deputies were not eligible to ministry appointment, Brissot, Vergniaud and Louvet consequently could not be selected. The Ministry of the Interior was given to Roland thanks to Brissot’s friendship and more specifically to the friendship between [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and Madame Roland. Roland was dubious about the appointment but Manon Roland saw it as her opportunity to be the real Minister of the Interior. She took charge and composed many of his speeches and checked on much of his official writings. Barbaroux, Buzot, Gaudet, Brissot, Petion, [[Louvet]] all frequented her salon, which was firmly under her aegis. She had her theories on the revolution and managed to impose them on her admirers; the Sans-Culottes were just dangerous rabble and riffraff, Robespierre could not be trusted since he did not show her much respect and did not make much effort to be included in her circle. She also disliked [[Dumouriez]] and Danton who refused to accept her influence like so many Girondins did. She believed that to be true to France and its future, she must be in the center of the action, unyielding and steadfast, willing and ready to give her life for the good of her country. She considered her salon the real Ministry of the Interior. <br /> <br /> The Girondins were opposed to the Montagnards because the former wanted to declare war to Austria, Prussia and England, following Madame Roland’s policy. She regarded [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] as a political rival and her hostility had been considered a significant source of the divide between Girondins and Montagnards. According to her, for the sake of liberty, aristocracy should lose all power and the king should strictly follow Girondin policy. She wrote Robespierre criticizing his political stance and expected him to understand her obligation to show him his errors. Robespierre chose to ignore her, which grieved her further. The new ministry only lasted three months, March to June 1792. A few days before the end of his ministry, Roland had sent a letter to the king admonishing him on his constitutional obligations. The letter had been written by Manon. The king, anticipating yet another crisis, and unpleased with the letter’s tone dismissed his Girondin administration with Roland, Claviere and Servan. Roland decided then to read the letter directly to the National Assembly, which won him much ovation from the deputies. After the fall of the monarchy and with the king’s arrest on August 10, Roland gained back his position as Minister of the Interior; however, the Girondins’ influence was weakening. They held an ambiguous position during the king’s trial; in spite of violently criticizing Louis XVI they were hesitant to condemn him. They only did so not to lose their popularity, this edging stance backfired on them. The defection to the Austrians of General [[Dumouriez]] who was a great Girondin supporter contributed to their decline. The divergence between Robespierre’s party and Brissot’s was growing stronger. Manon blamed Danton for the September 1792 massacre in which the crowd brutally killed thousands of royalist sympathizers and refractory priests (priests which rejected the constitution). In order to limit the influence of Paris on French politics, she wanted to create a federation of provinces which could balance the domination of the capital. Buzot, her new impassionate admirer, was still a Convention member and fervently espoused all her ideas. This new platform only served to further accentuate the split between Montagnards and Girondins. Two days after Louis XVI’s execution on 21 January 1793, Roland gave his resignation as Interior Minister. [[Danton, Georges]] along with [[Fabre d'Eglantine]] tried reconciliation with some Girondin leaders but completely dismissed Madame Roland which enraged her to no end. <br /> <br /> Manon Roland had formed a “Bureau de l’Esprit publique” in her husband’s name in order to educate people but quickly transformed it into Girondin propaganda and a tool against the Montagnards. The Convention suspected her of conspiracy against the government; she successfully deflected blame, but her attacks on Danton did not cease. Danton, who first attempted to work as an intermediary with the Girondins, ended up by abandoning them and joining Robespierre, [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]] and [[Marat, Jean-Paul]] against them. Madame Roland chose this crucial period to inform her husband of her remorseless and ardent love for another man, Buzot. She expected her spouse to understand her infidelity because in her eyes he was supposed to be her friend, loyal and sensitive to her feelings. <br /> <br /> In the Spring of 1793, the worsening of the economy infuriated Parisians who hold the Girondins responsible for the crisis. Camille Desmoulins’s Histoire des Brissotins, a vitriolic attack on the Girondins, combined with [[Corday, Charlotte]]’s assassination of Marat sounded the final blows to Brissot’s party. Roland’s Observations de l’ex-ministre Roland written under his wife’s dictation, to counter the Montagnards’ accusations, did not have the expected outcome. Manon decided then to write letters