tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88328592092314807252024-03-18T02:47:56.559-07:00 Rodama: a blog of 18th-century & Revolutionary FranceRodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.comBlogger667125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-65425094931971667432024-01-19T14:00:00.000-08:002024-02-04T13:06:58.883-08:00A little-known heroine of the Nancy Affair<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is a curious footnote to the story of Désilles to discover that a second person was credited with heroism the "Nancy Affair" - and that this was a woman, indeed a "woman of the people": the wife of the Concierge at the Porte Stainville. </span> Here she is in Le Barbier's painting, serving the cause of peace by determinedly pouring a bucket of water over one of the cannons:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYAZHG0xEohbU0c9RRi-SztGtBXFWaX6NYJCmFTvthdweXA4-HPxok9Mvn8TDZ3MU2nfmV6PXIdQ3j1cs4NR2EHMXcb2Qs1CCtU0eHOwuNS9TNaVQLeOtwIsrH2UE0NQOFrOgVXBI3bTb9ylK0JYIyCltw4fEVDzb5P53Lcg3NdXNkI5O0PbjVRZFiAvPk/s1100/Concierge%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="603" data-original-width="1100" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYAZHG0xEohbU0c9RRi-SztGtBXFWaX6NYJCmFTvthdweXA4-HPxok9Mvn8TDZ3MU2nfmV6PXIdQ3j1cs4NR2EHMXcb2Qs1CCtU0eHOwuNS9TNaVQLeOtwIsrH2UE0NQOFrOgVXBI3bTb9ylK0JYIyCltw4fEVDzb5P53Lcg3NdXNkI5O0PbjVRZFiAvPk/w640-h350/Concierge%20(1).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">There is only one known engraving wholly devoted to this little-known figure, a plate from Volume 5 of Prudhomme's <i style="color: #333333;">Révolutions de Paris, </i><span style="color: #333333;">dated 11th September 1790 (No.62, p.462):</span></span><p></p><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV41mONZ1_q246lLvvTag4896pSZtW1zjfuUxF7SVtqB1Y1dHkGYAXcS2wDr397_lgMrnmooLF-Xzb1dE1QREoHjcBfLY0f4EQPB2nzGkLQA-Nd7it9q4QEanAb3jkX0AYxvWepCym1LIlXey6iu_HxjEImpLZ317fGDqgCl1vlfILqu8_YaaMqWhXc10w/s737/Humberg.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="737" data-original-width="447" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV41mONZ1_q246lLvvTag4896pSZtW1zjfuUxF7SVtqB1Y1dHkGYAXcS2wDr397_lgMrnmooLF-Xzb1dE1QREoHjcBfLY0f4EQPB2nzGkLQA-Nd7it9q4QEanAb3jkX0AYxvWepCym1LIlXey6iu_HxjEImpLZ317fGDqgCl1vlfILqu8_YaaMqWhXc10w/s16000/Humberg.png" /></span></a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div><br /></div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Title:</b> Porte de Stanislas, à Nancy : la femme Humberg, concierge de la porte de Stanislas à Nancy, voulant empêcher qu'on tira un canon, qui étoit à la dite porte prit un seau d'eau et le renversa sur la lumiere, malgré les oppositions des canonniers : [estampe] / [non identifié]</span></span><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Publisher : </span></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Bureau des Révolutions de Paris (Paris)</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Publication date : </span></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">1790</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: start;"><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84111927" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84111927</span></a></div><div><br /></div><div>The caption translates: <i>The Stanislas Gate in Nancy: the wife of Humberg, concierge of the Stanislas Gate, wanting to prevent the firing of a cannon in front of the said gate, took a bucket of water and tipped it over the firing pan, despite the opposition of the gunners. </i> </div><div>[Pupil (1976) A29, fig.13 and p.87) </div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh44eAxk92jIeg90OEx9G5Fkl-Iwd6u1IFYqtczbG9lb-FMF822zfffEdwzsM7Ws9y7pRYYB8QwIF8p5nS35duvPGyJd0zCZz0j3xzZinWTJeO3f8q_qd2eahrslfuciqpBXM2QXQpNxC2I52UyLf91kkQ0lzggiFSHjZ4z5Ur9P5ychckYEueP1s5LxjtG/s1390/Si%C3%A8ge_de_Nancy_par_M_%5B...%5D_btv1b84111853_1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1390" data-original-width="810" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh44eAxk92jIeg90OEx9G5Fkl-Iwd6u1IFYqtczbG9lb-FMF822zfffEdwzsM7Ws9y7pRYYB8QwIF8p5nS35duvPGyJd0zCZz0j3xzZinWTJeO3f8q_qd2eahrslfuciqpBXM2QXQpNxC2I52UyLf91kkQ0lzggiFSHjZ4z5Ur9P5ychckYEueP1s5LxjtG/w186-h320/Si%C3%A8ge_de_Nancy_par_M_%5B...%5D_btv1b84111853_1.jpg" width="186" /></a><br /><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: x-small;">The Siege of Nancy [Pupil (1976), A28]</span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"> </span><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84111853" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84111853</span></a></span></td></tr></tbody></table>As Pupil notes, as with Prudhomme's earlier plate of Désilles (A28), the engraving shows no knowledge of the topography of Nancy. The Gate where the action took place is named Porte Notre Dame in one engraving and Porte Stanislas in the other; in both it appears as part of a medieval wall rather than a new monumental arch.</div><div><br /></div><div>No Christian names for the woman are ever supplied, but she is more usually referred to as "Humbert" rather than Humberg.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>The subject may perhaps have been more popular than this one engraving suggests. Pupil also inventories a painting mentioned</div><div> in a letter of 1910 as on sale at the galerie Duchemin in Paris. The canvas, which measured about 80cm by 50cm, showed the concierge's wife, together with a magistrate, surrounded by soldiers of the Châteauvieux (A30). </div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Who was <i>la femme</i> Humbert?</span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><span> Attention was first drawn to the existence of our heroine by the local historian Paul Dumont</span> in <span> the </span>bulletin of the Lorraine Archaeological Society for February 1910 (see reference). </div><div><br /></div><div>Dupont points out that, in all likelihood, the immediate source for Prudhomme's image was the eye-witness account by the cavalry officer Léonard, published only a few weeks after events in Nancy - note that this text too refers mistakenly to the Porte Stanislas. On p.143 we read:</div><div><br /></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">If men have acquired the right the gratitude of their country, a women whose name should be remembered by posterity, merits it no less. Towards half-past-three, as the army of M. de Bouillé approached the gates of the town, the wife of the concierge of Porte Stanislas [sic], Madame Humbert, noticed that the soldiers who guarded the gate were preparing to light the cannons. After trying in vain to dissuade them, she did not fear to take action. Since she realised that her strength and entreaties were of no avail against such maniacs, she went inside, fetched a pail of water, and threw it over the pans of the cannons. Her courage astonished the soldiers who contented themselves with giving her verbal abuse; they were unable to use their artillery pieces until the very moment after the attack on the gate had already begun.</span></i></div><div><div><i>Relation exacte et impartiale de ce qui s'est passé a Nancy le 31 août<span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px;"> </span>et les jours précédents, par M. de Léonard, officier au Regiment du Mestre-de-Camp-Général de la Cavalerie.</i> Prefaced by a letter dated 18th October 1790. p.143. </div></div><div><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ivmxRb-JBp8C&pg=PA143#v=onepage&q&f=false">https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ivmxRb-JBp8C&pg=PA143#v=onepage&q&f=false</a></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div><br /></div><div>Dumont also refers to a number of archival documents. Among them are two petitions addressed to the citizens of Nancy and its suburbs, requesting financial support for the concierge and his wife. Appended are a total of 145 signatures, mostly from prominent citizens of Nancy. The text, which is very similar in both cases, reads as follows:</div><div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Let us not forget to honour virtue when it is shown by a poor man; let us hasten to improve his lot when he has contributed effectively to saving his Country. This debt is no less sacred. We speak of Sr Humbert, the caretake of the Porte Stainville. We speak still more of his wife....</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">On the morning of the 31st four pieces of artillery were ranged under the porte Stainville, one of which, a 24-pounder, was positioned in the little door next to the caretaker's lodging. At about two o'clock a man in gunner's uniform noticed this emplacement; he spoke to Humbert's wife and asked where her children were? In my basement - Take them elsewhere; if the gun goes off the gate and your house will be blown sky-high. The frightened mother fetched her children and took them to a safer house. Humbert remained at the gate and refused to leave. Once assured of her children's safety, his wife came back to share with him the danger of perishing under the rubble. M. Delort, arriving at the gate, saw the soldiers ready to fire; he cried "These are our friends, not Turks; they do not intend any harm". When he found his exhortations were useless, he placed his head in front of one cannon whilst M. Desisles [sic] seized hold of another. A soldier who saw his comrades hesitate before such heroism, took a taper, went into the caretaker's house and lit it. Humbert's wife, who was more agile than her husband, poured water on the pan and returned to throw more on her fire; Humbert seized the soldier's taper and threw it away; the angry man came up and pushed him; at that moment he was fired on and his blood spurted over Humbert and his wife. M. de Bouillé's troops entered the city and battle was engaged. Several officers and soldiers of the Royal Liégeois regiment were wounded. Humbert and his wife took them in; their children's bedding and all their linen served as bandages; their house was a refuge for seven persons, to whom they gave every care.</span></i></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">Citizens - here are the facts: what virtues! You see a tender mother watching for the safety of her children; nothing extraordinary in that, I give you; but then she returns to face danger beside her husband. In this she shows great courage and a fine example of conjugal devotion.</div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"><br /></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">Next, you see this woman stand in the way of the soldier who was going to light the 24-pounder. In this way she saved the life of a large number of Frenchmen who would have been killed, and saved her country from the fury of the troops maddened by desire for vengeance, bloodlust and pillage.</div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"><br /></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">The destruction of the gate was not the only danger that the two citizens ran. They acted to save us under musket fire from two sides. Three soldiers from Nancy were killed; one of them covered Humbert and his wife in his blood. They exposed themselves to the same risks and survived only by good luck.</div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is interesting to note that Madame Humbert's sponsors, writing in 1790, still tend to think of heroic virtue as the preserve of the educated classes:</span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"><br /></div></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">As you see, this virtuous couple merit praise for their great courage... and, in addition, for the humanity they showed in collecting and tending the wounded, without regard for themselves or their children... They now languish in poverty and their meager possessions have disappeared in the crisis. Their poverty is an offence against good citizenship....All virtue has an equal right to recognition; if there is any bias it should be in favour of the poor, who have not imbibed with their mothers' milk the principles which determine great actions....</div></span></div><div>Translated from P. Dumont(1910) p.31-32.</div><div><a href="https://archive.org/details/bulletinsociarcheolorraine10/page/n39/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/bulletinsociarcheolorraine10/page/n39/mode/2up</a></div><div><br /></div><div>The petitioners go on to note that, although Humbert had been in post for two years, he is still waiting for an official warrant in order to claim his salary and has been obliged to subsist on payments received from traffic passing through the Gate. We learn that he has four children in all to support, one of them only a baby. </div><div><br /></div><div> Associated with the petition are three depositions from soldiers, who certify that they had witnessed Madame Humbert douse the 24-pounder. (Spelling was obviously not their strong point, even in the case of lieutenant Bonviller, the former marquis d'Aulnoy; the third man has been reduced to giving a signed oral statement.):</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK4qcUhZDtjEUPT5Um3elrpOFIBRj1SpCRBKaj8qFkAoMWd2Lp5MknRnpAxBwDqcfZhlgz0tLF-S9cQWMFgnQIqx-kXuhJGJFw-0JbluZOYx2DOguhxY-hZkAw1zVT-OUkW52dUej4nqy0NipK_ltDZWZc0Cj7cgguzlIAUXULbUDgBRmlXglxOwCE2VtR/s639/Attestations.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="553" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK4qcUhZDtjEUPT5Um3elrpOFIBRj1SpCRBKaj8qFkAoMWd2Lp5MknRnpAxBwDqcfZhlgz0tLF-S9cQWMFgnQIqx-kXuhJGJFw-0JbluZOYx2DOguhxY-hZkAw1zVT-OUkW52dUej4nqy0NipK_ltDZWZc0Cj7cgguzlIAUXULbUDgBRmlXglxOwCE2VtR/s16000/Attestations.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>It would seem that the efforts of the petitioners did bear at least some fruit. In a letter dated 29 November 1790 the comte de Saint-Priest in Paris writes to informs Bouillé that the Queen herself had heard about the actions of <i>la dame</i> Humbert and wished reward the bravery of a person of her own sex. She forwarded a sum of 1200 livres from her personal coffers for and would request that the woman be added to the list of persons eligible for a pension from the Public Treasury. (Dumont , p.35-36)</div><div><br /></div></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Other depictions</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>If you look carefully, you can spot Madame Humbert in several other illustrations of the Nancy Affair:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJzABBXvNrsNCzh5j5vHgO27XP0BJuclEKDOrv46ZefetsdMTra9TMQV003SnffvYJiZ__PEfn3yzZMIFMKxKeNvdstyf5MXT5HLL30LcK6vmD8eZQtV2vy1xeSodKZZ22oeykyKdPKjGRlfz9WM7PLIJNeRzt2u0DVchfqO_WyKOJ-w-GXSr_LiQ7lFMs/s1694/Le_Pays_lorrain___revue_%5B...%5DSoci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_d'histoire_bpt6k9601139s_91.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="548" data-original-width="1694" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJzABBXvNrsNCzh5j5vHgO27XP0BJuclEKDOrv46ZefetsdMTra9TMQV003SnffvYJiZ__PEfn3yzZMIFMKxKeNvdstyf5MXT5HLL30LcK6vmD8eZQtV2vy1xeSodKZZ22oeykyKdPKjGRlfz9WM7PLIJNeRzt2u0DVchfqO_WyKOJ-w-GXSr_LiQ7lFMs/w640-h207/Le_Pays_lorrain___revue_%5B...%5DSoci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_d'histoire_bpt6k9601139s_91.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Detail from a gouache in the Musée Lorrain. [Pupil (1976) A23]</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>Here she is with her bucket in the foreground of the gouache from the Musée Nancy (Pupil A23) and, below, in a rare early plate by the local engraver Hoerpin [See Pupil (1976), A24].</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeiJVMPu7gU8f469Q4dgx4wAxYzQ3CuBb2t7Y7H3A8ajvTFLbOE93twjnGkxCFKvtGzQpdc_XOQKm38ejU3-gfUqbfVmGVQ94JrQRoQv1o580gRyfaZrlryBNROPx5N4qnXr7lp1AsB5_hIgndVSz8QRPsghacs18qNCgUUqdhxVIet3Rt4bp-vNfsIyEd/s722/Humbert2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="461" data-original-width="722" height="408" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeiJVMPu7gU8f469Q4dgx4wAxYzQ3CuBb2t7Y7H3A8ajvTFLbOE93twjnGkxCFKvtGzQpdc_XOQKm38ejU3-gfUqbfVmGVQ94JrQRoQv1o580gRyfaZrlryBNROPx5N4qnXr7lp1AsB5_hIgndVSz8QRPsghacs18qNCgUUqdhxVIet3Rt4bp-vNfsIyEd/w640-h408/Humbert2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"> <span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Devotion of M. Désilles at the Stainville Gate in Nancy, engraved by Hoerpin <br /><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84111838">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84111838</a></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>An engraving after Jean-Louis Prieur, which appeared in the <i>Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française</i> (1791 to 1804) introduces for the first time the sentimental figure of Mme Humbert's child. Le Barbier has clearly borrowed his infant from this popular plate.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7vlb-Doe-F-pWz__1EZmwxCvz6yfxrT18Ay10bWH3o0QwZQbjz-4vCc-Iwq6o2XH6_GxN6qQPnXcyHRExM_8vivpjQOIbzpjgGB0wX3GgPC3B7ZidhS5Ppvko_fVZ3-x-29dzOqPE2MEI-8vnQIt61dqs7g3s39JWSa4fYxBHJvLhTWaFpAH_7EZM88-3/s1309/Affaire_de_Nancy_Mort_de_%5B...%5DBerthault_Pierre-Gabriel_btv1b6944668v_1%20(2).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="634" data-original-width="1309" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7vlb-Doe-F-pWz__1EZmwxCvz6yfxrT18Ay10bWH3o0QwZQbjz-4vCc-Iwq6o2XH6_GxN6qQPnXcyHRExM_8vivpjQOIbzpjgGB0wX3GgPC3B7ZidhS5Ppvko_fVZ3-x-29dzOqPE2MEI-8vnQIt61dqs7g3s39JWSa4fYxBHJvLhTWaFpAH_7EZM88-3/w640-h310/Affaire_de_Nancy_Mort_de_%5B...%5DBerthault_Pierre-Gabriel_btv1b6944668v_1%20(2).jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Nancy Affair / Death of Désilles. Engraved by Pierre-Gabriel Berthault after a drawing by Jean-Louis Prieur [Pupil (1976) A15]</span><br /><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6944668v">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6944668v</a><br /></span></span><br /><br /></td><td class="tr-caption"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYCTDlF592FtSYo4zkXn7lV5GnVBHE_QlrwHBplQajbAwsUHDEnG2P7GMDxl9nfGd6W5GfYUeIgr6sMoBdeO0AKtOVuRiPvRjaDiD72KQ3mGbyGZxxY_KqNuW8fhpkn8hF8EoARNF4poXSD_oECz5VdEQFj1QmsWVVp_mFfqjvCMPk0Z-f17sxdMePdA-P/s640/Snip7.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="28" data-original-width="640" height="18" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYCTDlF592FtSYo4zkXn7lV5GnVBHE_QlrwHBplQajbAwsUHDEnG2P7GMDxl9nfGd6W5GfYUeIgr6sMoBdeO0AKtOVuRiPvRjaDiD72KQ3mGbyGZxxY_KqNuW8fhpkn8hF8EoARNF4poXSD_oECz5VdEQFj1QmsWVVp_mFfqjvCMPk0Z-f17sxdMePdA-P/w400-h18/Snip7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As always, ephemeral figures like Madame Humbert disappear rapidly from the historical record. We learn that Humbert himself received 300 francs from a subscription opened in favour of the dead and wounded, which produced 6, 425 livres 16 sols in all. But, sadly, according to François Pupil, in 1792 our heroine was still waiting to be compensated for her troubles. (See Pupil, p.102; I haven't managed to find more details ).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><br /></div></div></div><div><div><b>References</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Paul Dumont, "Sur un episode peu connu de l'affaire de Nancy, <i>Bulletin de la Société d'archéologie lorraine</i> (Feb.1910), p.28-36.</div><div><a href="https://archive.org/details/bulletinsociarcheolorraine10/page/n39/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/bulletinsociarcheolorraine10/page/n39/mode/2up</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>François Pupil, "Le dévouement du chevalier Desilles et l'affaire de Nancy en 1790: essai de catalogue iconographique",<i> Le Pays lorrain,</i> 1976, p.73-110.</div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9601139s/f79.item#">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9601139s/f79.item#</a></div></div><div><br /></div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-81490613889605051262024-01-17T13:59:00.000-08:002024-01-21T12:24:37.013-08:00Le Barbier's "Heroic courage of Désilles" <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqPngV0fgvbTOAGopvq8qClmQhzUWA9FnIZsUPzRXtFWCpbqR4aJV8Rc8EyLKferbrGGEdMhFmVUPwJQisXahYib3tinS2kmQaeuArmBR76m3Y_ctzXvaO8iSFYtMN5Lb7mQ8mmOXu-s_BH0ogK1RyTGC4R1pAAx0E2T2thuDF3K_dr0E18tT7gLCLa3fC/s690/Desilles%20detail.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="690" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqPngV0fgvbTOAGopvq8qClmQhzUWA9FnIZsUPzRXtFWCpbqR4aJV8Rc8EyLKferbrGGEdMhFmVUPwJQisXahYib3tinS2kmQaeuArmBR76m3Y_ctzXvaO8iSFYtMN5Lb7mQ8mmOXu-s_BH0ogK1RyTGC4R1pAAx0E2T2thuDF3K_dr0E18tT7gLCLa3fC/w640-h432/Desilles%20detail.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Le Barbier, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Heroic courage of the young Désilles</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (1794) - detail</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">The making of an artist</span></b></p><div><div>The career of Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier is a revealing case study of how professional artists made a living in late 18th century France - and of the strategies they employed to weather the storms of the Revolutionary years.</div><div><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div>Le Barbier's was a success story, of a provincial made good in the elitist and competitive world of Parisian fine art. He was born in the parish of Saint-Maclou in Rouen in 1738, into a family of "limited means"(according to <i>Wikipedia</i>). He studied at the School of Fine Art founded in Rouen in 1741 by Jean-Baptiste Descamps, carrying off two first prizes. From there, he moved to Paris in 1758, where worked for the fashionable engraver Lebas, then joined the atelier of the <i>Premier peintre du Roi</i>, Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre at the School of the Royal Academy of Painting. In 1767-68 he found the resources to make the virtually obligatory trip to Rome. 1776 saw a prestigious official commission when he journeyed to Switzerland to prepare illustrations for the government-sponsored<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <i style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">Tableau de la Suisse.</i> </span> . In 1780, he was made an associate member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture, becoming a full member in 1785. His reception piece as a history painter was a finely executed but conventionally conceived <i>Jupiter asleep on Mount Ida</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHYDGJoGc1MZ-PjICLGy0VbXVx9zZEBjYzrwba9u8Iuwv8o0BCCzPAvccO5qFe_D9bQnI4XtFymPpstd5FRyq4ooqVPxeHzoNiwbtHWNQ_Jp0Oc1Ff66xJn3lV3n57MFqVM6L6a2Yoq0zHj4PbqvA-2-GqlvKK7E6Hd6Cu3uJTz7na_d2_GXsxEasJElms/s600/Mount%20Ida.