hoping to trigger a revolt in the provinces against the Convention but that was to no avail. At the end of May, foreseeing the approaching downfall, she sent letters to the Convention President but the Sans-Culottes were already demanding Girondins’ arrest. On 31st May, the Paris Commune, the governing body of Paris, demanded the arrest of Girondin deputies. Robespierre, Marat and Saint-Just supported the request. On June 1st 1793, the Paris Commune declared an insurrection against the Convention to ensure the Girondin deputies would be arrested. On the night of June 1st, 1793 the comité insurrectionnel led by François Hanriot, a sans-culotte leader, along with 40,000 men surrounded the Convention and required the arrest of several leaders of the Gironde. The Montagnards were now in control of the Convention; thus began the Reign of Terror. She had chosen to stay in Paris even though her husband had fled to Rouen some days before. She was arrested on that very night. She hoped Buzot would rally the provinces and march with an army to save her and punish the Montagnards. During her imprisonment, she continued writing letters to the Convention, to different ministries, to journalists to prove her innocence. After one month, she was interrogated by the police, she was first set free on June 24th but was immediately re-arrested and sent to Sainte-Pélagie prison. She was charged because of her husband’s escape, her involvement with conspirators, and her discovered letters revealing her ambition to incite the provinces. She denied all the charges and started writing her Mémoires. She then went on a hunger strike but was transferred to the prison hospital. She planned to publicly poison herself at the coming Girondin trial after exposing all the treacheries and duplicities of the Montagnard leaders. She relied on Bosc d’Antic to supply the poison but he refused her request. The trial came but she did not have a chance to express herself. She still had the need to write and plead her emotions and unfair experience. She was moved to the Conciergerie under suspicion of promoting civil war. On November 8th, 1793, she was condemned to death by the very law that her husband’s ministry had passed previously, anyone attempting to divide the unity of the government or the republic was subjected to the guillotine. She went to the scaffold the same day with another man, Lamarche. Some sources suggested that she asked the executioner to be guillotined after Lamarche. Custom was to have women go first to save them from witnessing the savagery and violence of decapitation. Realizing that the man was significantly more distressed than she was she asked the executioner to break away from usual practice. Upon seeing her courage and resolve, the executioner accepted her request. This anecdote has not been verified. After learning the news of her death, her husband stabbed himself with a sword. <br /> <br /> In her utmost devotion to her country, Madame Roland sacrificed her husband, her lover, her friends and the Girondins. Her antipathies and rage for [[Danton, Georges]] was undoubtedly the biggest of her mistakes. The Girondins’ refusal for reconciliation with the Montagnards was partly due to Manon’s rage for Danton. She could not stand how he casually dismissed her tragic and grand posture. Madame Roland’s critical fault was to let her sentiments affect her politics. <br /> <br /> <br /> '''Guy Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Madame_Roland&diff=1735 2023-01-20T14:44:02Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>Madame Roland (1754-1793): French salonniere and writer <br /> <br /> Madame Roland, also known as Manon Roland, was born Jeanne-Marie Phlipon on 17 March 1754 in Paris. Her parents were well off and had seven children. Except for Jeanne-Marie, all the children died at a young age. As a result, she received all her parents’ affection. Her father was a master-engraver. As a child, she was a very avid reader; she read the bible, Plutarch, Fénelon, and Tasso. As a young adult, she read [[Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de]], [[Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de]], Shakespeare, Richardson and [[Rousseau, Jean-Jacques]]. The latter exercised great influence in her life.<br /> <br /> When she was 10 years of age, one of her father’s apprentices attempted to force her into sexual acts. (She was not raped but forced to help the apprentice to gratify himself). This episode had a profound and painful impact on her life; she recounted this moment in her Mémoires because of its lasting effect on her character. In 1765, she entered a convent where she met Sophie and Henriette Cannet, with whom she would keep a lifelong friendship and epistolary exchange. In 1776, the Cannet sisters introduced her to Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière. Roland was twenty years older, grim, morose, and anxious; he worked as an Inspector of Commerce. The courtship lasted a few years due to her father’s reluctance to the wedding. After much hesitation from her part, they married in 1780. She was 26 and he, 46. They had one daughter in 1781. She clearly held the leadership in their couple. Their relation was very platonic, more philosophical than carnal, and her love regressed into simple friendship. Roland, thanks to his ''Dictionnaire des Manufactures, Arts et Métiers'', was promoted General Inspector. <br /> <br /> When the revolution started, she embraced it with great passion, pouring her soul into it. She pushed her husband into politics because she herself wanted to be in the heart of the new movement that was shaking France. In 1790, he was elected representative to the General Council of his Lyon commune. Both husband and wife got more involved in the revolution. The couple wrote accounts of their new views for France which they sent to [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and [[Desmoulins, Camille]] to be published in their journals. Always encouraged and pushed by his wife, Roland was chosen to go to the National Assembly to inform deputies of the situation that paralyzed trade in Lyon. His wife accompanied him to Paris, convinced that there was the real theater of the revolution and felt she had an important role to play in its development. <br /> Once in Paris, one of her admirers, Bosc d’Antic, helped the couple to find lodging. She finally met Brissot in person and got acquainted with Petion, Buzot, Claviere, [[Danton, Georges]] and Robespierre. She attended meetings of the Assembly and formed her opinion on most men whom she judged mediocre because of the Ancien Regime’s influence on them. She opened her house to the men of the left four days a week to discuss the future of the country, and that was the making of her first salon. She saw herself continuing the centuries old tradition of great women who through their salon contributed to the brilliance of France such as Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Rambouillet, Mademoiselle de Scudéry or Madame du Deffand. Madame Roland rarely invited other women and neither did she attend herself other salons. Petion, Buzot, Bosc d’Antic, Lanthenas and her husband formed the nucleus of her first salon. The king’s flight to Varennes in June 1791 had greatly upset her. She believed that a successful escape would have been more beneficial to France because it would have caused a civil war. According to her war regenerated men. She had lost confidence in Lafayette; despite her mistrust of [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]], she believed only the men on the left were the ones able to save the nation. Early autumn 1791, the couple returned to Lyon but she did not stop publishing anonymous articles. Roland lost his job and decided to take his wife and daughter back to Paris hoping to get a pension from the government. Unable to get a pension, his desire was to go back to a tranquil life in Lyon countryside but Madame Roland did not want to leave Paris and abandon the possibility of being in the center of the political turmoil that roused French society. She not only convinced her husband to remain in Paris but also to go back into politics. She surrounded herself with a group of admirers and threw the base of her second salon with many Gironde members, particularly Bosc d’Antic who harbored a deep unrequited love for her. <br /> <br /> In 1792, the king was faced with a new crisis and had to form a new government. In an attempt to stop the looming calamity, Louis XVI called on Dumouriez to choose the new ministers. With his own ambition in mind, [[Dumouriez]] offered many portfolios to Brissotins (Brissot’s followers) later on called Girondins. Deputies were not eligible to ministry appointment, Brissot, Vergniaud and Louvet consequently could not be selected. The Ministry of the Interior was given to Roland thanks to Brissot’s friendship and more specifically to the friendship between [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and Madame Roland. Roland was dubious about the appointment but Manon Roland saw it as her opportunity to be the real Minister of the Interior. She took charge and composed many of his speeches and checked on much of his official writings. Barbaroux, Buzot, Gaudet, Brissot, Petion, [[Louvet]] all frequented her salon, which was firmly under her aegis. She had her theories on the revolution and managed to impose them on her admirers; the Sans-Culottes were just dangerous rabble and riffraff, Robespierre could not be trusted since he did not show her much respect and did not make much effort to be included in her circle. She also disliked [[Dumouriez]] and Danton who refused to accept her influence like so many Girondins did. She believed that to be true to France and its future, she must be in the center of the action, unyielding and steadfast, willing and ready to give her life for the good of her country. She considered her salon the real Ministry of the Interior. <br /> <br /> The Girondins were opposed to the Montagnards because the former wanted to declare war to Austria, Prussia and England, following Madame Roland’s policy. She regarded [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] as a political rival and her hostility had been considered a significant source of the divide between Girondins and Montagnards. According to her, for the sake of liberty, aristocracy should lose all power and the king should strictly