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="482" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHYDGJoGc1MZ-PjICLGy0VbXVx9zZEBjYzrwba9u8Iuwv8o0BCCzPAvccO5qFe_D9bQnI4XtFymPpstd5FRyq4ooqVPxeHzoNiwbtHWNQ_Jp0Oc1Ff66xJn3lV3n57MFqVM6L6a2Yoq0zHj4PbqvA-2-GqlvKK7E6Hd6Cu3uJTz7na_d2_GXsxEasJElms/s320/Mount%20Ida.JPG" width="257" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Le Barbier, <i>Jupiter asleep on Mount Ida</i>, 1785 <br /><a href="https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010053152">https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010053152</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div>Le Barbier was to exhibit annually at the Salon from 1789 to 1799, "with the exception of only one year" (1793, I would guess) and produced a whole series of ambitious large-scale oil paintings, mostly of Classical or French historical subjects. Although he was consistently admired for his draughtsmanship, his paintings were not generally well-received by contemporary and later 19th-century critics. Today, however, they command very high prices at auction<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">: in 2021 his <i>Magnanimity of Lycyrgus</i> changed hands for</span><span style="color: #333333;"> over a million </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">US dollars.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Le Barbier has also recently become the subject of renewed scholarly attention. A <i>catalogue raisonné</i> of his work was published by the late Michel Jacq-Hergoualc'h in 2014. As this reveals, Le Barbier's many paintings were only a relatively small part of his artistic activity, for he undertook paid work of all kinds, particularly designs for engravings and book illustrations:</div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>During his long life Le Barbier</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><i> produced nearly a hundred paintings, pragmatically conforming to the mode of his time, as much by his subjects as through his style. He produced many drawings in a great variety of techniques : lead pencil, sanguine, pen and ink, wash, and watercolor. Another major part of his activity was devoted to the production of vignettes (there are hundreds) for the illustration of more than sixty luxurious volumes. They provided work for over a hundred engravers during his lifetime. Some of these paintings or highly finished drawings, often known to the public since they had been exhibited at the very official Salons du Louvre, were also engraved and the prints thus produced were widely diffused</i>. [Abstract of an article by </span>Jacq-Hergoualc'h in <i>Revue de l Art, </i>2012]</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>In the decade preceding the Revolution, Le Barbier turned his talents to contemporary events in a series of illustrations for Hilliard d'Auberteuil's <i>Essais historiques et politiques sur les Anglo-Américains</i> (1781-82) and also in designs for a collection of engravings on American themes by François Godefroy and Nicolas Ponce. In a study published in 1989, Edith Standen of the Metropolitan Museum suggests that the subjects chosen reflected something of the artist's personal outlook. He eschewed the direct depictions of violence but preferred scenes of intense emotion, for instance Dr Warren's death at Bunker Hill, "the work of arbitrary power", or General Richard Montgomery killed in 1775 and honorably buried by his opponents. In the Salon of 1781 he exhibited a portrait of a Canadian native and his wife on the tomb of their child, an intensely sentimental subject taken from Raynal. <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Finally, in 1786 Le Barbier received a royal commission to design a series of tapestries </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">to be offered to Washington </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">representing the four parts of the world.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> His "America" is a floridly patriotic allegory, emphasising Frances contribution to the war for liberty. Also among his unpublished drawings is an image of Minerva holding the head of Rousseau which confirms the admiration for Rousseau which he shared with so many of his contemporaries. (See Standen, "</span>Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier and Two Revolutions.” <i>Metropolitan Museum Journal</i>, 1989, vol. 24: p. 255–74.)</div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjenxU-HiG_9pI4RllKZafOeqbSx9ZYmAtdS55CpWbZOd_dBluNF58YZ5vuQtiZDyf7YuYy19Mh88u4Ejnmq_4CVnbls2SyDG2HqWk1cBk80v7mGQtrs1hia8VgbfSa93Ld6lWitsifY4Y3tjxR3vyQUtjYF9pQchVdQItreSVBt4KaU9tkQlgiHw4v65l_/s1905/DT1846.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1551" data-original-width="1905" height="522" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjenxU-HiG_9pI4RllKZafOeqbSx9ZYmAtdS55CpWbZOd_dBluNF58YZ5vuQtiZDyf7YuYy19Mh88u4Ejnmq_4CVnbls2SyDG2HqWk1cBk80v7mGQtrs1hia8VgbfSa93Ld6lWitsifY4Y3tjxR3vyQUtjYF9pQchVdQItreSVBt4KaU9tkQlgiHw4v65l_/w640-h522/DT1846.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">America, tapestry designed by Le Barbier, Metropolitan Museum<br /><a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/206743">https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/206743</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">We catch a final glimpse of Le Barbier before the Revolution in 1788, when he attended a splendid ceremonial inauguration of one of his paintings in Beauvais. The canvas in question, depicting the Beauvais 15th-century heroine Jeanne Hachette, had been bought by Louis XVI at the Salon of 1781 and was now donated by the King to the town. An account of the ceremony appeared in the <i>Journal de Paris </i>on 5th February 1789, only a day before the convocation of the Estates-General was formally announced. (The painting survived the Revolution, only to be destroyed in 1941).</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><div>See P. Bordeaux, "Don par le Roi Louis XVI aux habitants de Beauvais d'un tableau", Mémoires de la Société académique d'archéologie, sciences et arts du département de l'Oise, 1907, p.103-118.</div><div><a href="https://archive.org/details/memoiressocacadoise20/page/104/mode/2up?q=barbier&view=theater">https://archive.org/details/memoiressocacadoise20/page/104/mode/2up?q=barbier&view=theater</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Le Barbier's final commission before the Revolution was to be the painted ceiling of the temporary hall in Versailles where the Estates-General was scheduled to meet.</div></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Le Barbier in Revolution </span></b></div><div><br /></div><div><span face="Roboto, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">In 1789, then, Le Barbier had already turned fifty, an Academician and "Peintre du roi". At the outset, at least, he seems to have been an active partisan of Revolutionary change. He was a member of the Commune and in September 1791 he is listed among the Paris electors to the Legislative Assembly. He </span><span style="background-color: white;">was also chosen, along with David, to assist in the "regeneration" of the Royal Academy of Painting. </span>To the Salon of 1789, in which Hubert Robert exhibited his painting of the Bastille, he contributed a portrait of Henri Dubois, the grenadier who had been the first to enter the fortress and plant the flag on its tower. A news item in the <i>Observateur</i> for August 12th 1789 reveals that he had expressly defied the comte d'Angiviller who had forbidden him, on behalf of the King, to exhibit the work. (see Standen, p.266). </div><div><br /></div><div>A more felicitous and enduring contribution to Revolutionary iconography - and one perhaps more in tune with his personal convictions - was his famous, and oft reproduced, image of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizens engraved on stone tablets like the Laws of Moses:</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBhviCa2kcYc3gkf1jhkDJEKl_UtqXuhWEEkwwiARnlJL3LPovEWFlqYhXckS2EAuOwhqzF_780dKbR4q2niy5Lv1SzQY1ZkpDMt3R5bFLYBofqDx6foAnVke927L4VFiDgeXQ02hlf2a3SUt6KVaZEcqAoaCQVwgNy9aeIwY3jPEeQ4u2Nfmv47MjDupz/s776/Declaration%20of%20the%20Rights%20of%20Man.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="776" data-original-width="598" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBhviCa2kcYc3gkf1jhkDJEKl_UtqXuhWEEkwwiARnlJL3LPovEWFlqYhXckS2EAuOwhqzF_780dKbR4q2niy5Lv1SzQY1ZkpDMt3R5bFLYBofqDx6foAnVke927L4VFiDgeXQ02hlf2a3SUt6KVaZEcqAoaCQVwgNy9aeIwY3jPEeQ4u2Nfmv47MjDupz/w309-h400/Declaration%20of%20the%20Rights%20of%20Man.jpg" width="309" /></a></div></div><div><b><br /></b></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div><div><div><div><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><b>Barbier's Désilles </b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>The exact origins of Le Barbier's interest in Désilles and the events in Nancy are uncertain. Perhaps the artist himself chose the subject: certainly he dedicated himself over several years to bringing the project to successful completion. Désilles's heroism represented a suitably dramatic theme for his talents and, in all likelihood, chimed with his own commitment to Revolutionary reconciliation and the rule of law.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Here is what is known of the painting's genesis:</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Preliminary studies</b></div><div>On 26th October 1790, ten day after Désilles's death, the Municipality of Nancy welcomed Le Barbier of the Paris Academy, who had been "charged with retracing the heroic action of Désilles" (Badel, <i>Les caveaux de la cathédrale de Nancy</i> (1911), p. 46). An archival register confirmed that he had come "to make a plan of the site where the action of M. Désilles took place and to transmit it to posterity by an engraving", <i>Archives de Nancy</i>, ed.Henri LePage (1865, p.119)</div><div><br /></div><div> The wording suggests Le Barbier already had an official commission of some sort, possibly for an initial engraving. The trip is confirmed by several other reference. The accuracy of Le Barbier's depiction of Nancy particularly the architecture of the Gate, is generally acknowedged and is clearly the result of personal observation.</div><div><br /></div><div>An isolated and intriguing reference: On the occasion of the Festival of Liberty in honour of the <i>Suisse, </i>Mme. Rosalie Ducrolay Jullien reported to her husband that she had spoken to the artist, who revealed "astonishing information" concerning the Nancy affair that he had learned from Désilles's father and mother. (Letter of 16th April 1792 in <i>Journal d'une bourgeoise </i>(1881) p.68).</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Engravings</b></div><div>Le Barbier at first hoped to fund his project with a subscription to an engraving. In December 1790 he submitted his preliminary studies to the Assembly and the engravers secured permission to dedicate their work to the "Representatives of the French People". A part of the proceeds from the sales was promised to the widows and orphans of the Nancy affair. Philippe Bordes notes that subscriptions to engravings were launched concurrently in the Jacobin Club for Le Barbier's picture and David's <i>Tennis Court Oath</i> (Bordes, <i>Le Serment du Jeu de paume</i> (1983), p.50-51).</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The British Library preserves a Prospectus, dated 20th December, for an engraving after Le Barbier by Pierre Laurent: </b></div><div><div>"..<i>.a society has chosen M. Le Barbier the elder, painter to the King, who has journeyed to Nancy to draw the view of the place where this young officer gave such a great example of courage. He has consulted several soldiers who witnessed the action, and has neglected nothing to represent it with exactitude and fidelity</i>." (quoted, Bordes, note 112, p. 103). </div></div><div>Subscribers were charged an immediate down payment of 24 livres; 30 livres on receipt.</div><div><br /></div><div>A second engraving, by Laurent Joseph Julien ("Julien le neveu") also enjoyed official status and, since it shows a very similar scene, was possibly again sanctioned by Le Barbier.</div><div><br /></div><div>In contrast to David's venture, which was not a success, the engravings after Le Barbier were widely diffused, with examples in many collections. The popularity of the subject is attested by the existence of numerous copies - four directly after Laurent (Pupil, A5-A8) and a dozen others with obvious borrowings. There seems, however, to have been some delay in marketing Laurent's work. It was not until 17th April 1792, that is after the triumph of the Swiss, that the Assembly accepted a presentation copy of the engraving. On 27th April 1792 the <i>Courrier des 83 departements</i> confirmed that the work was finished and available for sale<i> </i>chez Laurent and at all print shops. (See Pupil p.83.)</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Zc9_d6NlT69J1iCSL-sXFuJnWS1GXz8l3fuEuK9FYjN3B2VG0wlEG9FpsM2NXXoXEFfzKLtu0VeqMdJ8a0K93TZ3VSZMW0h-P2dkOIvDTdsw3YNpbG3ZalXEXdZiNbsw43OoXGuk8zfcYdgSSJHJaIiuZ4_7hCCUly5J7gkeQDfZnV5gAbxx5Es5yxry/s640/Snip7.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="28" data-original-width="640" height="28" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Zc9_d6NlT69J1iCSL-sXFuJnWS1GXz8l3fuEuK9FYjN3B2VG0wlEG9FpsM2NXXoXEFfzKLtu0VeqMdJ8a0K93TZ3VSZMW0h-P2dkOIvDTdsw3YNpbG3ZalXEXdZiNbsw43OoXGuk8zfcYdgSSJHJaIiuZ4_7hCCUly5J7gkeQDfZnV5gAbxx5Es5yxry/w640-h28/Snip7.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><div>There are two extant versions of Le Barbier's preliminary drawings, one in the Carnavalet and the other, in brown wash and chalk, formerly in the Musée Lorrain, now temporarily in the Louvre collections [Pupil, <i>Catalogue iconographique </i>(1976), A1 and A2]</div><div><i><br /></i></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzYCW9wJ9ZjfQVyBmb9vJua7g2RXQdg_T5pC7PN2rKHuJsWLwsHt270rrb4Vsap6-pFPvnuDOlnr4GMkjGIjF8KJ0cnbU6upz_UM3_9KDqoQ0l6NrES-baV47Kg1SbUOxx3-Se_Mx2F7wPy_0eoJAfv60BNsQm5l-XhnLYAzsUcIOZ_AFa3Sl3xaUogp2J/s768/Drawing%20-%20Louvre.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="578" data-original-width="768" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzYCW9wJ9ZjfQVyBmb9vJua7g2RXQdg_T5pC7PN2rKHuJsWLwsHt270rrb4Vsap6-pFPvnuDOlnr4GMkjGIjF8KJ0cnbU6upz_UM3_9KDqoQ0l6NrES-baV47Kg1SbUOxx3-Se_Mx2F7wPy_0eoJAfv60BNsQm5l-XhnLYAzsUcIOZ_AFa3Sl3xaUogp2J/w640-h482/Drawing%20-%20Louvre.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Death of the chevalier Dessilles at the porte de Stainville in Nancy [Pupil, A2]<br /><a href="https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl020034922" style="text-align: left;">https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl020034922</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>He also designed a more fanciful print, published in December 1791 [E5], which shows Désilles received by Henri IV in the Elysian fields.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoxrFSqrUI41Fj2Kb5gxbafFXDYANUC4uNfp-kKEngDAGszEhdhIPuTUcREq6KLYvTkaTZJHErIajBlTfqLfeSbDTzucwgWsYqPvZ4-UyNZtJtz1Rvr-usyTCBEnUfCm0x5onSfBx2VoIV9qX3a6qdopeL3BpzG-My0G2B73T-ePl0fDMSHbffTibw2s3N/s1018/Desilles_present%C3%A9_par_Minerve_%C3%A0_%5B...%5DGirard_Romain_btv1b6944679n_1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="734" data-original-width="1018" height="462" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoxrFSqrUI41Fj2Kb5gxbafFXDYANUC4uNfp-kKEngDAGszEhdhIPuTUcREq6KLYvTkaTZJHErIajBlTfqLfeSbDTzucwgWsYqPvZ4-UyNZtJtz1Rvr-usyTCBEnUfCm0x5onSfBx2VoIV9qX3a6qdopeL3BpzG-My0G2B73T-ePl0fDMSHbffTibw2s3N/w640-h462/Desilles_present%C3%A9_par_Minerve_%C3%A0_%5B...%5DGirard_Romain_btv1b6944679n_1.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Desilles is presented par Minerva to Henri IV "aux Champs Elisées", engraving by Romain Girard after a design by Le Barbier.<br /><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6944679n">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6944679n</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><b>The "apotheosis" of Désilles</b></div><div>In January 1791 Le Barbier was presented with the opportunity for a more elaborate piece of self promotion. Désilles's host on the Place Royale,chanced to be a young artist from Saint-Domingue named Mulnier - in all probability the miniaturist Jean-Baptiste-Ferdinand Mulnier (1757-1836).</div><div>The latter had taken a death mask of Désilles with the the idea of creating a portrait bust and offering it to the Assembly. When he was obliged to return the colonies, Le Barbier took over the project and made himself responsible for the production and marketing of the bust. </div><div><br /></div><div>On 29th January 1791, at the request of the two artists, Gouy d'Arcy, the deputy for Saint-Domingue, made the planned presentation to the Assembly. No doubt Le Barbier himself orchestrated the ceremony, which was an elaborate affair. No less than 600 National Guards from the Battalion of Montmartre, where Le Barbier lived, processed to Assembly hall to the sound of drum rolls and military music composed especially for the occasion. The bust, adorned with Desilles's cross of Saint-Louis, was borne into the session on a raft of sabers. Gouy d'Arcy gave a fulsome address in which he eulogised both artists. The Assembly then voted a civic crown to Désilles; the bust was deposited on the secretaries' bureau and Le Barbier himself placed the laurel wreath on its head. </div><div><br /></div><div>It was on this occasion that it was agreed, on the proposal of Le Camus, that Desilles should be invited to execute a full scale version of his composition at the expense of the nation, to act as a pendant to David's Oath of the Tennis Court. In this way the Assembly would emulated the King who had previously funded two pictures every two year to encourage the arts. A submission of accounts in June confirms that Le Barbier had been awarded the sum of 2,800 livres.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Philippe Bordes (p.37) remarks on Le Barbier's financial savviness: not only was his co-operation with the engravers successful, but he managed to secure the expenses for his painting well before David, who did not receive funds for the <i>Serment </i>until 28th September 1791.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Exhibition </b></div><div><div>Even by the time of his official commission in January 1791, Le Barbier must have be well-aware that the political status of his subject was equivocal. Advisedly, he did not make his completed canvas public until after the fall of Robespierre. In October 1794 he was paid 1,800 livres for the finished work. At a meeting on December 7th the Conservatoire, the governing body of the newly formed Palais National des Arts, announced the purchase and two days later the picture was ordered to be put on exhibition. It was shown at the Salon of 1795 (no.303). The catalogue gave no description of its subject, but merely stated "This event from recent history is so well known that it was thought unnecessary to give the details". This reticence is has been taken to reflect the equivocal status of Désilles's heroism in 1795, though this is only an inference. We learn that the picture was not well received by the critics although La Barbier was awarded "a prize of encouragement" (Pupil, p.95)</div></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWAhdKOVVOy-o-MqQrOmQI6M74ABy1ZmFYLbdmAarY0vlKQNg739z1zOi6QWNWix87slrjRKhTt6HBXH_el5hJd0Nr7aNeOUn_InRHNgUe9Vs2W43QpOLMcwdp-HLS2y6LbO1H2iFcGE8hO-3oXo1EO76To98VDxKlwP7za8leY_3LUCfucDW0fHJN_dnb/s1135/Le_Jeune_D%C3%A9silles_a_l'affaire_%5B...%5DLaurent_Pierre_btv1b6944667f_1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="833" data-original-width="1135" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWAhdKOVVOy-o-MqQrOmQI6M74ABy1ZmFYLbdmAarY0vlKQNg739z1zOi6QWNWix87slrjRKhTt6HBXH_el5hJd0Nr7aNeOUn_InRHNgUe9Vs2W43QpOLMcwdp-HLS2y6LbO1H2iFcGE8hO-3oXo1EO76To98VDxKlwP7za8leY_3LUCfucDW0fHJN_dnb/w640-h470/Le_Jeune_D%C3%A9silles_a_l'affaire_%5B...%5DLaurent_Pierre_btv1b6944667f_1.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Le Jeune Désilles a l'affaire de Nancy : le 31 aoust 1790. Engraved by Pierre Laurent after Le Barbier. <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6944667f">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6944667f</a></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWqpgMWmTDSfMX0okC5U1o2YNrYsAbB3jg_0o3WXkATOajIjGNMGC639NIRVJgqjFXTPDM1d9DC553Qr4Q87rXUZXyBIe7IWWFavXcsibxOu6o0lqEp8uGOKYHekoY_d3VsxMTMj_D1Kny-9ZS4c0Enl4yfj0nBTTw2yiCl5UHoDUzuI1Vhsc5uBBaCLgy/s1146/800314ht.jpg" style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1146" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWqpgMWmTDSfMX0okC5U1o2YNrYsAbB3jg_0o3WXkATOajIjGNMGC639NIRVJgqjFXTPDM1d9DC553Qr4Q87rXUZXyBIe7IWWFavXcsibxOu6o0lqEp8uGOKYHekoY_d3VsxMTMj_D1Kny-9ZS4c0Enl4yfj0nBTTw2yiCl5UHoDUzuI1Vhsc5uBBaCLgy/w640-h446/800314ht.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The finished painting has several differences from the engraved version. Désilles is shown without his helmet and the dated military uniforms, with their heavy buttoned gaiters, have been modified or abandoned - note particularly the mutineer in the centre of the canvas with his short curly hair and fashionably tight breeches. On the right, two soldiers with guns have been replaced by a barefoot man with a pike, who is perhaps intended to be a civilian insurgent. The civilian notables Desbourdes, Goeury and Nicolas have also been made more prominent, the first with a tricolour sash, the second with his arms outstretched and the third baring his heart. The concierge's wife, a documented participant in events - is introduced, with her child, to the right.