follow Girondin policy. She wrote Robespierre criticizing his political stance and expected him to understand her obligation to show him his errors. Robespierre chose to ignore her, which grieved her further. The new ministry only lasted three months, March to June 1792. A few days before the end of his ministry, Roland had sent a letter to the king admonishing him on his constitutional obligations. The letter had been written by Manon. The king, anticipating yet another crisis, and unpleased with the letter’s tone dismissed his Girondin administration with Roland, Claviere and Servan. Roland decided then to read the letter directly to the National Assembly, which won him much ovation from the deputies. After the fall of the monarchy and with the king’s arrest on August 10, Roland gained back his position as Minister of the Interior; however, the Girondins’ influence was weakening. They held an ambiguous position during the king’s trial; in spite of violently criticizing Louis XVI they were hesitant to condemn him. They only did so not to lose their popularity, this edging stance backfired on them. The defection to the Austrians of General [[Dumouriez]] who was a great Girondin supporter contributed to their decline. The divergence between Robespierre’s party and Brissot’s was growing stronger. Manon blamed Danton for the September 1792 massacre in which the crowd brutally killed thousands of royalist sympathizers and refractory priests (priests which rejected the constitution). In order to limit the influence of Paris on French politics, she wanted to create a federation of provinces which could balance the domination of the capital. Buzot, her new impassionate admirer, was still a Convention member and fervently espoused all her ideas. This new platform only served to further accentuate the split between Montagnards and Girondins. Two days after Louis XVI’s execution on 21 January 1793, Roland gave his resignation as Interior Minister. [[Danton, Georges]] along with [[Fabre d’Eglantine]] tried reconciliation with some Girondin leaders but completely dismissed Madame Roland which enraged her to no end. <br /> <br /> Manon Roland had formed a “Bureau de l’Esprit publique” in her husband’s name in order to educate people but quickly transformed it into Girondin propaganda and a tool against the Montagnards. The Convention suspected her of conspiracy against the government; she successfully deflected blame, but her attacks on Danton did not cease. Danton, who first attempted to work as an intermediary with the Girondins, ended up by abandoning them and joining Robespierre, [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]] and [[Marat, Jean-Paul]] against them. Madame Roland chose this crucial period to inform her husband of her remorseless and ardent love for another man, Buzot. She expected her spouse to understand her infidelity because in her eyes he was supposed to be her friend, loyal and sensitive to her feelings. <br /> <br /> In the Spring of 1793, the worsening of the economy infuriated Parisians who hold the Girondins responsible for the crisis. Camille Desmoulins’s Histoire des Brissotins, a vitriolic attack on the Girondins, combined with [[Corday, Charlotte]]’s assassination of Marat sounded the final blows to Brissot’s party. Roland’s Observations de l’ex-ministre Roland written under his wife’s dictation, to counter the Montagnards’ accusations, did not have the expected outcome. Manon decided then to write letters hoping to trigger a revolt in the provinces against the Convention but that was to no avail. At the end of May, foreseeing the approaching downfall, she sent letters to the Convention President but the Sans-Culottes were already demanding Girondins’ arrest. On 31st May, the Paris Commune, the governing body of Paris, demanded the arrest of Girondin deputies. Robespierre, Marat and Saint-Just supported the request. On June 1st 1793, the Paris Commune declared an insurrection against the Convention to ensure the Girondin deputies would be arrested. On the night of June 1st, 1793 the comité insurrectionnel led by François Hanriot, a sans-culotte leader, along with 40,000 men surrounded the Convention and required the arrest of several leaders of the Gironde. The Montagnards were now in control of the Convention; thus began the Reign of Terror. She had chosen to stay in Paris even though her husband had fled to Rouen some days before. She was arrested on that very night. She hoped Buzot would rally the provinces and march with an army to save her and punish the Montagnards. During her imprisonment, she continued writing letters to the Convention, to different ministries, to journalists to prove her innocence. After one month, she was interrogated by the police, she was first set free on June 24th but was immediately re-arrested and sent to Sainte-Pélagie prison. She was charged because of her husband’s escape, her involvement with conspirators, and her discovered letters revealing her ambition to incite the provinces. She denied all the charges and started writing her Mémoires. She then went on a hunger strike but was transferred to the prison hospital. She planned to publicly poison herself at the coming Girondin trial after