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is usually inferred these alterations represent a change of political message, forced on Le Barbier by the rehabilitation of the mutineers. Thus François Pupil, writing in 1976: </div><div><div><br /></div><div><i>Le Barbier found himself in 1792 charged with representing a subject totally at odds with the preoccupations of the moment. The assassins of Désilles had been rehabilitated and become the victims of the Nancy affair. The painter thus put off the execution of the commission and did not bring it to completion until June 1794. The difficulties of payment and the work's reception, must have made him forget all the problems that he had encountered in envisioning the subject: a hero contested by his assassins and sufficiently equivocal to be pitied or blamed, soldiers who have become brave sans-culottes, a crowd that invades the field of combat and pushes the composition towards a scene of popular uprising - all that was new in the Salon painting, even though the" Courage héroique du Jeune Desilles" conserved the broad outlines of the scene invented in 1790. </i>[Pupil (1976) p.82] </div><div><br /></div><div>According to Philippe Bordes : <i>In his first design he launched a moderate appeal for respect for the laws; subsequently he modified the composition to adapt to the radicalism of public opinion and in 1795 he exhibited a work which had become more indulgent towards the people, which the Thermidorians did not much appreciate</i> [Bordes, (1983) p. 37]<i>.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>The same analysis is repeated on modern websites: </div><div><br /></div><div><i>[Le Barbier] submitted a initial drawing in late 1790. Désilles is central to the composition, shown as a true hero. The mutineers are depicted as rebels attacking Désilles, as an outrageous act. But between its commissioning in 1790 and the completion of the painting in 1794, the political situation in France was changing fast. The Revolutionaries having taken power, Le Barbier's initial project becomes suspect. The painter therefore has to transform the spirit of his canvas: the military insurrection becomes a justified popular uprising. In the final painting, Désilles is depicted with his helmet on the ground, he has lost his military prestige. In among the people, a woman appears: she is now the figure of peace, who extinguishes the cannon.</i></div></div><div>Musée Lorrain, Nancy (collections): "The Heroic Courage of Young Désilles, 30th August 1790, on the Nancy Affair" - Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier, 1794<br /><a href="https://visite-numerique.nancy.fr/z12/#/app/57d15607054b4/sc/wzobj-scenario_57c0413219478">https://visite-numerique.nancy.fr/z12/#/app/57d15607054b4/sc/wzobj-scenario_57c0413219478</a></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>[Between the preliminary sketch and the finished version] the Revolution had reversed the interpretation of events; the hero Désilles had become suspect to the Revolutionary cause, and the mutineers were perceived as martyrs. Despite several corrections made by the painter to his initial composition, the painting still showed the rebel soldiers as factious and he received a cold reception.</i></div><div><div>Sabine Bouchy du Palut,"La Mutinerie de Nancy, août 1790", <i>L'Histoire par l'image</i>, post of 03.2016.</div><div><a href="https://histoire-image.org/etudes/mutinerie-nancy-aout-1790">https://histoire-image.org/etudes/mutinerie-nancy-aout-1790</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Personally I am not sure this "political" reading is really justified. The changes to the scene seem mostly stylistic. Certainly, there is no need to conclude that Désilles's moral authority is undermined by the removal of his helmet: perhaps Le Barbier simply wanted to focus greater attention on the young man's face?</div><div><br /></div><div><div>It is also worth stepping back to consider the nature of Désilles's heroism. A few radical commentators apart, Désilles' intervention was not generally construed by contemporaries as an act of resistance to popular Revolution. His "heroic courage" lay in his intercession between the two sides in an attempt to prevent an act of lawless violence which, as the caption to one engraving put it, "threatened the order of whole of France". As such, Désilles's example was never officially repudiated. Indeed, as noted, even after the rehabilitation of the imprisoned <i>Suisses</i>, engravings of his action continued to be marketed. </div><div><br /></div><div>Robert Rosenblum, in his <i>Transformations in Late Eighteenth-Century Art, </i>observes that in the late 1790s, under the Directory, themes which suggested the establishment of peace and order enjoyed a new popularity, culminating in 1799 in Guérin's <i>Return of Marcus Sextus</i> and David's<i> Intervention of the Sabine Women.</i> Even works which were overtly anti-Revolutionary in intention were officially welcomed. Other paintings displayed in 1795 with Le Barbier's canvas included Joseph-Benoît Suvée's portrait of André Chenier on the day before his execution and an allegory by François-Nicolas Mouchet in which the Genius of France reestablishes the Reign of Justice after the bloodletting of the Terror.[See Rosenblum (1967) p.81-92]. </div></div></div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Le Barbier's later life</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div><div> By 1795, the aging Le Barbier found his work was no longer in fashion. He continued to exhibit and to design book illustrations, but confined himself mainly to historical and literary subjects. In latter years he became an enthusiast for Greek style and an active member the Celtic Academy, later the Society of Antiquaries. He was also author of several books, on the art of paint and drawing. In 1816, under the Restoration, he was made a member of the reconstituted Académie des Beaux Arts. </div><div><br /></div><div>His political feelings at the end of the Napoleonic period are succinctly expressed in a drawing in the Musée Dobrée, Nantes, which shows a weeping woman holding a fleur-de-lis shield and gauzing at a royal crown on the table beside her. The sketch is dated 21st March 1815, the date of Louis XVIII's flight from Paris and Napoleon's return to the Tuileries [Standen (1989), p.271, and fig.25]. </div><div><br /></div><div>Le Barbier died on 7th May 1826 at the age of 87. He left two daughters, Élise and Henriette, who were both also commercially successful artists. </div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>The painting of Désilles was given by the state to the Musée Lorrain in Nancy in 1872 and is now on display in the Museum of the French Revolution, Vizille.</b></div><div><br /></div></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div><br /></div></div><div><b>References</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div><div>Robert Rosenblum, <i>Transformations in Late Eighteenth-Century Art </i>(1967), p.81-92.</div><div><a href="https://archive.org/details/transformationsi00rose/page/88/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/transformationsi00rose/page/88/mode/2up</a>?</div><div><br /></div><div>François Pupil, "Le dévouement du chevalier Desilles et l'affaire de Nancy en 1790: essai de catalogue iconographique",<i> Le Pays lorrain,</i> 1976, p.73-110.</div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9601139s/f79.item#">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9601139s/f79.item#</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Philippe Bordes, <i>Le Serment du Jeu de paume de Jacques-Louis David</i> (1983)</div><div><a href="https://archive.org/details/lesermentdujeude0000bord">https://archive.org/details/lesermentdujeude0000bord</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Edith A, Standen. “Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier and Two Revolutions.” <i>Metropolitan Museum Journal</i>, 1989, vol. 24: p. 255–74. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190805225256/http://resources.metmuseum.org/resources/metpublications/pdf/Jean_Jacques_Francois_Le_Barbier_and_Two_Revolutions_The_Metropolitan_Museum_Journal_v_24_1989.pdf" target="_blank">Archived from the Metropolitan Museum website</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b> </b></div><div><b>General references for Le Barbier:</b></div><div>"Jean-Jacques Le Barbier" on <i>Wikipedia.fr.</i></div><div><a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Le_Barbier">https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Le_Barbier</a></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Catalogue raisonné [summaries on Amazon]</span></div><div><div><div>Vol. 1: Paintings: <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jean-Jacques-Fran%C3%A7ois-Barbier-la%C3%AEn%C3%A9-Catalogue/dp/4907162189">https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jean-Jacques-Fran%C3%A7ois-Barbier-la%C3%AEn%C3%A9-Catalogue/dp/4907162189</a></div><div>Vol. 2: Drawings <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jean-Jacques-Fran%C3%A7ois-Barbier-la%C3%AEn%C3%A9-Catalogue/dp/4907162197">https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jean-Jacques-Fran%C3%A7ois-Barbier-la%C3%AEn%C3%A9-Catalogue/dp/4907162197</a></div></div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>Art Salon - auction prices</div><div><a href="https://www.art.salon/artist/jean-jacques-francois-le-barbier">https://www.art.salon/artist/jean-jacques-francois-le-barbier</a></div><div><div><br /></div></div></div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-29441886534173420322024-01-15T13:56:00.000-08:002024-02-16T00:35:12.575-08:00André Désilles - forgotten Revolutionary hero<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWqpgMWmTDSfMX0okC5U1o2YNrYsAbB3jg_0o3WXkATOajIjGNMGC639NIRVJgqjFXTPDM1d9DC553Qr4Q87rXUZXyBIe7IWWFavXcsibxOu6o0lqEp8uGOKYHekoY_d3VsxMTMj_D1Kny-9ZS4c0Enl4yfj0nBTTw2yiCl5UHoDUzuI1Vhsc5uBBaCLgy/s1146/800314ht.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1146" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWqpgMWmTDSfMX0okC5U1o2YNrYsAbB3jg_0o3WXkATOajIjGNMGC639NIRVJgqjFXTPDM1d9DC553Qr4Q87rXUZXyBIe7IWWFavXcsibxOu6o0lqEp8uGOKYHekoY_d3VsxMTMj_D1Kny-9ZS4c0Enl4yfj0nBTTw2yiCl5UHoDUzuI1Vhsc5uBBaCLgy/w640-h446/800314ht.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><span face="Poppins, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier (1738, Rouen - 1826, Paris)</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span face="Poppins, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">Le Courage héroïque du jeune Désilles, le 30 août 1790, à l’affaire de Nancy</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span face="Poppins, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">1794</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span face="Poppins, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">Huile sur toile</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span face="Poppins, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">H. 317 ; L. 453 cm</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span face="Poppins, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">Inv. 512</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;" /><span face="Poppins, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">Dépôt par le Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy au Musée de la Révolution française, Vizille</span></b></span></div><p><a href="https://musee-lorrain.nancy.fr/les-collections/les-oeuvres-majeures/oeuvre-majeure/le-courage-heroique-du-jeune-desilles-1"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: inherit;">https://musee-lorrain.nancy.fr/les-collections/les-oeuvres-majeures/oeuvre-majeure/le-courage-heroique-du-jeune-desilles-1</span></a></p><p><br /></p><div>This imposing canvas by Le Barbier, now on display in the Museum of the French Revolution in Vizille, was once intended to hang in the hall of the National Assembly as a pendant to David's <i>Tennis Court Oath</i>. The scene which it depicts is an all but forgotten episode from the early Revolution, the heroic action of the young lieutenant, André Désilles, who sacrificed his life in an attempt to prevent bloodshed during Nancy mutiny of 1790.</div><div><div><br /></div></div><div>As Jean-Clément Martin notes, Desilles's heroism, like that of Bara and Viala, excited great popular acclamation at the time, but his reputation was rapidly overtaken by the evolution of Revolutionary politics: </div><div><br /></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The example of the chevalier Désilles gives pause for thought concerning such posthumous glory In the Spring of 1790 the garrison in Nancy mutinied and rose up against its officers, but quickly capitulated to the marquis de Bouillé, who was charged by the Assembly with re-establishing order. However, a number of the mutineers threatened Bouillé's army with their cannons. At this point a young officer, Lieutenant Desilles placed himself in front of the cannons to prevent them from being fired and was mortally wounded. The incident was followed by brutal repression: 22 men were hanged, one broken alive on the wheel, 41 condemned to the galleys in Brest. Desilles attracted immediate nationwide glory. His action was popularised in engravings, sculptures and theatre productions; his name was given to streets throughout the country and his bust was crowned with oak leaves in the National Assembly. Two years later, following the flight to Varennes, Bouillé had become a reviled counter-revolutionary. The rebels of Nancy were amnestied in September 1791 and rehabilitated in 1792. The Assembly welcomed the former galley slaves, who paraded through Paris in their red bonnets, whilst the memory of Desilles became odious to the Revolutionaries and was soon forgotten. Adulated for a short time, then scorned - this would seem to be the fate of such heroes, tied in as they were with the vicissitudes of political events.</span></i></div><div><div>Jean-Clément Martin, "Bara, de l'imaginaire révolutionnaire à la mémoire nationale". In : <i>Révolution et Contre-Révolution en France de 1789 à 1989 </i> (1996)</div><div><a href="https://books.openedition.org/pur/17398" target="_blank"> https://books.openedition.org/pur/17398</a></div></div></div><div><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #800180;">THE MAKING OF A HERO - </span></b><span style="color: #800180; font-weight: 700;">DÉSILLES </span><b><span style="color: #800180;"> AND THE "AFFAIRE DE NANCY"</span></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Who was </span></b><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Désilles?</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRN5Xmziu_Gyi8Os5F819RFJDGkgmbzEAR8O7MJkcuFb44U4ZCsLhCg1ce13dOIScHEeAu4XjUmlG5Ysbz5-0nyZaMvvUSZ7nfuMf6_PfsW0dPn_JIYwPruMzMA2b8Z1-6dnLAZ1PrQWTEeMv8JFsiAmeJAIHH1wCjEbN2HajTUHgJ-1MzI_4JspdNqZLy/s610/Lavachez.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="476" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRN5Xmziu_Gyi8Os5F819RFJDGkgmbzEAR8O7MJkcuFb44U4ZCsLhCg1ce13dOIScHEeAu4XjUmlG5Ysbz5-0nyZaMvvUSZ7nfuMf6_PfsW0dPn_JIYwPruMzMA2b8Z1-6dnLAZ1PrQWTEeMv8JFsiAmeJAIHH1wCjEbN2HajTUHgJ-1MzI_4JspdNqZLy/s320/Lavachez.jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Engraving by Levachez, <i>Tableaux historiques</i>, 1798, <br />thought to be derived from an original miniature. <br /><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8411190d">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8411190d</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div>André-Joseph-Marc was born at Saint-Malo on 11th March 1767, the only son of Marc-Pierre Desilles, Seigneur of Camberon and his wife, Jeanne-Rose-Michelle Picot de Clorivière. He was just 23 when he met his end and, like most individuals unexpectedly catapulted prominence by the Revolution, little is really known about his early life. In common with all officers in the army of the Ancien Régime he was of noble origin. Indeed, both his parents came from very prominent Breton noble families. The Désilles cherished a long and proud tradition of royal service which could be traced back to the 12th century.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thanks to a longstanding dispensation, the nobility of Saint-Malo were able to take advantage of the commercial opportunities afforded by the flourishing seaport. André's father, having served as an officer in the Limousin Regiment, was now a weathy and successful arms manufacturer in Granville and Saint-Malo. His outlook exemplified a peculiar - but by no means rare - mix of ancient chivalry with modern patriotism and a Rousseauesque devotion to family. Catholic piety was a natural adjunct to such an outlook; André's maternal uncle was the Jesuit Pierre-Joseph Picot de Clorivière (1735–1820), later to be prominent in the reconstruction of the Catholic Church after the Revolution.</div><div><br /></div><div>Désilles's birthplace, one of the finest townhouses in Saint-Malo, still stands today and retains much of its original appearance. The family also owned one of the famous <i>Malouinières </i>outside the town, the Château de la Fosse-Hingant at Saint-Coulomb. Tradition has it the young André, who was a serious and studious boy, enjoyed walking along the Breton shore. </div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4bwsGuzvr3GwfOHYHHdUWKMrc-9liWYUlehPqD_PioFGn3uHCoCdMUXF1o9gidFLKq16UIn6Qk9ef2zny7fh57sEIbJ7I8243C6ih5Pd8k4RcJC3VsuPsMdYRJ15xz6H9dQKjmUwFPHWEB6xox-7quYEG1-GSGCLMsEoP_fFHAEw291U1tS3YpfIlX6Tj/s600/Saint-Malo_(35)_H%C3%B4tel_Andr%C3%A9_D%C3%A9silles_01.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4bwsGuzvr3GwfOHYHHdUWKMrc-9liWYUlehPqD_PioFGn3uHCoCdMUXF1o9gidFLKq16UIn6Qk9ef2zny7fh57sEIbJ7I8243C6ih5Pd8k4RcJC3VsuPsMdYRJ15xz6H9dQKjmUwFPHWEB6xox-7quYEG1-GSGCLMsEoP_fFHAEw291U1tS3YpfIlX6Tj/s320/Saint-Malo_(35)_H%C3%B4tel_Andr%C3%A9_D%C3%A9silles_01.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> <span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Ancien hôtel André Désilles, Saint-Malo</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNdYQCqHWa2UF9ksGMNb6XaDyMvN4WaoVVRx5PIYH5uaUC9pa9kDTTFR7k0B16JyFqGhCei7SHMK5F4H1SZk81ZmwLJ4yidyvnnuPfzM8_zbFJlvJZZkB0BOJsuoETDSjiAS_iEKnZgv4GVOf6uJWhv8eJ9RV3gsl54PAYRGo20JIbWVdIWDMep8iVkLRE/s598/plaque.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="232" data-original-width="598" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNdYQCqHWa2UF9ksGMNb6XaDyMvN4WaoVVRx5PIYH5uaUC9pa9kDTTFR7k0B16JyFqGhCei7SHMK5F4H1SZk81ZmwLJ4yidyvnnuPfzM8_zbFJlvJZZkB0BOJsuoETDSjiAS_iEKnZgv4GVOf6uJWhv8eJ9RV3gsl54PAYRGo20JIbWVdIWDMep8iVkLRE/s16000/plaque.JPG" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>André attended school in Paris. He was a <i>pensionnaire </i>at the Collège de Navarre, with his two cousins on his mother's side, Michel and Joseph Limoëlan and lodged with his mother's aunt, his godmother, Mme Trublet de Nermont. From 1776 to 1779 their uncle Father Picot de Clorivière was on hand to supervised their education; in 1779, when he was appointed parish priest of Paramé, the boys returned to Brittany. According to most sources, André, subsequently attended the prestigious École Royal Militaire in Paris, again with his cousins who were also destined for a military career. </div><div><div><br /></div><div>On 14th April 1782, aged 15, Désilles entered the army as second sub-lieutenant in the King's Infantry Regiment, garrisoned first in Caen, then, from June 1783, in Nancy. This was a highly prestigious commission, in a regiment reserved for the sons of the most illustrious families of France; officers were appointed by the King personally, on proposal of the colonel-in-chief, the duc de Châtelet. It seems that Désilles was marked out for promotion; in April 1788, he became sub-lieutenant, and October 1789 full lieutenant. The commendation for his Croix de Saint-Louis confirms the dates: in 1790 he was aged 22 and already had eight years of service.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>He was remembered as a promising young officer with a serious and pleasant disposition. In Nancy, he developed a longstanding attachment to Victoire the daughter of the Baron Ferdinand Fisson du Montet (1748-1801), former Councillor of the Sovereign Court of Lorraine and now a prominent member of the new departmental administration. In August 1790, Désilles returned after an extended period of leave in Brittany to prepare for the couple's formal engagement. The contract of betrothal was to have been signed shortly, on the bride's eighteenth birthday.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSGH4ZuK2QKSUXCxP7ElK1bYgamucxoIg5MQQ4pS9h9E2O9TJ8jpSQLlgQm1m94f4tUXUBWu1v6u_YfNJbN9p_08ysOfZJOWZ1xr9Gr_wndn-5zabtfOXKK9DeYOHpIX3s1LGIXd_LFyaN5mH_wHOT4FBuE5JAvqxYF748ouBXPtlwSLDrEFo-MPJ4yHC3/s640/Snip7.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="28" data-original-width="640" height="28" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSGH4ZuK2QKSUXCxP7ElK1bYgamucxoIg5MQQ4pS9h9E2O9TJ8jpSQLlgQm1m94f4tUXUBWu1v6u_YfNJbN9p_08ysOfZJOWZ1xr9Gr_wndn-5zabtfOXKK9DeYOHpIX3s1LGIXd_LFyaN5mH_wHOT4FBuE5JAvqxYF748ouBXPtlwSLDrEFo-MPJ4yHC3/w640-h28/Snip7.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div><span>According to the baronne de Montet, Victoire's sister-in-law, young Desilles was not a conventionally handsome young man. He was short and broad-shouldered "in the Breton manner"(</span><i>Souvenirs</i><span>, p.52)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>We now no longer have a verified portrait from life: A miniature which once belonged to his fiancée cannot be traced. Neither can the death mask created by the artist Mulnier, with whom he lodged, nor the busts derived from it. However, the painting by Le Barbier, and various engraved portraits said to be based on the miniature or bust, clearly show the same individual, with his pale complexion, high forehead and prominent nose. [See Pupil (1976), D1-D9]</div><div><br /></div><div>A previously uncatalogued posthumous portrait came to light in October 2021 when Drouot auctioned the contents of the château de Limoëlan, the ancestral property of the Désilles cousins. Lot 524 was a brown enamel box (7cm x 2.5 cm) engraved: "A.J.M. DESILLES, Ch'er de St Louis Officier au Rgt du Roy mort de ses blessures à Nancy le 31 aoust 1790". The miniature on the lid shows Désilles crowned with laurels by the hand of the King. A note inside informs us that the box was a given to family by Louis XVI in memory of his heroic death. </div></div></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Gi3cntXjQtRjVZAIpUZeaHs-iyKU_DqpIMbfh_0BsZkQ43eKwbNd5IjIS7or1aVbedFwk5zpZMAeam-_c8P7z6rPvvPEfrdNsam6Wu8uS2x6z8MswN8rhDE8kujUi6DNGmVS7mW3LY-5Iptmkp0QxiV_B3kKYx3m34-MhvtrzWNgx_ezG5RlQRrKTBLp/s960/524-960x640.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="960" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Gi3cntXjQtRjVZAIpUZeaHs-iyKU_DqpIMbfh_0BsZkQ43eKwbNd5IjIS7or1aVbedFwk5zpZMAeam-_c8P7z6rPvvPEfrdNsam6Wu8uS2x6z8MswN8rhDE8kujUi6DNGmVS7mW3LY-5Iptmkp0QxiV_B3kKYx3m34-MhvtrzWNgx_ezG5RlQRrKTBLp/w400-h266/524-960x640.