exposing all the treacheries and duplicities of the Montagnard leaders. She relied on Bosc d’Antic to supply the poison but he refused her request. The trial came but she did not have a chance to express herself. She still had the need to write and plead her emotions and unfair experience. She was moved to the Conciergerie under suspicion of promoting civil war. On November 8th, 1793, she was condemned to death by the very law that her husband’s ministry had passed previously, anyone attempting to divide the unity of the government or the republic was subjected to the guillotine. She went to the scaffold the same day with another man, Lamarche. Some sources suggested that she asked the executioner to be guillotined after Lamarche. Custom was to have women go first to save them from witnessing the savagery and violence of decapitation. Realizing that the man was significantly more distressed than she was she asked the executioner to break away from usual practice. Upon seeing her courage and resolve, the executioner accepted her request. This anecdote has not been verified. After learning the news of her death, her husband stabbed himself with a sword. <br /> <br /> In her utmost devotion to her country, Madame Roland sacrificed her husband, her lover, her friends and the Girondins. Her antipathies and rage for [[Danton, Georges]] was undoubtedly the biggest of her mistakes. The Girondins’ refusal for reconciliation with the Montagnards was partly due to Manon’s rage for Danton. She could not stand how he casually dismissed her tragic and grand posture. Madame Roland’s critical fault was to let her sentiments affect her politics. <br /> <br /> <br /> '''Guy Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana https://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php?title=Madame_Roland&diff=1734 2023-01-20T14:38:47Z

<p>Toubiana: </p> <hr /> <div>Madame Roland (1754-1793): French salonniere and writer <br /> <br /> Madame Roland, also known as Manon Roland, was born Jeanne-Marie Phlipon on 17 March 1754 in Paris. Her parents were well off and had seven children. Except for Jeanne-Marie, all the children died at a young age. As a result, she received all her parents’ affection. Her father was a master-engraver. As a child, she was a very avid reader; she read the bible, Plutarch, Fénelon, and Tasso. As a young adult, she read [[Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de]], [[Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de]], Shakespeare, Richardson and [[Rousseau, Jean-Jacques]]. The latter exercised great influence in her life.<br /> <br /> When she was 10 years of age, one of her father’s apprentices attempted to force her into sexual acts. (She was not raped but forced to help the apprentice to gratify himself). This episode had a profound and painful impact on her life; she recounted this moment in her Mémoires because of its lasting effect on her character. In 1765, she entered a convent where she met Sophie and Henriette Cannet, with whom she would keep a lifelong friendship and epistolary exchange. In 1776, the Cannet sisters introduced her to Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière. Roland was twenty years older, grim, morose, and anxious; he worked as an Inspector of Commerce. The courtship lasted a few years due to her father’s reluctance to the wedding. After much hesitation from her part, they married in 1780. She was 26 and he, 46. They had one daughter in 1781. She clearly held the leadership in their couple. Their relation was very platonic, more philosophical than carnal, and her love regressed into simple friendship. Roland, thanks to his ''Dictionnaire des Manufactures, Arts et Métiers'', was promoted General Inspector. <br /> <br /> When the revolution started, she embraced it with great passion, pouring her soul into it. She pushed her husband into politics because she herself wanted to be in the heart of the new movement that was shaking France. In 1790, he was elected representative to the General Council of his Lyon commune. Both husband and wife got more involved in the revolution. The couple wrote accounts of their new views for France which they sent to [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and [[Desmoulins, Camille]] to be published in their journals. Always encouraged and pushed by his wife, Roland was chosen to go to the National Assembly to inform deputies of the situation that paralyzed trade in Lyon. His wife accompanied him to Paris, convinced that there was the real theater of the revolution and felt she had an important role to play in its development. <br /> Once in Paris, one of her admirers, Bosc d’Antic, helped the couple to find lodging. She finally met Brissot in person and got acquainted with Petion, Buzot, Claviere, [[Danton, Georges]] and Robespierre. She attended meetings of the Assembly and formed her opinion on most men whom she judged mediocre because of the Ancien Regime’s influence on them. She opened her house to the men of the left four days a week to discuss the future of the country, and that was the making of her first salon. She saw herself continuing the centuries old tradition of great women who through their salon contributed to the