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.gazette-drouot.com/article/au-c-C5-93ur-de-l-histoire-de-la-bretagne-et-de-la-france/28091 " style="text-align: left;" target="_blank"> <span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">https://www.gazette-drouot.com/article/au-c-C5-93ur-de-l-histoire-de-la-bretagne-et-de-la-france/28091</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div>(The sale contained a second portrait of Désilles (<a href="https://drouot.com/fr/l/16101534-ecole-du-milieu-du-xviiieme-po">Lot 440</a>) but this is perhaps misidentified since it shows a Chevalier in the uniform of the Mestre-de-Camp dragoons.)</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The events of 31st August 1790</span></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div><b>In 1790, then, the 23-year-old André Désilles was a lieutenant in the King's Infantry Regiment which, together with the Mestre-de-Camp Cavalry and the Swiss Châteauvieux Regiment, comprised the regular garrison of Nancy. In August of that year men from all three regiments mutinied against their officers in what came to be known as the "affaire Nancy".</b></div><div><br /></div><div>On 31 August 1790, after a protracted series of negotiations the army of General Bouillé arrived from Metz to regain control of the city. By three o'clock in the afternoon, the troops, under the command of General de Frimont, Bouillé's maréchal-de-camp, had drawn up outside the Porte Stainville (now Porte Désilles). The force consisted of over 3,000 infantry (including 800 National Guardsmen from Metz and Pont-à-Mousson) and 1,480 cavalrymen. In the vanguard was a company of 150 Swiss mercenaries from the loyal Viguier and Castella Regiments. They brought with them three cannons. The most rebellious of the troops within the town had been given an ultimatum to lay down their arms and rejoin their comrades. A hundred or so Châteauvieux <i>Suisses</i>, and a company of the King's Regiment held out. They were seconded by a company of National Guard and various civilian agitators. Two platoons of Mestre-de-Camp Cavalry were also ranged on the place de Grève (now place Carnot). The defence of the Porte had been organised, with snipers were in position in the adjoining windows and four cannons, one a 24-pounder, drawn up against the entrances, loaded with balls and grapeshot.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmqIQXWu6is0Bywk7luzsQc8UwyrS7ZK8Nh_zdJJ88C9n0t4bIV3I0vM9y4gzBLJONVgvDjNmfY40eXwjVh15pcYpW2Ig2HatdJKD7M_zNUPGA1eA2AUWZM3Cvczq6JUhf6oF4NxHFdRbVmaoAD5cKVQZPxRX_feveSm3t4PWEH08yd5uuzTxzDHvpm7vG/s2448/Manderset.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1798" data-original-width="2448" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmqIQXWu6is0Bywk7luzsQc8UwyrS7ZK8Nh_zdJJ88C9n0t4bIV3I0vM9y4gzBLJONVgvDjNmfY40eXwjVh15pcYpW2Ig2HatdJKD7M_zNUPGA1eA2AUWZM3Cvczq6JUhf6oF4NxHFdRbVmaoAD5cKVQZPxRX_feveSm3t4PWEH08yd5uuzTxzDHvpm7vG/w640-h470/Manderset.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Original gouache, perhaps by an eye-witness (Musée Lorrain) [Pupil (1976) A23 [fig.4]]</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div>As Bouille's troops began their advance, Captain Delort of the Kings Regiment and Désilles, his lieutenant, found themselves inside the gate, attempting desperately to prevent their mutinous men from firing. They placed themselves in front of the mouths of the guns or sat on the firing pans. At about four o'clock they were joined by three civilian "notables" , MM. Desbourdes, chevalier de Saint-Louis, Goeury, <i>avocat</i> of the Parlement and Nicolas, Royal Professor of Chemistry. They immediately understood the gravity of the situation and counted upon their authority to intercede, but to no avail; they were rebuffed and manhandled roughly from the scene. In a gesture depicted by Le Barbier, Nicolas was said to have opened his coat to bare his heart to the guns, declaring to Désilles "Generous citizen, you will not die alone, we will not abandon you!" Delort implored Frimont to halt the advance but was conceded only a ten minute delay. Finally, however, he was able to lead the majority of his men out through the gate to rejoin their Regiments which had assembled in the Valley of the Meurthe. The unfortunate Désilles was now completely alone in the midst of the most militant of the rebels. It is not know whether he had received orders to hold his position, or whether he acted entirely on his own initiative, but the reality of his heroism is not in doubt. Snatching the taper from the hands of the insurgents, he remained in position in front of the cannons. There are various versions of his heroic words. Bouillé later reported that, when dragged away, he returned to his perilous post, exclaiming "You will have to kill me rather than fire". According to the cavalry officer Léonard, he challenged the men to discharge their cannon, "so that I do not have to witness your shame" (<i>Relation exacte et impartiale,</i> October 1790, p.131 - on <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ivmxRb-JBp8C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Google Books</a>)</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw8N4gYf0rqRZabrMaLxs-h6WOJnaONu4ERHosuFnf6CO803MLIv0jFSHqTiZfHbPzbYCgK9vH3AL4LrVavBeSqwWjY71hz_TBgORoFMG6Fe5nX9bsjaWFMuQgzxFZvGkzMK2RsHkCYYpFIuh21AKv9qinPNsMT_JJ1Hf32K4KNItltGWHTtaidvbCKP0Z/s1227/%5BD%C3%A9vouement_de_D%C3%A9silles%5D___%5Bestampe%5D_%5B...%5DJulien_Laurent_btv1b6946878j_1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="851" data-original-width="1227" height="445" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw8N4gYf0rqRZabrMaLxs-h6WOJnaONu4ERHosuFnf6CO803MLIv0jFSHqTiZfHbPzbYCgK9vH3AL4LrVavBeSqwWjY71hz_TBgORoFMG6Fe5nX9bsjaWFMuQgzxFZvGkzMK2RsHkCYYpFIuh21AKv9qinPNsMT_JJ1Hf32K4KNItltGWHTtaidvbCKP0Z/w640-h445/%5BD%C3%A9vouement_de_D%C3%A9silles%5D___%5Bestampe%5D_%5B...%5DJulien_Laurent_btv1b6946878j_1.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"> Engraving of late 1790 by Laurent Joseph Julien ("Julien le neveu") [Pupil (1976) A12]<br /><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6946878j">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6946878j</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>In Léonard's assessment, Désilles managed to delay hostilities by only half-an-hour. At the signal of Lieutenant Shuphauwer, in command of the Viguier Regiment, battle was joined. The mutineers' cannon loaded with grapeshot immediately raked the leading troops, accompanied by a discharge of muskets. In the carnage which ensued Shuphauwer was killed outright and Louis de Gouvion, volunteer, and commander of the National Guard of Toul, mortally wounded. Désilles himself was hit in the back by two shots. An 18-year-old volunteer, Jean-Baptiste Haener, who was among the first through the gate, rushed to his rescue under a hail of bullets. He was hit by a third ball, but this was deflected by the keys in his pocket. </div></div></div><div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The death of a hero</b></span></div><div><div><br /></div><div>The wounded man was carried first to the improvised hospital that had been set up in the nearby house of the abbé Gabriel Mollevaut, curé of Saint-Fiacre. He was weak from loss of blood but not judged to be in immediate danger. He asked that others be treated before him, and praised Haener's brave actions. The following day he was taken to his lodgings on the "pavements" of the place Royale, in the house belonging to M. Mulnier (today 22, rue Héré, below).</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1nkny8x9y7Yy1ZSfJfGTNcfiDzEWMzbKWI0Q7qoHxAzt3fXu74pYvLKIjJPFvw7jy8pIk4qN1jlp9-HSJWsXQNZyVUJq9AdUSyOYnHZRNDrcyH_wB4NZmRUXg8qUfiSTTFROxk2_X3cqWEKg9dGIDjCoVBbVBTJKfOwfOTfCGRFk0U5vLiDimoM16EfUC/s1053/trottoirs.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="1053" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1nkny8x9y7Yy1ZSfJfGTNcfiDzEWMzbKWI0Q7qoHxAzt3fXu74pYvLKIjJPFvw7jy8pIk4qN1jlp9-HSJWsXQNZyVUJq9AdUSyOYnHZRNDrcyH_wB4NZmRUXg8qUfiSTTFROxk2_X3cqWEKg9dGIDjCoVBbVBTJKfOwfOTfCGRFk0U5vLiDimoM16EfUC/w400-h183/trottoirs.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div><div><div><div>News reached Saint-Malo on 7th or 8th September. Désilles's father rushed immediately to Nancy; his mother was said to have been driven insane with grief. He was immediately acknowledged as a hero and received a continuous stream of visitors: the Bishop of Nancy, Mgr de la Fare; Bouillé on his return from Metz; Duveyrier et Cahier de Gerville, the commissioners sent by the Assembly who arrived in Nancy on 5th October. Madame de La Tour du Pin, who passed through Nancy on her way back from Switzerland, noted that a sentry had been stationed in front of the Mulnier house to prevent people talking under the window of the wounded man. (Her own husband, the son of the Minister of War, had himself narrowly escaped death at the Porte Stainville where his horse had been shot from underneath him.)</div></div><div><br /></div><div>The young hero continued to play his part with becoming modesty. He explained to a friend that he had simply wanted to save the brave men in Bouillé's army and that a soldier in such a case owed the sacrifice of his life to his country and to honour. Similarly, a letter of 16th September reports him as saying, "I only did my duty; everyone of my comrades would have done the same; the only advantage I had was the opportunity" (quoted Le Bastard de Villeneuve (1977), p.82)</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div>There was some contemporary confusion as to the nature of Désilles's wounds. However, his condition is clarified by the manuscript notes of Louis Valentin, Surgeon-Major of the King's Regiment, one of the two doctors who attended him:</div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">He had received three bullet wounds...of which two seemed to me mortal; the third was negligible since the shot had been stopped by a bunch of keys in his waistcoat pocket, where we found the ball. One of the wounds, which went across the whole area of his back and shoulder- </span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">blades was so extensive that it looked as if it had been made by a cannonball. When the swelling went down, the lesion was nine inches long and three inches wide. We judged that it had been made by a blunderbuss loaded with multiple balls. The wounded man recalled that he had seen such weapons in the hands of the rebels, who had taken them from the arsenal. The other bullet had passed obliquely right through the inside of his knee. </span></i></div><div><div>Translated from Charles Berlet, <i>La révolte de la garnison de Nancy en 1790 </i>(1944), p.147.</div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9630845f/f177">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9630845f/f177</a></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><br /></div><div><div><div>Faced with wounds of such gravity, Valentin consulted with his colleagues in Bouillé's army, Professor Jadelot of the Royal College of Medicine in Nancy, and the famous Robillard, first Surgeon-Major of the military hospital in Metz. </div></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>According to the baronne de Montet, the doctors were at first mistakenly optimistic in their prognosis. Valentin hestitated to amputate Désilles's leg which might, in retrospect, have saved his life. Despite all their efforts, after six weeks of suffering, the young man finally died of septicemia in the night of 17th to 18th October:</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>They still hoped he would recover; the doctors and surgeons, including MM. Valentin and Le Moyne, who were caring for him, shared this error. They had even declared he was out of danger, when the symptoms appeared that heralded death. The infection had passed into his bloodstream, so that the danger of death was imminent and without remedy. He received the last rites. Madame du Montet cared for him like a mother and was present when he breathed his last. His death plunged everyone into mourning. The young hero retained his courage to the last, joining the courage of a Christian to that of the soldier. But he regretted keenly the loss of his angelic young fiancée, the most beautiful of beauties and the summit of perfection. M. Desilles, who was inconsolable for the loss of his son, gained some comfort only when he set eyes on and blessed his dear Victoire. He often went off alone and we would find him bathed in tears, prostrated on the flagstone which covered the tomb of his son.</i></span></div></div><div>Described in the <i>Souvenirs</i> of the baronne de Montet: [p.51-2]. [On<a href="https://archive.org/details/souvenirsdelaba00boutgoog/page/50/mode/2up" target="_blank"> Internet Archive</a>]</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The abbé Mulot of the Paris Commune, who gave the funeral oration, reported further information given to him by Désilles's bereaved father. According to this testimony, the amputation of Desilles's wounded leg was actually carried out as a final desperate measure. </div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>M. l'abbé Mulot, president of the commune of Paris, has been charged with the funeral eulogy for the Chevalier Désilles, which he will deliver shortly in the Church of the Cordeliers. It would have been difficult for him to make the speech, but the father of the young hero, who was in Paris with his family, told him the </i></span><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">relevant details. Here are some of them:</i></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Although he was only twenty-two years old, young Désilles was so esteemed in his regiment, that both soldiers and officers would consult him about their affairs, and invite him to arbitrate their disputes. To them he was an angel of peace; he prevented an infinite number of duels. There was not just one but three different cannons that he prevented from firing during the all too famous events of 31st August. They were positioned very close to one another in a narrow road, where there was only a simple wall without houses; the troops of M. Bouillé, who were engaged there, would have been blown to pieces if these cannons went off. Our new Assas saw the danger; he suddenly threw himself in front of the middle cannon and stretched his hands out over the pans of the other two. It was in this position that he was shot by his own soldiers! He recognised his assassins but refused to name them, even to his father, who had promised absolute secrecy....</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>It was only a few days before he died that the surgeon noticed that there were still fragments of cloth in his wound. It is heartrending to think that he might have escaped death, had this foreign material been removed earlier. </i></span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>After forty days of suffering, they had to amputate his leg. When the brave Desilles saw the surgeon enter his chamber followed by several assistants, he cried out: Why so many people? Do you think that someone who is prepared to expose himself to the danger of death, does not have the courage to see his leg cut off? He underwent the operation without anyone holding him down, but it was useless. The priest who attended him, told him that he was afflicted, as was the whole nation, by the loss of s</i></span><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">o great a man, a hero in the flower of his youth.''' "Why do you speak of great men and heroes?", the dying man replied;</i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>"you are the Minister of a God before whom all men are equal!"</i></span></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>"If I regret one thing," his father said, "it is that I could not be next to my son on 31st August, not in order to dissuade him from his heroic act, but in order to share with him the glory and the danger". </i></span><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Such honour is hereditary in this family since 1100, when King Robert awarded to the ancestor of the brave Désilles, the seigneurie of Bricqueville in Normandy, in recompense for his services to the State. One of his uncles, who died twenty years ago, lost his arm in battle and made himself an artificial one with which he battled on for another fifty-two years. </i></div><div>As reported in<i> Annales nationales et politiques</i>, 16th December 1790.</div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k8286507s/f3.item">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k8286507s/f3.item</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>A letter from Father Picot de la Clorivière emphasises his nephew's religious commitment :</div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">We have lost our dear Désilles. His death has been wept over by the whole of France. I am not exaggerating. Mourning has been universal; to judge by what I have seen here, the honours paid to him seem to me excessive: you can learn something of them in the public newspapers. But you can readily believe me when I say that I see nothing in all this but vanity. Personally, it did not move me. What gives me the greatest consolation, is that he made a truly Christian end, and that, in dying, he leaves to us the greatest hope for his salvation. He had thought seriously about this from the beginning of his illness and gave striking proofs of his religious devotion. For this reason, he found it difficult to bear the praises of his courage, and he suffered, without complaint, the most painful procedures. ...Everyone agrees that he died like an angel; this is the expression that I have seen in more than one letter....I believe that his death was a truly blessed one. It was perhaps the greatest recompense he could expect for his devotion to his country.</span></i></div><div>Letter to Joseph Limoëlan, quoted in Terrien, <i>Histoire du R. P. de Clorivière (1892) p.265-5</i></div><div><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6wOESUmrvc4C&vq=Desilles&pg=PA265#v=onepage&q&f=false">https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6wOESUmrvc4C&vq=Desilles&pg=PA265#v=onepage&q&f=false</a></div><div><br /></div><div><div><div> </div></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;">RECEPTION AND REACTIONS</span></b></div></div><div><div><br /></div><div><b>The initial public reaction to events in Nancy was one of shock. </b> The mutiny and its violent suppression represented a first challenge to the union that had been celebrated with such ceremony at the Fête de la Fédération only a few weeks ago. The victory of Bouillé's army over the insurgents was total - but the cost had been high. Eleven army officer and sixty men had been killed, and many more wounded; Bouillé initially placed the death toll as high as 300. Losses were particularly heavy among the hussards de Lauzun who were engaged in vicious hand-to-hand fighting on the place de Grève. In addition 17 insurgents and 12 civilians had been killed (See Berlet (1944) p.165-6). In conformity with the agreements between the King of France and the Swiss Republics the rebel <i>Suisses</i> were judged according to the laws of their country. A <i>Conseil de guerre </i>formed by the loyal regiments of Castella and Viguier, resulted in 22 mutineers hanged, one broken alive on the wheel and 41 condemned to the galleys in Brest. It is worth emphasising, however, that 400 other military and civilian prisoners remained, their fate undecided.</div><div><br /></div><div> At first no-one openly defended the mutineers, such was the disgust felt that they had fired on their camarades. The Assembly rallied to Bouillé's support, though in a confused debate on 3rd September, it confined its vote of thanks to the loyal National Guardsmen of the Meurthe and of the municipalities of Nancy and Lunéville. The <i>Suisses</i> publicly expressed their disapproval, and the <i>Journal de Paris</i> listed donations from all over France for the families of the victims. A series of memorial services were held, starting on 3rd September in the Cathedral in Nancy. In Paris, commemorations reached a climax on 20th September with a huge ceremony on Champs de Mars in honour of the fallen National Guards. Gossec composed his famous <i>Marche lugubre</i> was for the occasion and it featured heavily in contemporary engravings - many adapted from images of the recent Fête de la Fédération [Pupil (1976) Series C]. The event was orchestrated by Lafayette, who was Bouillé's cousin and close ally - again the regular army was explicitly excluded, including a contingent of loyal troops from the King's Infantry Regiment who had journeyed to Paris specially for the occasion. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZl4NUKXJJaeCZQfez9bN2wn-Lb0SSFMs6bRLWN5V_J7LIFtXvINx5wgzAtVFzn2vFP3V_Mj5hd_DqC3NCktD7_k0On4MQYYv4YOM4soJQ02cLAJqiS-5KfgOsDUTGgzeahNNAX2MZZ5xsBTuzzqjP_tinuwFOPueQMApAlmFpl8rZ3enbxt2Jr96In1oQ/s1024/Prieur%20-%20Funeral%20in%20honor%20citizen%20soldiers%20killed%20in%20Nancy%20%20-%20(MeisterDrucke-283051).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="831" data-original-width="1024" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZl4NUKXJJaeCZQfez9bN2wn-Lb0SSFMs6bRLWN5V_J7LIFtXvINx5wgzAtVFzn2vFP3V_Mj5hd_DqC3NCktD7_k0On4MQYYv4YOM4soJQ02cLAJqiS-5KfgOsDUTGgzeahNNAX2MZZ5xsBTuzzqjP_tinuwFOPueQMApAlmFpl8rZ3enbxt2Jr96In1oQ/w640-h520/Prieur%20-%20Funeral%20in%20honor%20citizen%20soldiers%20killed%20in%20Nancy%20%20-%20(MeisterDrucke-283051).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Another elaborate open-air commemoration took place in Saint-Malo on 26th September.