brilliance of France such as Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Rambouillet, Mademoiselle de Scudéry or Madame du Deffand. Madame Roland rarely invited other women and neither did she attend herself other salons. Petion, Buzot, Bosc d’Antic, Lanthenas and her husband formed the nucleus of her first salon. The king’s flight to Varennes in June 1791 had greatly upset her. She believed that a successful escape would have been more beneficial to France because it would have caused a civil war. According to her war regenerated men. She had lost confidence in Lafayette; despite her mistrust of [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]], she believed only the men on the left were the ones able to save the nation. Early autumn 1791, the couple returned to Lyon but she did not stop publishing anonymous articles. Roland lost his job and decided to take his wife and daughter back to Paris hoping to get a pension from the government. Unable to get a pension, his desire was to go back to a tranquil life in Lyon countryside but Madame Roland did not want to leave Paris and abandon the possibility of being in the center of the political turmoil that roused French society. She not only convinced her husband to remain in Paris but also to go back into politics. She surrounded herself with a group of admirers and threw the base of her second salon with many Gironde members, particularly Bosc d’Antic who harbored a deep unrequited love for her. <br /> <br /> In 1792, the king was faced with a new crisis and had to form a new government. In an attempt to stop the looming calamity, Louis XVI called on Dumouriez to choose the new ministers. With his own ambition in mind, [[Dumouriez]] offered many portfolios to Brissotins (Brissot’s followers) later on called Girondins. Deputies were not eligible to ministry appointment, Brissot, Vergniaud and Louvet consequently could not be selected. The Ministry of the Interior was given to Roland thanks to Brissot’s friendship and more specifically to the friendship between [[Brissot, Jacques Pierre]] and Madame Roland. Roland was dubious about the appointment but Manon Roland saw it as her opportunity to be the real Minister of the Interior. She took charge and composed many of his speeches and checked on much of his official writings. Barbaroux, Buzot, Gaudet, Brissot, Petion, [[Louvet]] all frequented her salon, which was firmly under her aegis. She had her theories on the revolution and managed to impose them on her admirers; the Sans-Culottes were just dangerous rabble and riffraff, Robespierre could not be trusted since he did not show her much respect and did not make much effort to be included in her circle. She also disliked [[Dumouriez]] and Danton who refused to accept her influence like so many Girondins did. She believed that to be true to France and its future, she must be in the center of the action, unyielding and steadfast, willing and ready to give her life for the good of her country. She considered her salon the real Ministry of the Interior. <br /> <br /> The Girondins were opposed to the Montagnards because the former wanted to declare war to Austria, Prussia and England, following Madame Roland’s policy. She regarded [[Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de]] as a political rival and her hostility had been considered a significant source of the divide between Girondins and Montagnards. According to her, for the sake of liberty, aristocracy should lose all power and the king should strictly follow Girondin policy. She wrote Robespierre criticizing his political stance and expected him to understand her obligation to show him his errors. Robespierre chose to ignore her, which grieved her further. The new ministry only lasted three months, March to June 1792. A few days before the end of his ministry, Roland had sent a letter to the king admonishing him on his constitutional obligations. The letter had been written by Manon. The king, anticipating yet another crisis, and unpleased with the letter’s tone dismissed his Girondin administration with Roland, Claviere and Servan. Roland decided then to read the letter directly to the National Assembly, which won him much ovation from the deputies. After the fall of the monarchy and with the king’s arrest on August 10, Roland gained back his position as Minister of the Interior; however, the Girondins’ influence was weakening. They held an ambiguous position during the king’s trial; in spite of who violently criticizing Louis XVI they were hesitant to condemn him. They only did so not to lose their popularity, this edging stance backfired on them. The defection to the Austrians of General [[Dumouriez]] who was a great Girondin supporter contributed to their decline. The divergence between Robespierre’s party and Brissot’s was growing stronger. Manon blamed Danton for the September 1792 massacre in which the crowd brutally killed thousands of royalist sympathizers and refractory priests (priests which rejected the constitution). In order to limit the influence of Paris on French politics, she wanted to create a federation of provinces which could balance the domination of the capital. Buzot, her new impassionate admirer, was still a