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>The action of Desilles was prominent in the accounts from onset. </b>An official report, forwarded by the minister of war La Tour du Pin, was read to Assembly on 3rd, together with a letter from Bouillé (published next day in the <i>Journal de Paris</i>). <i> </i>Both commended Désilles's heroism. At this time it was still thought he would live. Thus Bouillé: "A young officer (M. de Silli, ou M. de Sille), a second Assas, threw himself on the mouth of the cannon, crying: you can kill me rather than fire. At that moment he was hit by four gunshots; by a miracle, none of the wounds he received was mortal." On the proposal of Mirabeau, the Assembly's vote of thanks included a particular expression of gratitude to "M. des Illes for his heroic devotion". <span style="font-family: inherit;">The president of the Assembly, M. Jesse, addressed him a letter which praised his sublime courage and "civisme"; and assured him that he would find his reward in his heart and in "the eternal memory of the people of France". T</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">he fulsome sentiments were </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d3d3d; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">echoed in press - the </span><i style="color: #3d3d3d; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Révolutions de Paris</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d3d3d; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"> commended Desilles's act of devotion in the midst of the "revolting atrocities presented by the Nancy affair". </span><span> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">His father later replied to the Assembly on his son's behalf: "He is far from believing that he deserves all the praise that has been showered upon him; he belongs to a nation and to to a corps where such an action should not attract particular merit. He has only imitated examples which are common in the French army and in the regiment in which he has the honour to serve" (read 3rd October, see Le Bastart de Villeneuve (1977), p.77-78)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Louis XVI made Désilles a <span>Chevalier of the Order of Saint-Louis, anticipating a petition from the Paris Commune to this effect. </span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Popular images</span></b></div><div><div><br /></div><div>The iconographic catalogue compiled by François Pupil, in 1976 contains over 80 engravings and other works of art relating to the "affaire de Nancy". By October 1790 Le Barbier was already in Nancy to research his projected composition, which was formally sponsored by the National Assembly in January 1791. The young hero was also the subject of two plays: <i>Le Nouveau d'Assas</i>, by Jean-Elie Dejaure was performed for the first time at the Théâtre Italien on 15th October 1790, with the famous singer Louis Michu in the lead role. Le <i>Tombeau de Désilles</i>, by Desfontaine staged in December 1790.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>For details of these productions, see the entries on the website <i>Le Théâtre français de la Révolution à l'Empire: </i><i> </i><i><a href="http://theatre1789-1815.e-monsite.com/pages/pieces-gens-et-lieux/les-pieces/n/le-nouveau-d-assas.html" target="_blank">Le Nouveau d'Assas</a>; </i><i><a href="http://theatre1789-1815.e-monsite.com/pages/pieces-gens-et-lieux/les-pieces/t/le-tombeau-de-desilles.html " target="_blank">Le Tombeau de Désilles</a> </i> </div><div>The Danish traveller Gerhard Anton von Halem, gave an account of a performance of <i>Le Nouveau d'Assas </i>in his journal: <i>Paris en 1790</i> (1896), p.329</div><div><a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b5041554&seq=343">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b5041554&seq=343</a></div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Funeral and commemorations</span></b></div><div><div><br /></div><div>Désilles's death at the end of October created a renewed flurry of reports, engravings, eulogies and poems. The news was announced to the Assembly on 22nd October, and official condolences sent to his father. The funeral took place in Nancy amid great pomp. On the evening of 18th October, Désilles's body was laid in state in front of the town hall, with a guard of honour provided by the grenadiers of the Alsace Regiment. On the following day, it was solemnly interred in the Cathedral, in the vault normally reserved for the Primates of Lorraine. At ten in the morning the entire clergy of Nancy, both regular and, processed out of the Cathedral to the town hall and the cortege began its solemn journey. The coffin was carried by lieutenants and grenadiers from the King's Regiments, with three colonels and a major bearing the corners of the pall. </div><div><br /></div><div><div>The immense cavalcade took an hour to reach the Cathedral. Behind the members of the departmental administration and municipality, marched the officers of the garrison and the National Guard, then a large number of ordinary citizens in mourning dress. "The draped drums, the tears and universal sorrow, all contributed to make the ceremony heartbreaking". In front of the cathedral thirty men from the Alsace Regiment and a hundred National Guardsmen discharged their muskets. </div><div><br /></div><div> The Cathedral itself had been elaborately decorated; the facade bore the inscription <i>Memento mei, Deus meus, in bonum, secundum omnia quae feci populo huic </i>["Remember me, my God, for the good, in return for all that I have done for this people"Nehemiah 5:19. ] Within, the interior was draped in black to a height of thirty feet. Black velvet covered the altar and episcopal throne. Above the mortuary chapel were the words of Saint Paul: <i>Bonum certamen certavi, fidem servavi, in reliquo reposita est mihi corona justitiae</i> ["I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith. Now there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness" 2 Timothy 4: 7-8]. </div></div><div><br /></div><div>A military escort flanked the passage from the West door to the choir where a mass was celebrated and Bishop Mgr de la Fare pronounced the eulogy. The coffin was then laid to rest in the crypt of the Primates. (See Badel, <i>Les caveaux de la cathédrale de Nancy </i>(1911) p.16-18).</div><div><br /><br /></div></div><div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnQ1SC8DhyphenhyphenXp7gHYfVN2yNe7vOnXuNHxeXK2tZqnJUzqRoK4bHzlo94_dBE3_8EHxEvPCchnI0aXUHDveQcVph1xPfzEYcLeUym6-l7-6dpkrZ3t11XmiM1fjPJcIcTxVV6awpeGFZNYQcZFNewT7gx_VgCizxb8QIJs1YjODS9EM0uokuAIdF_A-MkXXf/s1728/Le_Pays_lorrain___revue_%5B...%5DSoci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_d'histoire_bpt6k9601139s_115.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1728" data-original-width="1004" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnQ1SC8DhyphenhyphenXp7gHYfVN2yNe7vOnXuNHxeXK2tZqnJUzqRoK4bHzlo94_dBE3_8EHxEvPCchnI0aXUHDveQcVph1xPfzEYcLeUym6-l7-6dpkrZ3t11XmiM1fjPJcIcTxVV6awpeGFZNYQcZFNewT7gx_VgCizxb8QIJs1YjODS9EM0uokuAIdF_A-MkXXf/w233-h400/Le_Pays_lorrain___revue_%5B...%5DSoci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_d'histoire_bpt6k9601139s_115.jpg" width="233" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Pupil, Fig.21: Project for a memorial,probably by Mique,<br />Musée lorrain. [Pupil (1976) E1, fig.21]</span> </span></td></tr></tbody></table>An imposing funerary monument was initially planned. The architect Louis-Joseph Mique was charged with its design and the execution was entrusted to the sculptor Labroise, who was given an advance of 1,200 livres. However, the project was to be "overtaken by political events". (Badel, p.4 note; p.71; Pupil E1, fig.21). There are also representations of various memorials by Palloy, both tombstones and municipal monuments, again never erected (Pupil, E2-E4). </div><div><br /></div><div>Under the Restoration, the baronne de Montet, complained that the young hero lay forgotten under the cold, damp flagstones of the Cathedral. The site was to remain entirely unmarked until 1852 when the Archaeological Society of Lorraine erected a black marble plaque in the chapel. </div><div><br /></div><div> In 1911 the antiquary Émile Badel opened the crypt but found only debris - no sign of the lead coffins of either the great Cardinal of Lorraine or of Désilles. (On 10 November 1793 the tombs of the Cathedral had been ransacked - in all likelihood the coffins had been destroyed then.)</div><div><br /></div><div>On 3rd November a solemn service for the repose of Désilles's soul took place in the Cathedral of his native Saint-Malo before an immense crowd. The cannon on the remparts was sounded, the ships in the port remained at half-mast, houses and shops were closed<span style="color: red;">. (</span>Herpin, 1909, p.16-17)</div></div><div><br /></div><div>It was then the turn of Paris itself. A service was held at Notre-Dame on 11th November, with the funeral eulogy pronounced by the abbé Mulot as president of the Commune. On 17th November a further commemoration took place at the Église des Augustins in the place de la Victoire, with Désilles father on hand to distribute alms to a contingent of military orphans. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlaKydVnhyphenhyphenL-T_xuGKNb9RjCF3rc_h75kl7IMe5BHn7lI5M6OHwUFN0-NDGByoyA-AgZrcwqN3rvL4MG2uzODqbcJaAAkBBY_yaZ13V7U10kgcVrpbYTiY2d1iTvoSglXa57MWKZ-GJS8eZKZ0ePTrcqWO34tuJhyphenhyphen-mASFPTUqwTVPrOyzQnq2zvNzTPHA/s640/Snip7.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="28" data-original-width="640" height="28" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlaKydVnhyphenhyphenL-T_xuGKNb9RjCF3rc_h75kl7IMe5BHn7lI5M6OHwUFN0-NDGByoyA-AgZrcwqN3rvL4MG2uzODqbcJaAAkBBY_yaZ13V7U10kgcVrpbYTiY2d1iTvoSglXa57MWKZ-GJS8eZKZ0ePTrcqWO34tuJhyphenhyphen-mASFPTUqwTVPrOyzQnq2zvNzTPHA/w640-h28/Snip7.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>On his way back to Saint-Malo M. Désilles remained for some time in Paris and was invited to a personal audience with the King at the Tuileries: his account, in a letter of 8th November to his wife, gives a telling glimpse of the Royal couple at this time. Louis roused himself from his torpor to welcome his visitor:</div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> On Monday I was presented to the King, who, contrary to his usual custom, talked to me freely in the most flattering terms. He told me that he had been asked to award the Cross of Saint-Louis to the young Swiss officers wounded in the action; he had replied that, if he gave the Cross to "ces messieurs", he would give Mr Désilles the cordon rouge. The Queen invited me to an audience in her cabinet, where I stayed for a good quarter-of-an hour alone with her and the baron de Viomenil. She spoke to me in the most affectionate terms, telling me how much she felt for my situation. She talked to me in detail about my children, which showed that she had informed herself about my family. She asked if I had anyone to carry on my name. When I said I had not, she seemed upset and reassured me that the greatest privilege of all is to bear the name of someone one loves. She hoped that the name would be passed on to the children of my daughters. She talked much about my son, that the King's intention had been to promote him in stages to high rank and attach him to his person. She also told me that the King wished me to have a pension; I thanked her but told her that there was no need... For the whole time that she spoke to me, she had tears in her eyes, as had the baron de Viomenil...</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">I was also presented personally to Monsieur and to Madame Élisabeth at their residences; they too said a thousand flattering things. Monsieur came up when he saw me and said: Take care of yourself Monsieur Désilles; your existence is precious to all Frenchmen, that is to say all good Frenchmen." All this, my dear friend, far from soothing my grief, has only increased it. I learn with pleasure that you have your children close by you; I look forward greatly to seeing them, though I dread the interview with them which must take place.</span></i></div><div>quoted Le Bastart de Villeneuve, <i>André Désilles</i> (1977), p.90-91.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Désilles later reports many illustrious callers, notably the duc du Châtelet and the minister of war La Tour du Pin, also numerous deputies and the National Guard which presented itself in a body. He received a letter in the King's own hand, offering his heartfelt condolences and asking him to name any "marks of benevolence" that were within his power to grasp - the bereaved father requested only a portrait of the royal couple. André's godmother, Mme de Nermont, expressed the growing disquiet of loyal Royalist that Louis had been reduced to a "king of cards".</div></div><div><br /></div></div><div><div><div><br /></div></div></div><div><div><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;">THE TURN OF THE POLITICAL TIDE</span></b></div></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>The ostensible solidarity of the Assembly over the "affaire de Nancy" did not take long to break down.</b> The report of the commissioners Duveyrier et Cahier de Gerville was presented on 14th October, to be followed by a second extensive report from the marquis de Sillery, read in the Jacobins on 10th November and before the Assembly on 6th December. Both accounts offered a more complex picture of events, with a good deal of sympathy towards the mutineers: the commissioners spoke of the errors of the "unfortunate misguided rebels".</div><div><br /></div><div>From the point of view of Désilles's reputation, an ominous exchange took place in the session of 7th December. A demand from the abbé Grégoire for the rehabilitation of the mutineers was countered by the right-wing deputy Cazalès who condemned the "assassins" of Désilles. Cazalès observed that Désilles's immortal action "honoured both the century and the order into which he was born" . The reference to "orders" provoked immediate uproar and adenunciation from Barnave. It was all too clear that the Revolution was now on a collision course with the ideology of noble service. Désilles <i>père</i> published a letter addressed to Barnave in which he accused him of "unintelligible sophisms" which had broken his heart. (quoted Le Bastart de Villeneuve p.100-1) On 12th December the remaining military and civilian prisoners still awaiting trial were liberated. The King's Regiment and the Mestre-de-Camp Cavalry were dissolved. In the radical press Desmoulins likened Désilles to the slave Eros who had killed himself to encourage Mark Antony to commit suicide: he had placed himself in front of the gun to facilitate Bouillé's entry into Nancy and, with it, the "decimation of the patriot soldiers" (<i>Révolutions de France et de Brabant</i>, 14th February 1791, quoted Le Bastart de Villeneuve, p.112)</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Despite these developments, official recognition for the heroism of Désilles at first continued. The highpoint came on 29th January when the Gouy d'Arcy, the deputy from Saint-Domingue, sponsored the formal presentation of Mulnier's bust to the National Assembly, at a session presided over, ironically enough, by the abbé Grégoire. It was on this occasion that Le Barbier was formally commissioned to paint his full scale canvas as a pendant to David. On 11th July 1791 Désilles's effigy was included among those which accompanied Voltaire's ceremonial transfer to the Pantheon. </div><div><br /></div><div>Reporting on the ceremony of 29th January, the<i> Révolutions de Paris</i> had this to say:</div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>How can the National Assembly waste time listening to concerts and funeral eulogies in honour of M. Desilles? There seems to be a deliberate wish to insult the patriots of Nancy with all these crowns that the aristocrats have dedicated to his ashes. The commotion of funeral ceremonies which followed his death were no doubt intended to stifle the cries of the unhappy soldiers of the King Regiment and the Châteauvieux, sacrificed to the fury of the country's enemies. Futile efforts! The incorruptible hand of history will avenge them in posterity for the injustice of their contemporaries; these words, engraved on their tombs, will be a lesson for future legislators: THEY WERE PATRIOTS, AND THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF 1789 LET THEM BE ASSASSINATED.</i></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Senseless enthusiasts! We shower praise on the memory of a man who has been elevated by the courage of a moment; churches, theatres, popular assemblies have rung with his praises; he has been immortalised on canvas and in marble. Could anything more have been done if he had saved his country singlehanded, if he had gained or recovered the liberty of the fatherland? In contrast to this obsession with Desilles, we can set the indifference of the people toward those generous hands which brought down the ramparts of the Bastille. With our indifference towards true virtue, it is surprising that a glimmer of patriotism still exists in France.</i></span></div></div><div><i>Révolutions de Paris</i>, No 80, 15th-22nd January 1791, p.176-8.</div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k496238/f180.item" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k496238/f180.item</a></span></div><div><br /></div></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>The final political turning-point came in April 1792. </b>At the end of December 1791 the imprisoned Swiss of the Châteauvieux Regiment were amnestied. The forty<i> galériens </i>became the heros of 1792: pikes were forged from their chains and medals minted in their honours. Couthon and Collot d'Herbois sponsored their welcome in Paris. On 9th April 1792, the majority of deputies voted to honour them in a session of the Legislative Assembly. There were loud protests: Dehaussy de Robecourt, deputy for the Somme, proposed that the bust of Désilles should be placed on the bureau before the eyes of his assassins. The deputy Jean-Baptiste Gouvion, the brother of the loyal volunteer killed, was advised to leave the hall and, on 17th April, resigned in disgust from the Assembly. He resumed his active military career, only to be killed a few months later at Mauberge.</div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ2SJ9kqkqfy17HHwDLSS4k91tZgS3K854K0SdOIwDBmGEkSJbP3j3BFXDbmmYVSpOixvHZxt8F5671P86x2spqeFscYbny96zk3k-s96ko3S2S4RbR9K6t3UjeBk7iIVbUFo82xG8sD1JlhZhIoJJKX_US35JwuhkUVdzVguyHP8DtNeqmFuYdNOwQtU-/s865/La_D%C3%A9mission_motiv%C3%A9e_du_17_%5B...%5D_btv1b69446876_1.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="686" data-original-width="865" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ2SJ9kqkqfy17HHwDLSS4k91tZgS3K854K0SdOIwDBmGEkSJbP3j3BFXDbmmYVSpOixvHZxt8F5671P86x2spqeFscYbny96zk3k-s96ko3S2S4RbR9K6t3UjeBk7iIVbUFo82xG8sD1JlhZhIoJJKX_US35JwuhkUVdzVguyHP8DtNeqmFuYdNOwQtU-/w640-h508/La_D%C3%A9mission_motiv%C3%A9e_du_17_%5B...%5D_btv1b69446876_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;">Print attributed to Villeneuve, satirising the resignation of the deputy Gouvion. The "traitor</span><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;"> Bouillé" proclaims, "I will leave no stone standing". The other figures, besides Lafayette are Malseigne and Denous, who were senior army officers during the Nancy affair [Pupil (1976) C7 ]</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b69446876." target="_blank">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b69446876</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div>On 15th April, the first "Festival of Liberty" was sponsored by the clubs of Paris. The Swiss of Nancy processed in triumph through the streets of the capital followed by the improvised chariot which had earlier carried Voltaire's coffin to the Pantheon. A disgusted André Chenier was moved to publish his <i>Hymn to the Swiss of Châteauvieux, </i>in which he condemned warriors "made illustrious by the blood of Désilles and the funerals of so many massacred Frenchmen". (<a href="https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/%C5%92uvres_po%C3%A9tiques_de_Ch%C3%A9nier_(Moland,_1889)/Hymne_sur_les_Suisses">Œuvres poétiques de Chénier (Moland, 1889)/Hymne sur les Suisses - Wikisource</a>)</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="goog_899804617"><img border="0" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="571" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC9_wX-Qu0N2fsbOjCBrofIgSd-lSWRvoihYvKtc5NHNnsGwkNhNblsIP0_Z4aoIq9S6GA7GWfzhqaL7rEeOP-MXxgPpNCt0A7mfGjDG6RCaOP8W2yt973d-YIm-bwHbHpwP6WsarB5-sBRbQ4gCkWIdvU2L6otFbQhtc1RHQTBTZftnpoexuIAsxBE0tT/s16000/fete%20de%20la%20libert%C3%A9.JPG" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.parismuseescollections.paris.fr/fr/musee-carnavalet/oeuvres/revolution-francaise-premiere-fete-de-la-liberte-en-l-honneur-de-la-6#infos-principales">https://www.parismuseescollections.paris.fr/fr/musee-carnavalet/oeuvres/revolution-francaise-premiere-fete-de-la-liberte-en-l-honneur-de-la-6#infos-principales</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div>One should, nonetheless, perhaps still guard against too clear-cut a picture. Paradoxically, as late as 17th April 1792, that is two days after the triumph of the Swiss, several engravers whose work enjoyed official status, appeared at the bar of the Assembly and a copy of Laurent's engraving after Le Barbier was accepted for display in the Assembly hall (see Pupil, p.83). The engravings were placed on sale and, to judge by the number of variations and copies, remained popular for some time. However, after this, the uncomfortable example of Désilles was officially quietly forgotten and it was not until late in 1794, after the fall of Robespierre, that Le Barbier felt empowered to make his completed picture public. </div><div><br /></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Later history of the Désilles family </span></b></div><div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps the saddest commentary on Désilles's act of sacrifice, is provided by the ultimate fate of his family. True to their ideals of royal service, the Désilles were to be heavily implicated in the the "Conjuration Bretonne" of the Marquis de la Rouërie. By late summer of 1791 André's cousin Joseph-Pierre Picot de Limoelan had become one of La Rouerie's three aides-de-camp (He was later architect of an assassination attempt on Napoleon). André's father and maternal uncle acted as treasurers to the conspiracy. In March 1793, the uncle and André's three sisters, all married to émigrés, were arrested at the family seat of La Fosse-Hingant. The younger sister Angélique-Françoise sacrificed her own life to shield her sister-in-law and died on the guillotine on 18th June 1793. Marc Desilles, who had been forewarned, escaped to Jersey. The house was restored to the two surviving sisters in 1799 but they never returned to the property. </div><div>See Olivier Blanc, <i>Last letters; prisons and prisoners of the French Revolution</i> (1987), p.110 [On <a href="https://archive.org/details/lastletterspriso0000blan/page/110/mode/2up?view=theater ">Internet Archive</a>] </div></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrQxexXWgfMwRz2_ZMYAjzkCvyxX5b_kYzJOagHZTdUz7-t5jpvmyNBXXG9Kx0araJophDCcTtAL-AQQt53NSJDPRgD-o46iIlCtd_vjjfFCS7US2LgA3q1vlqAPwqZ1X3g7QQMR87buaWlSDTNUyQGjksVLH_lX4ww_q2k2SynCEppp7mB-0z1rxdc-E7/s637/ivr53_20003500800xa.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="637" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrQxexXWgfMwRz2_ZMYAjzkCvyxX5b_kYzJOagHZTdUz7-t5jpvmyNBXXG9Kx0araJophDCcTtAL-AQQt53NSJDPRgD-o46iIlCtd_vjjfFCS7US2LgA3q1vlqAPwqZ1X3g7QQMR87buaWlSDTNUyQGjksVLH_lX4ww_q2k2SynCEppp7mB-0z1rxdc-E7/s320/ivr53_20003500800xa.jpg" width="320" /></a> </div><div><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;">The manor house of La Fosse-Hingant. A plaque at the entrance to the property, erected by the organisation <i>Souvenir Breton, </i> reads:</span></div><div><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;">"<i>In memory of the Désilles family and the conspirators of the Breton Association, who, were denounced and subject to a perquisition here which led to their tragic arrest on 3rd March 1793."</i></span></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdv1KG-66vpsw4KGSfpenaWxG6Xq3Cu_mN0TWn6JoQf-PT5tF34rYkp6jqz_s62pzolQMg32lOV4VlnpBOu4JpLkVtB2lX5S8wBfUPJcEqiGAwAspUsYmYTzpVvPuhOVVqMeVpPxU-1AeXkPWjhKSfmYv5C0io2eqfZ9G8199D4X-O4Ucrg2FYzVsR-fsg/s506/Plaque%202.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="506" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdv1KG-66vpsw4KGSfpenaWxG6Xq3Cu_mN0TWn6JoQf-PT5tF34rYkp6jqz_s62pzolQMg32lOV4VlnpBOu4JpLkVtB2lX5S8wBfUPJcEqiGAwAspUsYmYTzpVvPuhOVVqMeVpPxU-1AeXkPWjhKSfmYv5C0io2eqfZ9G8199D4X-O4Ucrg2FYzVsR-fsg/w640-h314/Plaque%202.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><br /></div></div><div><b>References</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div>André Désilles [wikipedia.fr]</div><div><a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_D%C3%A9silles">https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_D%C3%A9silles</a></div><div><div><br /></div><div>E Herpin, "André Desilles (Le Héros de Nancy)", <i>Revue de Bretagne de Vendée & d'Anjou</i>, 1909, vol.41, p.5-20.</div><div><a href="https://books.google.fr/books?id=XJAVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q&f=false">https://books.google.fr/books?id=XJAVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q&f=false</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Pierre Le Bastart de Villeneuve, <i>André Désilles: un officier dans la tourmente révolutionnaire </i>(1977)</div><div><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rOfg8WKIF8kC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rOfg8WKIF8kC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Émile Badel, <i>Les caveaux de la cathédrale de Nancy . Les tombeaux de Désilles et du cardinal de Lorraine</i> (1911) <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9618382x">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9618382x</a></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Charles Berlet, <i>La révolte de la garnison de Nancy en 1790 </i>(1944)</div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9630845f">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9630845f/</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><div>François Pupil, "Le dévouement du chevalier Desilles et l'affaire de Nancy en 1790: essai de catalogue iconographique",<i> Le Pays lorrain,</i> 1976, p.73-110.</div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9601139s/f79.item#">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9601139s/f79.item#</a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Marie-Claire Mangin, "La Peignée de la Saint Gauzlin (Nancy, le mardi 31 août 1790) Mémoires de l'Académie de Stanislas,Nancy. No 15 (2000-01) p.317-44. </div><div><a href="https://www.academie-stanislas.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/tomexv-mangin01.pdf">https://www.academie-stanislas.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/tomexv-mangin01.pdf</a></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-56158450173505298792023-04-30T01:52:00.000-07:002024-02-17T11:40:20.543-08:00Robespierre - what's new?<p>May 2022 saw the publication<i> </i>of Volume 12 of the critical edition of the works of Robespierre<i>, </i>containing - among other items - the long awaited transcripts by Annie Geoffroy of the Le Bas manuscripts acquired by the French state in 2011. [On which see my <a href="https://rodama1789.blogspot.com/2015/05/robespierres-manuscripts-saved-for.html" target="_blank">post of 15.05.2015</a>]</p><p>The event was marked on 8th February of this year with a lecture by Hervé Leuwers, given at Arras as part of a series hosted by the ARBR-Les Amis de Robespierre. Here is a summary/English translation of his talk which has been made available on YouTube. As always, it is a great pleasure to rediscover that the foremost French expert on the Incorruptible is such a cheerful and unassuming scholar.</p>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jvco1pznFXY?si=upZp3ZJZt05bZZQn" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><p>Professor Leuwers begins by reviewing briefly the background to the present publication. The work of editing the complete works was begun by the <i>Société des Études Robespierristes</i> as long ago as 1910. Ten volumes were eventually published, followed in 2007 by a supplementary volume edited by Florence Gauthier. Until the unexpected discovery of the Le Bas collection in 2011, it was thought that the Robespierre corpus was more or less complete.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>In addition to the Le Bas manuscripts [Archives Nationales 683 AP1], the new Volume 12 contains a number of other previously unedited documents, notably papers from the financial accounts of the Collège Louis-le-Grand [Archives Nationales series H]. Also included is Robespierre's correspondence with his friend Dubois de Fosseaux, secretary of the Academy of Arras, which has been edited for the first time thanks to the work of Lionel Gallois at the Archives du Pas-de-Calais. </p><p><br /></p><p>Professor Leuwers focuses his presentation on how the new material show Robespierre "at work" and shed light on his personality He organises the discussion around four themes:</p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">1. Robespierre the student</span></b></p><p><b>The new collection includes seven documents relating to Robespierre, from the accounts of the College Louis-le-Grand, dating from 1778 to 1781. </b></p><p>These administrative papers have not hitherto been explored. Robespierre was in receipt of a scholarship during his schooldays at Louis-le-Grand, from 1769. It is less general known that he remained a <b><i>boursier </i></b> throughout his subsequent legal studies and continued to receive financial support from the College. In a letter of 1781, for instance, he requests 60 livres to cover the costs of his final thesis. His handwriting at this time is clearly recognisable, though slightly more juvenile and rounded than in later life:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjUGSUpVNxcO8OmE1U3t6pHleogI74v3_7qvY-JtARwcaHqqpmA7spyY8Tj7Rev3UtQVviqdaZt5ynB7TcXdwusH9eLg51rowbgPUI3282j0YnxG8hqgF163hvxednXe0bLQMNZOChBjocRQuSiDxmF151e1o86yrmnl_qXxrWow5gWG9NNnTSXC9FODZ8/s618/Capture2.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="473" data-original-width="618" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjUGSUpVNxcO8OmE1U3t6pHleogI74v3_7qvY-JtARwcaHqqpmA7spyY8Tj7Rev3UtQVviqdaZt5ynB7TcXdwusH9eLg51rowbgPUI3282j0YnxG8hqgF163hvxednXe0bLQMNZOChBjocRQuSiDxmF151e1o86yrmnl_qXxrWow5gWG9NNnTSXC9FODZ8/s320/Capture2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>The texts also allow us to established a more complete chronology of the academic prizes which Robespierre won on a very regular basis. It was already known that at the end of his legal studies in 1781 he received payment of 600 livres from the College - a considerable amount of money. However, a new document reveals that he also won a prestigious general prize of the University of Paris of 96 livres for finishing first in his law class. This underlines the fact that Robespierre was an able scholar and an excellent jurist.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>The new manuscripts allow us to compare two early examples of Robespierre's signature, one from 1778 and one from 1780. </b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRMHlzxxHfpMt0AsS8MYminjoY2pElU9n_px-QiajTBL-SEtOqHrUKSRiNA2tIbweB_CR2pWA7PaYzjs6j7wcXmUTesQ8aznpZ4u0-nNxtDgnWCsJXsF2LK-iGUILbzTzA5FqiWIpA1sRdDvcs77fV3JvgvHvvn1WIfZD6XBZMLnWQT2qFRykgbuosI97K/s645/Robespierre's%20signature.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="645" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRMHlzxxHfpMt0AsS8MYminjoY2pElU9n_px-QiajTBL-SEtOqHrUKSRiNA2tIbweB_CR2pWA7PaYzjs6j7wcXmUTesQ8aznpZ4u0-nNxtDgnWCsJXsF2LK-iGUILbzTzA5FqiWIpA1sRdDvcs77fV3JvgvHvvn1WIfZD6XBZMLnWQT2qFRykgbuosI97K/s320/Robespierre's%20signature.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p>These cast light on rival views of the young Robespierre.</p><p>The implacably hostile abbé Proyart claimed that, as a student, Robespierre had betrayed his pretensions to social status by separating the particule ("de") from the main part of his name. The new documents demonstrate for the first time that this was indeed the case. In 1778 Robespierre was still a school student, but by 1780 he was in the second year of his law studies. </p><p>Professor Leuwer cautions against over-interpretation. The use of the particule was a common variant spelling. In Robespierre's case it possibly originating with his teachers, and did not imply a claim to nobility. Although Robespierre's father wrote his name as a single word, his paternal grandmother had used the separate particule. What is certain is that after June 1790, when nobility was abolished, Robespierre the Revolutionary abandoned the particule altogether.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">2. Robespierre the lawyer</span></b></p><p><b>The new volume contains critical editions of six "factums" or legal briefs produced by Robespierre in 1786-88 during his period as a defence lawyer in Arras. </b> </p><p>As an up-and-coming <i>advocat </i>Robespierre pleaded regularly before the Council of Artois and other courts in Arras, gave consultations and published "factums" or legal briefs. Judicial memoirs of this sort, printed as brochures and distributed freely, were a commonly employed by Enlightened lawyers to sway their judges and appeal to public opinion. Robespierre is known to have written twelve, but only five had been published in the <i>Oeuvres</i> before the First World War. A fire in the archives of the Pas-de-Calais in 1915 then discouraged further work by destroying important contextual documents, including the entire record of Robespierre's appearances before the Council of Artois. Even in 2007, it had not been thought possible to successfully reintegrate the factums. Since then Hervé Leuwers has himself carried out research and published on them (see below). Now all but one (which is in private hands) are available to scholars in a critical edition.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpExdQnT-b_uUZFH0y_SmWXkQB-11Hi1BqhvjxIyDqX1lk3FKBXi96tcvK9pTpCBaS7ZY4FaJvcG1brg3oGgVvSUelV3155ihFFTlkotG8VBr13a5-_YZpd0Hk5B-cnpqRle6c-4DO3RxX2H7ve5ndHJngb5iNyT_qEnWzJvydsCyqkpjZN-ROCOg57-uJ/s746/Factums.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="746" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpExdQnT-b_uUZFH0y_SmWXkQB-11Hi1BqhvjxIyDqX1lk3FKBXi96tcvK9pTpCBaS7ZY4FaJvcG1brg3oGgVvSUelV3155ihFFTlkotG8VBr13a5-_YZpd0Hk5B-cnpqRle6c-4DO3RxX2H7ve5ndHJngb5iNyT_qEnWzJvydsCyqkpjZN-ROCOg57-uJ/w200-h143/Factums.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Professor Leuwers emphasises that the factums are the work of a mature legal practitioner. Robespierre's new style of advocacy, imported from Paris, astonished contemporaries in Arras. In a letter of 22nd February 1782, in the archives of the Pas-de-Calais, the lawyer Ansart, writes admiringly of the 25-year-old Robespierre's "choice of expression" and the "clarity of his discourse" which was set to challenge the dominance of the local legal elite (quoted Leuwers, <i>Robespierre </i>(2014)<i>,</i> p.41)<p>Two cases from the newly published factums serve as examples. In the first, the Page case, from December 1786, Robespierre appeals against a conviction for usury. This text shows him as a progressive lawyer, advocate of radical legal reform. He attacks the competence of the judges and criticises the outmoded law which prohibits loans with interest. He also condemns the 1670 Criminal Ordinance, which, due to a series of notorious cases, was now widely seen as unduly biased against the defendant. Robespierre's rhetoric prefigures his later political speeches:</p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">At the sight of so many scaffolds steaming with innocent blood, I learned to distrust conjectures which are given the lie by experience and nature. I hear within my own being a powerful voice, which cries out to me, always to flee this disastrous tendency to condemn on presumption...</span>.</i></p><p>In a note, Robespierre fears he has been too outspoken; indeed, although he won the case he was formally enjoined to expunge his criticism of judicial procedures. He was subsequently more cautious - at least until the famous Dupond case in 1789.</p><p>The second factum, on the Pepin case of 1787, is known from a single copy, rediscovered only a few years ago in the Sorbonne. Robespierre defends three well-to-do peasant farmers who contested a claim for damages from a horse-dealer whom they had injured in self-defence. This undistinguished case shows Robespierre engaged in his ordinary day-to-day legal work.</p><p>For more details, see:</p><div><div>Hervé Leuwers, "The factums of Robespierre the lawyer: choices of defence by printed legal brief", <i>Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française </i>(2013). Vol.371(1): p.55-71. [Open Source article]<br /><a href="https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_AHRF_371_0055--the-factums-of-robespierre-the-lawyer.htm">https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_AHRF_371_0055--the-factums-of-robespierre-the-lawyer.htm</a> </div><div><br /></div></div><div><div><div>_____, "Robespierre, avocat des fermiers Pepin et d'Herlin. Un mémoire judiciaire retrouvé (1787)".</div><div>, <i>Revue du Nord</i> (2013) Vol. 400-401 (2-3): , p.537-547 [Open Source article]</div><div><a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-du-nord-2013-2-page-537.htm">https://www.cairn.info/revue-du-nord-2013-2-page-537.htm</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div><div><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">3. Robespierre the politician - the new "papiers Robespierre"</span></b></p><p><b>The manuscripts acquired in 2011, which are edited for the new volume of <i>Oeuvres,</i> contains notes and drafts for a number of texts and speeches by Robespierre from 1791, and above all 1792-94.</b></p><p>Until 2011 these manuscripts were in the private possession of the Le Bas/Duplay family. They were consulted by certain historians in the 19th century, but had since been lost from view. Although most of the material has been previously published, the draft versions are of great interest since Robespierre always worked over his texts a great deal. Other Robespierre manuscripts are few - mostly confined to Series F7 of the Archives nationales which contains the papers confiscated at his lodgings on the day of his arrest. </p><p>Certain items have been excluded from the new volume:</p><p><b>AP 683/1, Item 12. </b><b>Speech of 8 Thermidor [26th July 1794] </b>This last speech of Robespierre's is already included in Volume 10 of the <i>Oeuvres</i>. The present manuscript, which is a two-page extract, is not in Robespierre's hand and does not represent any new material. It includes (minor) additions to the printed versions, but these had previously been indicated by Robespierre's 19th-century editor Ernest Hamel [<i><a href="https://archive.org/details/histoirederobes00unkngoog/page/720/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank">Histoire de Robespierre</a></i> Vol.3 (1865) p.720-733]. </p><p><b>Ap 683/1, Item 2. An unpublished letter "on happiness and virtue" </b>In this previously unknown manuscript, the author associates happiness with liberty and explains that true happiness cannot exist under a tyranny but only under a free regime. These ideas are consistent with Robespierre's, but his authorship is not proven. Detailed comparison shows conclusively that the handwriting is not his. The author also refers to his children, though this could just be a literary device. The text has already been published by Annie Geoffroy in 2013.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>SPEECHES ON THE WAR </b></p><p>Professor Leuwers now moves on to a detailed discussion of the way in which the remaining manuscripts illuminate Robespierre's method of composition. He focuses particularly on Robespierre's contributions to the debates on war in late 1791 and 1792.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqG172Zc8VyI_wQrVZA7swj2O5mvRAqMbQn2XWQ49C8DlONIQnZmb4wyhS0STkAFY5y_p4R3hlaktMn2R2uTvqWxU1HywLNC7IMXfQnQYixADyGelY1pT4LcyMmJY9G3vj5lzj32WuA0Pjj3LNHEMriAxsHJjDy2612onHuTtenAZC2GIAV-BZA321B1JY/s673/On%20War.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="367" data-original-width="673" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqG172Zc8VyI_wQrVZA7swj2O5mvRAqMbQn2XWQ49C8DlONIQnZmb4wyhS0STkAFY5y_p4R3hlaktMn2R2uTvqWxU1HywLNC7IMXfQnQYixADyGelY1pT4LcyMmJY9G3vj5lzj32WuA0Pjj3LNHEMriAxsHJjDy2612onHuTtenAZC2GIAV-BZA321B1JY/w640-h350/On%20War.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"> Draft for speech of 26th March 1792 [Archives Nationales, AP683/1. 4.]</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p> The case for an offensive war was put forward by Brissot from December 1791 and opposed in a sustained fashion by several voices, including that of Robespierre. The Le Bas collection contains substantial extracts from two of his speeches, from 25th January 1792 and 26th March 1792.</p><p><b>AP 683/1, Item 3: </b><b>Speech on the war, 25th January 1792.</b></p><p><b>Summary:</b> Robespierre is not hostile to war; he is not a pacifist as is sometimes claimed. However, he distinguishes two types of war: the war of the despot and the war of liberty. He thinks that a war of aggression will ultimately play into the hands of the king and the executive. If it is waged successfully, the king will use it as a pretext to request the expansion of his powers. If it is lost, foreign enemies will undoubtedly move in to restore the king to his former powers. In either case the nation is the loser; the pursuit of war is a trap which will kill the Revolution, whatever the outcome. A true "war of liberty" is possible, but it requires an army dedicated to the caus and generals who can be trusted. Robespierre is wary of armed forces inherited from the Ancien Régime. He particularly fears Lafayette whom he sees as a potential new Cromwell.</p><p><b>AP 683/1, Item 4: </b><b>Speech to the Jacobins on the present situation [Robespierre resigns himself to war] 26th March 1792</b></p><p><b>Summary: </b>By this time the idea of a war has won many supporters. Robespierre has changed his tack; he appears less hostile to war than before. However, he is still convinced that it can be prevented. If France appears strong and determined, Austria will avoid conflict. Robespierre refers to the recent death of the Emperor as an act of Providence, a remark which roused the scorn of his opponents and created a moment of tension which marked the beginnings of the Girondin movement.</p><div><b><br /></b></div><div>The two speeches only appeared in print much later on, in Robespierre's newspaper for July 1792. The manuscripts do not add new content but they do illuminate the way in which Robespierre composed his speeches. He did not improvise, but patiently wrote and revised his text, often several times, in order to achieve the effect he desired. Here we see a continuity with Robespierre's approach as a lawyer.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Illustrations of Robespierre's technique from the Speech of 26th March.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div>The manuscript enable us to distinguish different stages of composition.</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>- An initial draft: Robespierre crosses out words and phrases and replaces them as he writes.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>- A subsequent reading: He makes amendments and additions above the line of text. He also writes in the margin. Sometimes he will leave whole paragraphs and rewrite them in the margin.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Comparison with the printed text reveals that there was also a final process of revision for publication. </li></ul>It is therefore possible to reconstruct three phases in the development of the text: an initial draft, at least one proofreading and a final redaction. </div><div><br /></div><div>In her transcripts Annie Geoffrey attempts to distinguish these three stages:</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfyjwGXiNJLB4ooG61FFleojxnlzPYRsJH340WrpC7elCGg9PnaODJ5bivXnWcT3J8yUgzFeoVu1Y6diSNlbFgxL4nM_VQlpib7EYBlmQKws2Akp0Dm19RiRKMn-ytnW2fnUoa3tCrYTpAJp8MdnntJnfKEbIpiOf5JE8DpZIUVtKPr7ESzdZhMixKqkNf/s632/Example%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="632" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfyjwGXiNJLB4ooG61FFleojxnlzPYRsJH340WrpC7elCGg9PnaODJ5bivXnWcT3J8yUgzFeoVu1Y6diSNlbFgxL4nM_VQlpib7EYBlmQKws2Akp0Dm19RiRKMn-ytnW2fnUoa3tCrYTpAJp8MdnntJnfKEbIpiOf5JE8DpZIUVtKPr7ESzdZhMixKqkNf/s16000/Example%201.jpg" /></a></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>The amendments reveal the stylistic choices made by Robespierre:</b></div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Les administrateurs </span><strike style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">perfides</strike><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> / infidèles. </span></li></ul></div><div>He seeks to strike the listener / reader with the most appropriate term. Thus "treacherous" is replaced by the more emotionally charged "unfaithful"</div><div><br /></div><div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Les ennemis de la<strike> liberté</strike> / révolution</span></li></ul></div><div>Here we see Robespierre's association of ideas. For him liberty and revolution are virtually interchangeable. The enemies of liberty become the enemies of the Revolution itself. </div><div><br /></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Une conspiration<strike> générale</strike> / formidable</span></li><li><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Les prêtres <strike>trompoient le peuple</strike> / secouaient les torches du fanatisme et de la discorde</span></li></ul></div></div><div>The language is made more forceful. Professor Leuwers comments that Robespierre favoured expressions which shocked his audience. In this he was incontestably an orator; contrary to what is sometimes maintained, contemporaries recognised his real talent as a speaker. He was not a Mirabeau who improvised spontaneously, but he could captivate his listeners. The tribunes would fill when a speech by Robespierre was announced.