Convention member and fervently espoused all her ideas. This new platform only served to further accentuate the split between Montagnards and Girondins. Two days after Louis XVI’s execution on 21 January 1793, Roland gave his resignation as Interior Minister. [[Danton, Georges]] along with [[Fabre d’Eglantine]] tried reconciliation with some Girondin leaders but completely dismissed Madame Roland which enraged her to no end. <br /> <br /> Manon Roland had formed a “Bureau de l’Esprit publique” in her husband’s name in order to educate people but quickly transformed it into Girondin propaganda and a tool against the Montagnards. The Convention suspected her of conspiracy against the government; she successfully deflected blame, but her attacks on Danton did not cease. Danton, who first attempted to work as an intermediary with the Girondins, ended up by abandoning them and joining Robespierre, [[Saint-Just, Louis-Antoine de]] and [[Marat, Jean-Paul]] against them. Madame Roland chose this crucial period to inform her husband of her remorseless and ardent love for another man, Buzot. She expected her spouse to understand her infidelity because in her eyes he was supposed to be her friend, loyal and sensitive to her feelings. <br /> <br /> In the Spring of 1793, the worsening of the economy infuriated Parisians who hold the Girondins responsible for the crisis. Camille Desmoulins’s Histoire des Brissotins, a vitriolic attack on the Girondins, combined with [[Corday, Charlotte]]’s assassination of Marat sounded the final blows to Brissot’s party. Roland’s Observations de l’ex-ministre Roland written under his wife’s dictation, to counter the Montagnards’ accusations, did not have the expected outcome. Manon decided then to write letters hoping to trigger a revolt in the provinces against the Convention but that was to no avail. At the end of May, foreseeing the approaching downfall, she sent letters to the Convention President but the Sans-Culottes were already demanding Girondins’ arrest. On 31st May, the Paris Commune, the governing body of Paris, demanded the arrest of Girondin deputies. Robespierre, Marat and Saint-Just supported the request. On June 1st 1793, the Paris Commune declared an insurrection against the Convention to ensure the Girondin deputies would be arrested. On the night of June 1st, 1793 the comité insurrectionnel led by François Hanriot, a sans-culotte leader, along with 40,000 men surrounded the Convention and required the arrest of several leaders of the Gironde. The Montagnards were now in control of the Convention; thus began the Reign of Terror. She had chosen to stay in Paris even though her husband had fled to Rouen some days before. She was arrested on that very night. She hoped Buzot would rally the provinces and march with an army to save her and punish the Montagnards. During her imprisonment, she continued writing letters to the Convention, to different ministries, to journalists to prove her innocence. After one month, she was interrogated by the police, she was first set free on June 24th but was immediately re-arrested and sent to Sainte-Pélagie prison. She was charged because of her husband’s escape, her involvement with conspirators, and her discovered letters revealing her ambition to incite the provinces. She denied all the charges and started writing her Mémoires. She then went on a hunger strike but was transferred to the prison hospital. She planned to publicly poison herself at the coming Girondin trial after exposing all the treacheries and duplicities of the Montagnard leaders. She relied on Bosc d’Antic to supply the poison but he refused her request. The trial came but she did not have a chance to express herself. She still had the need to write and plead her emotions and unfair experience. She was moved to the Conciergerie under suspicion of promoting civil war. On November 8th, 1793, she was condemned to death by the very law that her husband’s ministry had passed previously, anyone attempting to divide the unity of the government or the republic was subjected to the guillotine. She went to the scaffold the same day with another man, Lamarche. Some sources suggested that she asked the executioner to be guillotined after Lamarche. Custom was to have women go first to save them from witnessing the savagery and violence of decapitation. Realizing that the man was significantly more distressed than she was she asked the executioner to break away from usual practice. Upon seeing her courage and resolve, the executioner accepted her request. This anecdote has not been verified. After learning the news of her death, her husband stabbed himself with a sword. <br /> <br /> In her utmost devotion to her country, Madame Roland sacrificed her husband, her lover, her friends and the Girondins. Her antipathies and rage for [[Danton, Georges]] was undoubtedly the biggest of her mistakes. The Girondins’ refusal for reconciliation with the Montagnards was partly due to Manon’s rage for Danton. She could not stand how he casually dismissed her tragic and grand posture. Madame Roland’s critical fault was to let her sentiments affect her politics. <br /> <br /> <br /> '''Guy Toubiana'''<br /> <br /> The Citadel</div>

Toubiana