</div><div><br /></div><div>The revisions made for the printed versions of the speeches are mainly minor matters of punctuation and grammar, or take account of a change of context, for example names are sometimes omitted.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><b>4. Robespierre the politician - Notes on the "heads of the coalition"</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b> Also included in the new volume of Works is a critical edition of Robespierre's manuscript </b><b><i>Notes on the "heads of the coalition"</i> (June-July 1794), found among his papers at the time of his arrest. This document provides an interesting insight into Robespierre's state of mind in his final weeks.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div>The text was mentioned by Courtois in his report to the Convention in 1795 and is transcribed in .</div><div><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Br4NAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA16#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><i>Papiers inédits trouvés chez Robespierre</i> (1828), Vol. 2 no.51.</a> (English translation available on the <a href="https://rbzpr.tumblr.com/post/145095035035/robespierres-notes-on-different-deputies-notes" target="_blank">RBZPR blog</a>:) However, the original manuscript, which consists of four large-format pages, has only recently been rediscovered in the F7 sub-series. </div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRuslWCZAeafr0BX01OkaIxx_B0XA8FshJeSXPq0HiIBnuMeU3dZQIeLn_P-750l5rJHlsgwspCdRnnHmTnxcW6KRuWvyqo1APh28ETsn63bOFQsuXIQEGVUpPk3HxJHzB-mGApLcWraSWN3K9XzEhwhO16Hljyn-R7JglynGJIAVaZy_JHDD7-m9QmhYs/s941/Robespierre%20on%20heads%20of%20coalition.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="941" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRuslWCZAeafr0BX01OkaIxx_B0XA8FshJeSXPq0HiIBnuMeU3dZQIeLn_P-750l5rJHlsgwspCdRnnHmTnxcW6KRuWvyqo1APh28ETsn63bOFQsuXIQEGVUpPk3HxJHzB-mGApLcWraSWN3K9XzEhwhO16Hljyn-R7JglynGJIAVaZy_JHDD7-m9QmhYs/w640-h248/Robespierre%20on%20heads%20of%20coalition.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></div></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Robespierre denounces five deputies - Dubois-de-Crancé; Delmas; Thuriot; Bourdon de l'Oise and Léonard Bourdon - who are characterised as "scoundrels marked by immorality and incivisme" and leaders of a coalition of traitors. These individuals were the target of attacks from Robespierre and Saint-Just at this time. The date is probably between 22 Prairial and the start of Robespierre's attacks on Fouché, who is not mentioned. </div><div><br /></div><div>The text reads like the preparatory draft for an indictment. However, Professor Leuwer observes that Robespierre did not necessary envisage a major purge; rather, on the eve of 9 Thermidor, there were still a few individuals whom he considered unworthy of the political responsibilities that they exercised. </div><div>.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><p><b>References</b></p><div style="text-align: left;"><div>Hervé Leuwers, "Quoi de neuf chez Robespierre?" Lecture given at Arras, 6.02.2023 in the lecture series of theARBR-Les Amis de Robespierre. <br /><a href="https://youtu.be/jvco1pznFXY">https://youtu.be/jvco1pznFXY</a></div><div><div><br /></div></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><div>"Oeuvres de Maximilien Robespierre tome XII", post by Nicolas Soulas <i>Société des études robespierristes</i> [blog], 11.05.2022. <br /><a href="https://www.etudesrobespierristes.com/2022/05/11/oeuvres-de-maximilien-robespierre-tome-xii/">https://www.etudesrobespierristes.com/2022/05/11/oeuvres-de-maximilien-robespierre-tome-xii/</a></div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>Archives Nationales online: <i>Papiers Robespierre</i> (1791-1794)<br /><a href="https://www.siv.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/siv/rechercheconsultation/consultation/ir/consultationIR.action?irId=FRAN_IR_050100">https://www.siv.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/siv/Robespierre</a></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-8773407596503779102023-04-28T01:16:00.004-07:002023-08-06T04:17:27.278-07:00Lavoisier and religion<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguy-2beFk2cSwuFAP0lkK5DMz7uVtNy6kiSWmqQ3kA96MZJNvBg3rcbixSqBbTrdJ9EEY_CeKKyMP7t5JBZ29Q_5JucaWWKcVHhqNM3ePz_gIWQkfBi6Fl1cFN8lchd5ly7W9mWAe_q79MRbTIgqpr0sQcPgcY6T9eS2OgrutqZo6oorDL7apJVmFuAQ/s1150/Lavoisier4.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="710" data-original-width="1150" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguy-2beFk2cSwuFAP0lkK5DMz7uVtNy6kiSWmqQ3kA96MZJNvBg3rcbixSqBbTrdJ9EEY_CeKKyMP7t5JBZ29Q_5JucaWWKcVHhqNM3ePz_gIWQkfBi6Fl1cFN8lchd5ly7W9mWAe_q79MRbTIgqpr0sQcPgcY6T9eS2OgrutqZo6oorDL7apJVmFuAQ/w640-h396/Lavoisier4.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Lavoisier "anti-clérical"?</span></b></p><p>Was Lavoisier a sceptical Enlightenment rationalist or (as a number of websites insist) a Christian believer? </p><p>This is a difficult question to answer: in the his writings and in his many letters which have come down to us, there is almost no mention of religion. </p><p>However, in October 1791 he penned the following tirade against clerical education:</p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Public education as it exists in almost the whole of Europe, has been set up not to form citizens but to produce priests, monks and theologians. The spirit of the Church has always opposed innovation, and because the first Christians spoke and prayed in Latin...it has been deemed necessary to pray in Latin to the end of time. For this reason the European education system is almost entirely directed towards teaching Latin.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">If one reviews the public acts, the thesis of metaphysics and ethics defended in the Colleges, one sees that they are only an introduction to theology, that theology is the highest form of knowledge, which shapes whole education system. </span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The only goal of public education is to form priests. For a long time the Colleges were open only to those who studied for the priesthood. Since an ecclesiastical career led to honour and fortune, the catholic nations were naturally divided into two classes: ecclesiastics, who had all the instruction and the illiterate who formed almost all the rest of the nation. This is how, at first by chance, and then by strategy, all the means to destroy errors and prejudices was concentrated in the hands of those who had an interest in propagating them.</span></i></p><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">This era, composed of sixteen centuries almost entirely lost to reason and philosophy, during which the progress of the human mind was almost entirely suspended, where often there were retrograde steps, will always be remarkable in the history of humanity, and one must judge how great will be those in the eyes of posterity who have overturned these antique monuments of ignorance and barbarism.<br /></span></i><div style="text-align: left;">Introduction to Lavoisier's <i>Reflections on the Plan for Public Instruction presented by M. Talleyrand-Perigord. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;">First published in James Guillaume, <i> Procés verbaux du Comité d'Instruction publique</i> (1894), vol.2, Introduction p. lxiii-lix.<br /><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k29289p/f62.item">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k29289p/f62.item</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">This uncharacteristically forthright piece prefaces a long manuscript which Lavoisier prepared for Talleyrand. The latter had unsuccessfully presented a plan for public education to the Constituent Assembly just days before it adjourned. The new Legislative then almost immediately created a Committee on Public Education which asked Talleyrand to revise and publish his report. He initially consulted Laplace, Monge, Condorcet Vicq d'Azyr and La Harpe, then submitted his second version to Lavoisier, asking for a response within eight days; "I would be most grateful if you would show great severity and tell me frankly what you find displeasing about this lengthy work". Lavoisier replied conscientiously, but in the event Talleyrand chose not to modify his report further and Lavoisier's work remained unpublished. Lavoisier was later to elaborate his ideas on technical education in his<i> Réflexions sur l'instruction publique, </i>presented to the Convention on behalf of the Bureau de Consultation des Arts et Métiers in September 1793.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Much of the interest of Lavoisier's rather trite diatribe lies in the circumstances of its rediscovery and the light they shines on the arcane and forgotten world of early 20th-century Lavoisier scholarship.</div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdwK4G78HYDG-1n69XfHMJ8S9CYIeYzl41mUWmrmNpFIybI9AA8T0rRs2LxEcK3yPnybZWg7VdK8hm7z9EU5ZRKMxEKxfsPyeuANKMo3jg1yAG9Ybe2kWoqbiTrRPcMzCu9EG9LFmKpN-K-0fMW0VzFycitq2PCzDjm9Z2LUyl6RaIK1aYoZpO3K6__Q/s1024/11065ccfca3bf6063503b4c9a97775c3_XL.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="588" data-original-width="1024" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdwK4G78HYDG-1n69XfHMJ8S9CYIeYzl41mUWmrmNpFIybI9AA8T0rRs2LxEcK3yPnybZWg7VdK8hm7z9EU5ZRKMxEKxfsPyeuANKMo3jg1yAG9Ybe2kWoqbiTrRPcMzCu9EG9LFmKpN-K-0fMW0VzFycitq2PCzDjm9Z2LUyl6RaIK1aYoZpO3K6__Q/s320/11065ccfca3bf6063503b4c9a97775c3_XL.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>At the centre of the story is the splendid gentleman in the photograph. He has all the leanness and penetrative gaze of the archetypal left-wing scholar.... and appearances are not deceptive: this is James Guillaume (1844-1916) a leading Swiss anarchist, indeed the collaborator and biographer of Bakunin. Guillaume edited the minutes of the Committee of Public Instruction and between 1893 and 1911 published 36 articles in Alphonse Aulard's <i>La Révolution française</i>. The references to the manuscript can be found an article of 1907, somewhat provocatively entitled, "Lavoisier: anti-clérical et révolutionnaire".</div><div><br /></div><div>At this time the interpretation of Lavoisier was dominated by the monumental biography of Edouard Grimaux, who put a right-wing spin on his subject. Grimaux, who was a chemist by profession, was not himself so very conservative - he was later to be deprived of his teaching post as a supporter of Dreyfus - but he was dependent on the goodwill of the pious Chazelles family, Lavoisier's descendants and custodians of their ancestors' archive. You can still find his authority cited in confirmation of Lavoisier's orthodoxy in the online version of the 1910 <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09052a.htm" target="_blank">Catholic Encyclopedia</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 1892 James Guillaume visited Grimaux at his home in the boulevard Montparnasse. The two were </div><div> acquainted in a round-about route (Grimaux's sister-in-law was the widow of the Vendean freethinker Jérôme Bujeand). Grimaux had agreed to allow Guillaume access to Lavoisier's papers.</div><div><p><i>"On one of my visits,going through a pile of unsorted papers...I laid hands on a notebook composed of several sheets of rough paper, on which Lavoisier, in a rapid hand, with numerous crossings out, had scribbled down some notes entitled "Réflexions sur le plan d'instruction publique présenté... par M. Talleyrand-Périgord".</i></p><p><i>"Ho ho! I cried to myself, "this could be interesting"</i></p><p>And so it proved. Grimaux acknowledged that "the manuscript reveals a Lavoisier that I did not know, an<i> anti-clérical </i>as they say today". Guillaume borrowed the document and took the precaution of having it photographed - in those days a huge palaver which involved the services of a technical laboratory at the École Normale: ""Now, whatever zealous defenders of the Church might do in the future, this irrefutable evidence of Lavoisier's philosophical opinions would be safe from annihilation". In fact in 1894 Grimaux threw caution to the wind and allowed Guillaume to publish the opening paragraphs in the introduction to his <i>Procès verbaux du Comité d'instruction publique. </i>Finally in March 1907<i>, </i>following a provocative right-wing speech at the pantheonisation of the chemist Marcellin Berthelot, Guillaume decided to defend Lavoisier's Revolutionary credentials by publishing the whole text. (The speaker, Henry Roujon, had remarked that "nowadays we put people in the Pantheon without guillotining them first'").</p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Lavoisier's religious opinions?</span></b></p><p>As a liberal Revolutionary, Lavoisier clearly supported the destruction of clerical privilege and the nationalisation of Church property. He also advocated a practical, secular education system . However, there is no suggestion his anti-clericalism went as far as dechristianisation; his love of order and strict adherence to constitutional legality committed him to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. </p><p>In pre-Revolutionary years, he adhered to social proprieties: Grimaux notes that, as lay patron of the chapel at Freschines, he had nominated, by an act of 7th August 1781, a chaplain, the abbé Bellavoine, to whom he gave annually 290 livres. ( Grimaux, p. 53. nt 2) According to Madame Lavoisier, he also regularly attended the church in Villefrancoeur. </p><p>Lavoisier's personal beliefs elude us. Grimaux was able to muster only one - much cited - piece of evidence in favour of his orthodox Christianity: in a letter of 20th August 1788, Lavoisier acknowledges the gift of a work of apologetics by the English theologian Edward King : "You wage a noble cause in defending the revelation and the authenticity of the Scriptures; and what is remarkable is that you now use for defence the very weapons that have many times been employed in attack" (see Grimaux, p.53). Before reading too much into a throwaway sentence, it is worth noting that Edward King (1735-1807) was a prominent figure in scientific circles: a member of the Royal Society, a mineralogist and an early supporter of Lavoisier's system of chemical nomenclature - certainly a correspondent to be treated politely. Lavoisier - who didn't read English - is probably just parroting back the title of King's 1788 book: <i>Morsels of criticism, tending to illustrate some few passages in the Holy Scriptures upon philosophical principles and an enlarged view of things.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Lavoisier, communicant?</span></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8yGFrdqJkgCIs2sJOeegev0Jdm1ps6cwUuKYmDDkExJ5l3DiHyb-PipoImV2ppfRqqq71pfFIsfUleeGeaRhpWbzbnk534fU5aEVbmC3H3on5_3AtFj8i7FBc82IoXcKFFrWxIy_iwxmCbqjp84STr1LMMiW2tHewmT7Y4Dccgw6OBbKMidHPLJTmA/s535/Capture2.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="333" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8yGFrdqJkgCIs2sJOeegev0Jdm1ps6cwUuKYmDDkExJ5l3DiHyb-PipoImV2ppfRqqq71pfFIsfUleeGeaRhpWbzbnk534fU5aEVbmC3H3on5_3AtFj8i7FBc82IoXcKFFrWxIy_iwxmCbqjp84STr1LMMiW2tHewmT7Y4Dccgw6OBbKMidHPLJTmA/w124-h200/Capture2.JPG" width="124" /></a></div>In 1958 in an article in the <i>Annals of Science</i> Lucien Scheler and William Smeaton drew attention to a hitherto overlooked contemporary source which claimed that Lavoisier had been reconciled to the Church shortly before his death and taken Communion five times whilst in prison. The work in question is the anonymous <i>Almanach des gens de biens</i> (1795/ 97?), usually ascribed to Galart de Montjoie (the pseudonym of the royalist writer Félix Ventre de la Touloubre (1746-1816)). Here is the passage in question:</div><div><br /></div><div>We learn that, during their imprisonment in the <i>Hôtel des Fermes </i>the Farmers-General became of their impending death and turned to the consolation of religion. A priest, who was mistook for an agent of the Farm, was able to visit them frequently and offer his ministrations:</div><div><br /></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Each time this ecclesiastic came to the unfortunate men, two of them, of whom one was a celebrated academician, imbued with the anti-religious opinions so zealously and successfully preached in this century, shrugged their shoulders as if to deplore the blindness of their colleagues and left the room.</span></i><p></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Up to this point my story contains nothing extraordinary; but what follows is rather astonishing. One day these two Farmers-General came to find their colleagues, and the academician declared to them in a loud voice, "We have come to let you know that, on reflection, you have taken the correct course, the only appropriate action in the circumstances".</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">At first the Farmer-Generals were astonished by this pronouncement which they took for a joke in bad taste; they replied, that the situation was too grave for joking and their remaining time too precious to waste in disputation. The grave yawns open before us, they added;you should not disturb our contemplation of the great and moving truths it brings to mind. Even though you do not share it, you ought to respect our conviction that a new eternal life awaits us on the other side of the grave.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">No, no, the academic replied with emotion; we are not joking. We approve your state of mind in all seriousness. </span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The Farmers-General were then convinced that their two colleagues had indeed had a great change of opinion; they rejoiced and embraced them. One of them then addressed the academician:</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">What you say is true; we are doing the right thing; but we will not hide from you our concern about the worth of our conversion, after we have led disordered and sinful lives in the world. Might our conversion not be considered forced, since we face certain imminent death? Would we feel the same if we were still free, in the noise and bustle of society, where people think of everything except death?</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The academician, who was naturally eloquent, replied with a noble and consoling speech on God's infinite mercy and goodness, and the merits of the Christian redeemer. His listeners were reduced to tears found themselves filled with a sweet hope.</span></i></p><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">From that time on, the two new converts joined in the same religious observances as their colleagues. They all took communion five times before going to their death. They met their end with a serenity which would seem incomprehensible to those who did not know this story. <br /></span>Almanach des gens de bien, contenant des anecdotes peu connues, pour servir a l'histoire des evenemens de ces derniers tems </i>(1795) [<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Almanach_des_gens_de_biens_contenant_des/x4AMaZIG3J0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA71&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">On Google Books</a>]</div><div><p>Monjoie gives as his source a letter of Étienne-Marie Delahante to a member of his family. This is plausible - Delahante's two brothers-in-law, Charles and Alexandre de Parseval de Frileuse, were extremely pious and, according to the family memoirs, Delahante himself turned more to religion as a result of his experiences..</p><p>Scheler and Smeaton conclude judiciously that it is not really possible to know whether Lavoisier experienced genuine change of heart or simply acted out of regard for his fellow-prisoners: "his bitterness and his compassion were surely sufficient to reunite him with his companions in misfortune during the closing scenes of the tragedy” (Scheler and Smeaton 1958, p. 153)</p><p>Certainly there are no expressions of Christian belief in Lavoisier's last letters, penned <i>in extremis. </i>His hopes are all for the recognition of posterity. The most we have is a passing allusion to a possible afterlife in a letter to his wife. Writing in early December, he enjoins her not to be mourn him: he has accomplished all his ambitions, and adds, without a great deal of conviction, "we can still hope to be together again..."</p></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><p><b>References</b></p><div>James Guillaume, "Lavoisier: anti-clérical et révolutionnaire", <i>Études révolutionnaires,</i> Série 1 (1909) p.354-379. Originally published in 1907.</div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k826927/f359.item">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k826927/f359.item</a></div><div>For information on James Guillaume and a bibliography, see project on <a href="https://jguillaume.hypotheses.org/1645 ">Hypotheses.org</a></div><p>The letter from Talleyrand, and the surviving text of Lavoisier's MS are available in full in "Lavoisier", <i> Nouveau dictionnaire de pédagogie et d'Instruction primaire </i>(1911) <a href="http://www.inrp.fr/edition-electronique/lodel/dictionnaire-ferdinand-buisson/document.php?id=3029#:~:text=Dans%20les%20R%C3%A9flexions%20sur%20l,v%C3%A9ritable%20cours%20de%20connaissances%20physiques%C2%BB.">e-version on the IFE website.</a></p><p>For the context, see Jean Pierre Poirier, <i>Lavoisier: chemist, biologist, economist</i> (Engl. trans. 1998) Available on <a href="https://archive.org/details/lavoisierchemist00jean/page/336/mode/2up" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a>: p.336-345</p><div>On Grimaux, see Henri Guerlac, "Lavoisier and his biographers" <i>ISIS </i>May 1954, p.51-62 .Guerlac concludes that there was "perhaps good reason for Grimaux's caution, however much we deplore it."</div></div><div>[<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/227682?seq=2">On JSTOR</a>]</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Lucien Scheler and William A. Smeaton, "An account of Lavoisier's reconciliation with the church a short time before his death.<i> Annals of Science</i> vol. 14(2) (1958) June 1958, p.148-153.</div><div><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00033795800200057">https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00033795800200057</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Lavoisier's English biographer, Douglas McKie, accepted Lavoisier's Catholicism: "In that age of atheism, Lavoisier kept his Catholic faith. When Edward King sent a copy of one of his books, Lavoisier wrote in acknowledging the gift: "You wage a noble cause in defending the revelation and the authenticity of the Scriptures; and what is remarkable is that you now use for defence the very weapons that have many times been employed in attack" ( McKie,<i> Lavoisier (1952) </i>p.256-57)</div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-56754359612311385522023-04-26T10:55:00.001-07:002024-02-17T11:57:03.077-08:00Lavoisier - The Republic has no need for scientists?<p style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b><i>La république n'a pas besoin de savants et de chimistes; le cours de la justice ne peut être suspendu</i></b></span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>[The Republic has no need of savants and chemists. Justice must run its course.]</i></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p>This Revolutionary condemnation of scientific endeavour is so notorious that the geneticist and writer Steve Jones used it for the title of his book on late 18th-century science (<i>No Need for Geniuses: Revolutionary Science in the Age of the Guillotine</i>. Little, Brown, 2016). </p><p>However, there is no convincing evidence that it was ever really said. It is yet another example of a small distortion of the historical record which has resulted in significant misrepresentations.</p><p>The dictum was supposedly delivered at the trial of Lavoisier and his fellow Farmers-General by the Revolutionary Tribunal on 8th May 1794. Lavoisier had asked for a stay of execution in order to finish a scientific project. The speaker was variously identified as the Vice-President of the Tribunal, Jean-Baptiste Coffinhal, his colleague René-François Dumas, or even Fouquier-Tinville himself.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJduk5b5jEGsjVqmNw8r3o1KTqRrOOCaBLEOpZpm31QeQWbVncg8E2gEWKkM3pZqxcBl4ShBkY0S8et-Bb9yQnqVbVrUYEDevGjpYGT4bIjl-U76DHfKEKloho9EQARzRVW0sGB7iVrqYPV3mvSL4YwXUcHFR8VeNWB0legOP-4tTeUfC78lTxp3DcsQ/s640/C0025005-Lavoisier_s_trial,_1794.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="640" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJduk5b5jEGsjVqmNw8r3o1KTqRrOOCaBLEOpZpm31QeQWbVncg8E2gEWKkM3pZqxcBl4ShBkY0S8et-Bb9yQnqVbVrUYEDevGjpYGT4bIjl-U76DHfKEKloho9EQARzRVW0sGB7iVrqYPV3mvSL4YwXUcHFR8VeNWB0legOP-4tTeUfC78lTxp3DcsQ/w640-h418/C0025005-Lavoisier_s_trial,_1794.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">The trial of Lavoisier - 19th-century engraving from Louis Figuier's <i>Vies des savants illustres.</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>The evidence against the reality of the pronouncement was first presented by Édouard Grimaux in his 1888 biography of Lavoisier and, subsequently, in still more detail, by James Guillaume, in an article of 1909. Their chief reservations were as follows: <p></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>There is no record of any such exchange between Lavoisier and his judges in the official reports or minutes of the trial.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The attribution of the dictum to different individuals counts against its authenticity. The speaker would have to be Coffinhal, since neither Dumas nor Fouquier were present at the trial. (Coffinhal was the presiding judge and the indictment was read by Fouquier's<i> </i>substitute Gilbert Liendon). </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>There is no account of the incident in the memoirs of Étienne Marie Delahante, one of three associate Farmers who were present at the trial but escaped condemnation.</li></ul><div><ul><li>There is no reference in the records of the trials of members of the Revolutionary Tribunal which took place after Thermidor. The judgment against the Farmers-General was reviewed in some detail in two hearings in Floréal Year III; one of the witnesses was Dobsen, the judge who had saved the lives of Delahante and his two colleagues. The <i>compte-rendu</i> includes a paragraph on the death of Lavoisier, but no mention of either Lavoisier's request or the response of the Tribunal. See:<i> Histoire parlementaire de la Révolution française</i>, vol. 35, p. 124. [<a href="https://books.google.fr/books?id=0-3yvUD_DuUC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Google Books</a>] </li></ul></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>There is no mention in the earliest biographical notice for Lavoisier, by the astonomer Lalande, which was published in the<i> Magasin encyclopédique </i>for<i> </i>Nivôse Year IV (December 1795)</li></ul><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">The sources</span></b></p><p>The first reference comes from the eulogy delivered by the chemist Antoine François de Fourcroy, at the memorial ceremony in Lavoisier's honour held at the Lycée des Arts on 15 Thermidor Year IV (2nd August 1796). Fourcroy asks: </p><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i></i></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh49rwAyKh1QZCo66z-3mIxw5c7CSV7Enx54Rt8tmIN1KxEJwPnYT_RaI7DhOdfpv4btDGO6rBrwEoU_N7_ReQFbs0VPyQYUg2qAujzeMe5X4pWHL_HJjLy6AAkZtXHs5rKukhOo5h5X1H3bx_MTiCUMBWifERym6TtSfgm7-9PXfBxWDbMTnjyGbNCJw/s1113/Portrait_of_Antoine_Francois,_Comte_de_Fourcroy_(1755-1809)_(Fran%C3%A7ois_Dumont)_-_Nationalmuseum_-_177243.tif.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1113" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh49rwAyKh1QZCo66z-3mIxw5c7CSV7Enx54Rt8tmIN1KxEJwPnYT_RaI7DhOdfpv4btDGO6rBrwEoU_N7_ReQFbs0VPyQYUg2qAujzeMe5X4pWHL_HJjLy6AAkZtXHs5rKukhOo5h5X1H3bx_MTiCUMBWifERym6TtSfgm7-9PXfBxWDbMTnjyGbNCJw/s320/Portrait_of_Antoine_Francois,_Comte_de_Fourcroy_(1755-1809)_(Fran%C3%A7ois_Dumont)_-_Nationalmuseum_-_177243.tif.jpg" width="230" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Fourcroy, portrait by François Dumont</span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p></p></blockquote></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> Had not the judge-executioner proclaimed that the Republic had no need of scientists, and that a single man of good sense sufficed to run its affairs?<br /></i> Fourcroy, <i>Notice sur la vie et les travaux de Lavoisier, lue, le 15 Thermidor, an 4, au Lycée des Arts</i> (Paris, 1796), p.46. [<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Notice_sur_la_vie_et_les_travaux_de_Lavo/VShCAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA46&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">On Google Books</a>]</div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"></p></blockquote><div>This passage needs to be treated with caution. The ironic reference to Robespierre, as a "single man of good sense", was calculated to strike a chord with a post-Thermidorean audience; but it does not really reflect the authentic language of 1794. Moreover, Fourcroy had a hidden agenda. He wanted to refute the charge - which was to dog him for many years - that he and his fellow <i>Lycéens</i> had stood by and allowed Lavoisier to go to his death. He insists that during the Terror, not just Lavoisier but the entire scientific community had been mortal danger. They had been powerless, forced "to hide their tears in their hearts so as not to alert tyranny to their feelings". </div><p style="text-align: left;">Here is a longer extract, which puts the throwaway quote (really little more than a rhetorical flourish) in context:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i> Reread those fatal pages of our history and reply to those who dredge up from those horrible sacrifices, perfidious doubts, or still more criminal slanders against men who supposedly had some power or influence to stop these executions. From the tyrant's viewpoint, did not these men, by their works and lives completely dedicated to public service, merit the same fate as Lavoisier? Were they not already under the shadow of arrest? Would their blood not have been mixed with that of the illustrious victim in just a few more days? Had not the judge-executioner proclaimed that the republic had no need of scientists, and that a single intelligent man sufficed to run its affairs? </i></span></p></blockquote>A second reference is to be found in some song lyrics from the same ceremony by Charles Désaudray, founder of the Lycée des Arts. These contain the first clear reference to Lavoisier's request for a stay of execution. Here are the relevant verses: <div><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> A la mort condamné, cependant il espère </span></i></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Qu'il pourra terminer un travail important: </span></i></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Pour être utile encore, il lui faut un instant.</span></i></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> De quelques jours il veut que l'on diffère!</span></i></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> Un vandale* à ces mots répond en rugissant </span></i></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">«Dans le fond des tombeaux emporte ta science;</span></i></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> De tes arts nous saurons nous passer à présent;</span></i></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> C'est du fer qu'il nous faut, il suffit à la France».</span></i></div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> </span></i><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Condemned to death, he still hopes / That he will be able to finish an important work / To be useful again, he needs another instant / He wants them to defer a few days. </span><br /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">A vandal replies to his words by roaring / Take your science into the grave/ We have no need of your arts at present / We need weapons - that is enough for France.</span><p></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;">An annotation reads: "Memorable response by the brigand Dumas"</span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> Charles Désaudray, "La mort de Lavoisier, hiérodrame mis en musique par citoyen Langlé." published in Mullin's <i>Magasin Encyclopédique</i> vol. 8 for 1796 <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Revue_encyclop%C3%A9dique/yl_J7LYhfpEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Charles+D%C3%A9saudray,+La+mort+de+Lavoisier,+hi%C3%A9rodrame+mis+en+musique+par+citoyen+Langl%C3%A9&pg=PA550&printsec=frontcover">[On Google Books</a>]</blockquote><div><br /></div>The fact that Désaudray has the wrong judge hardly inspires confidence.</div><div><br /></div><div>For the details of the commemoration: Pierre Lemay "La pompe funèbre de Lavoisier au lycée des Arts", <i>Revue d'histoire de la pharmacie,</i> 1958.
pp. 230-236. <br /><a href="http://www.persee.fr/doc/pharm_0035-2349_1958_num_46_156_8171">http://www.persee.fr/doc/pharm_0035-2349_1958_num_46_156_8171</a><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><div>Pierre Lemay notes that Madame Lavoisier did not attend the event; she did not wish to absolve those she held responsible for her husband's death: "her sense of dignity opposed it; and she was not a woman to ignore it". </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7yCL9knzjo1hFycWaiLie7MWZSyh-vDcJjkkebla3LOzFeQwN-kLk-j8Sg3ieMIyy-Czdhj9BP787rQdtGRUzuhdkOl1lStjdmWPMmrAW02D7C1Ynd-jKetMrIjsQdjdpbz3mEDglJ8Dv9tcTIBlktgxmXQaK7MEP4PjISCBCBylp6vI0uLvt8GL-BA/s800/c0080562-800px-wm.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="800" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7yCL9knzjo1hFycWaiLie7MWZSyh-vDcJjkkebla3LOzFeQwN-kLk-j8Sg3ieMIyy-Czdhj9BP787rQdtGRUzuhdkOl1lStjdmWPMmrAW02D7C1Ynd-jKetMrIjsQdjdpbz3mEDglJ8Dv9tcTIBlktgxmXQaK7MEP4PjISCBCBylp6vI0uLvt8GL-BA/s320/c0080562-800px-wm.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div></div><p>Lavoisier's request was not in itself implausible. A written deposition on his behalf from the Advisory had been submitted by the Advisory Board for Arts and Trades during the trial but not admitted.</p><p> Thus Lalandé:</p><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">At the moment when they were engaged in this so-called judgment, there was brought in a report by Citizen Hallé of the Advisory Board. This contained a description of the works and merit of Lavoisier, capable of making an impression on any thinking person, but it was not even read by these men who were the blind, stupid and ferocious instruments of cruelty and death.<br /></span></i>Joseph Jérôme Lalande, “Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de Lavoisier,”,<i> Magasin encyclopédique</i>, 5 (1795), 174-188; p.183. [<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Magasin_encyclop%C3%A9dique_ou_Journal_des_s/99NRAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA174&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">On Google Books</a>] </div><div><br /></div><div>This testimonial had been solicited by Lavoisier himself in a letter dated 29 Germinal. Lavoisier had also requested references from Le Faucheux and Champy at the<i> </i>Administration of Gunpowder and Saltpetre<i>, </i>and from his two colleagues Cadet et Baumé at the Academy of Science. In an earlier letter, dated 6 Brumaire, he had petitioned the Committee of General Security, asking to remain provisionally at liberty to continue his collaboration with the Commission on Weights and Measures. (See Grimaux, <i>Lavoisier, </i>p.286-9)</div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Later versions</span></b></p><p></p>In the years after Thermidor, the authenticity of both Lavoisier's request and the memorable reposte, was reinforced by repetition. However, the works concerned were popular compilations rather than first-hand accounts. Thus we read in a notice by P. Quénard, prepared for the the<i> Collection des portraits de Bonneville </i>in Year VII: "He asked for a reprieve to finish a last work. The people has no need of chemistry, was the reply". In the following year, Des Essarts in his <i>Siècles littéraires de la France, </i>gave the anecdote its definitive form:<br /><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>It was on the 16 Floréal Year II (1794) that Lavoisier was brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Since he foresaw the fate that awaited him, he asked his judges, or rather his executioners, to defer his death for a fortnight." I have need of this time", he told them, " to finish experiments for an important project, which I have been working on for several years. After this I will not feel regret for my life. I will sacrifice it to my country. The tiger who presided over that Tribunal of blood, Coffinhal, gave this barbaric reply to Lavoisier: "The Republic has no need of savants and chemists. Justice must run its course".</i></span><br />Des Essarts, <i>Siècles littéraires de la France. </i>vol.4 (1801) <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Les_siecles_litteraires_de_la_France_ou/zF5MAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA122&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">[On Google Books</a>]<i> </i>p.124.</p></blockquote></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">In contrast, the exchange was not included in more scholarly works, notably the account of the trial by Jean-Baptiste Biot in his <i>Essai sur l’histoire générale des sciences pendant la Révolution française in</i>1803. As Guillaume notes, although Biot was a serious scholar, he did not hesitate to include interesting anecdotes if he felt that they were authentic. </p><p style="text-align: left;"> Grimaux was troubled by the entry on Lavoisier in Michaud's <i>Biographie universelle:</i> </p><div><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> A courageous citizen, M. Hallé, was the only one who dared to make a public effort [on Lavoisier's behalf]. He hastened to draw up </i><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">for the Lycée des Arts </i><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">a report on the utility of the great man's discoveries, and this report was produced at the tribunal. Lavoisier himself did not disdain to ask the wretches who had condemned him for a delay of a few days in order, he said, to complete experiments useful to humanity. He meant no doubt the research on evaporation that had been suspended by his imprisonment and which promised excellent results. Everything was useless. The chief of this horrible band replied in a ferocious voice that there was no need for savants and the fatal blow was struck on 8th May 1794.</i></p></blockquote></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">The author, the naturalist Georges Cuvier had access to unpublished documents supplied by Madame Lavoisier. Grimaux reports that he has "in his own hands" her manuscript biographical sketch which Cuvier reproduced almost verbatim. However, Guillaume observes that these memoirs went up only to 1793. Cuvier could be caught out in minor inaccuracies: for example Hallé wrote on behalf of the Advisory Board not the Lycée des Arts. His vague reference to the "chief of this band" suggests he was not even certain who had spoken.</p></div><p><br /></p><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></p><p></p><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPMUKm-mhP4kCex-Gwqywz0wXZdU5qX9C-3EBB4jItu2u4Twh21rLEKXccT_KV83HDVnYEzYEZSoUwyNPpi_j2x5LV1_JdVWt8h16tKiFhKuSDPSkimOns83FLrbobReO_rQiLG8nBjPSIOVOW87eUiauLHGNYpHS-NS-yW-vZviZ8st2Fy_15cHWjlA/s476/1stat_lav_br2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPMUKm-mhP4kCex-Gwqywz0wXZdU5qX9C-3EBB4jItu2u4Twh21rLEKXccT_KV83HDVnYEzYEZSoUwyNPpi_j2x5LV1_JdVWt8h16tKiFhKuSDPSkimOns83FLrbobReO_rQiLG8nBjPSIOVOW87eUiauLHGNYpHS-NS-yW-vZviZ8st2Fy_15cHWjlA/s16000/1stat_lav_br2.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Bas relief from the base of Lavoisier's statue in the place de la Madeleine</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Could Lavoisier have been saved?</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>Lurking behind the dubious throwaway pronouncement, is the larger question of the relationship between science and revolution. But this is too much weight for it to carry. It is worth reiterating, that Lavoisier was tried as a Farmer-General, not as a scientist. Moreover, the trial itself was the product of a particular moment, and a particular confluence of personalities.</div><div><br /></div><div>In his biography, Jean-Pierre Poirier addresses the more limited question of whether Lavoisier personally could have been extricated and answers an emphatic "yes". Of the forty-five Farmers-General with shares in the final lease, eleven successfully escaped the guillotine. A man less naive and rigidly proud than Lavoisier, would have understood that the Revolutionary authorities were intent on his destruction and fled the country. Even when the trial began, there was room for manoeuvre - Verdun de Monchiroux was released only moments before the Farmers entered the Tribunal. The three Associate Farmers were also saved. It was widely held that those involved in the prosecution - Dupin de Beaumont, Coffinhal, Fouquier-Tinville - were amenable to bribery or flattery. (Madame Lavoisier actually secured an interview with Dupin but, in Poirier's view, her high-handedness arrogance did not serve her husband well. See p.370-1 )</div><div><br /></div><div>Poirier also reviews the efforts of the scientific community on Lavoisier's behalf: Later opinion was divided as to whether Fourcroy had in fact intervened. He was a member of the Convention and an extreme radical by conviction. However, contemporaries like Georges Cuvier, Antoine Claire Thibaudeau and Eugène Chevreul all came to his defence. He had worked through the Commission on Weights and Measures to protect Lavoisier. His student, André Laugier, claimed that he had even approached the Committee of Public Safety. (According to this story Robespierre remained silent, but was overheard to complain of Fourcroy's gall; Prieur de la Côte d'Or ran out to warn the chemist not to return if he valued his own head. Quoted p.383. )</div><div><br /></div><div>Other scientists, Borda, Haüy, Désaudray and Hallé, had also done what they could, as had their colleagues at the Lycée des Arts and the Advisory Board for Arts and Trades. If Lavoisier had been let down, it was perhaps by his collaborators closer to power, Guyton de Morveau, Hassenfratz, Monge, who failed to act - whether through fear, political conviction or academic rivalry. The arrogant Lavoisier, who claimed for his own "the theory of French chemists" did not inspire their affection.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>References</b></div>Edouard Grimaux Lavoisier, 1743-1794 (1888), p.376-78. <div><a href="https://archive.org/details/lavoisier174317900grimuoft/page/376/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/lavoisier174317900grimuoft/page/376/mode/2up</a><br /><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;">James Guillaume, "Un mot légendaire : La République n'a pas besoin de savants", <i>Études révolutionnaires,</i> Série 1 (1909), p.136-155<br /><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k826927/f141.item">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k826927/f141.item</a></div><span style="color: #2b00fe;">https://www.marxists.org/francais/cmo/n49/P_Chronique_Lavoisier_8_.pdf</span><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Jean-Pierre Poirier, <i>Lavoisier: chemist, biologist, economist</i> (Engl. trans. 1998) Available on <a href="https://archive.org/details/lavoisierchemist00jean/page/n3/mode/2up" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a> Lavoisier's modern biographer, dismisses the exchange as apocryphal.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></i></div></div></div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-74905182695137938882023-04-21T02:35:00.001-07:002023-07-30T02:01:03.509-07:00Lavoisier, Revolutionary: 4. The unravelling<div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="485" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7GHhqiA_XObIXjK4JeRKJbHQEgXhACMYGQgnlFvFCxeSPCG3d0-SpzWgL6-INd7cXXF16nklcR5EgMPbfHj6_VSqNfhxCd4LCIdaxiNkGh9tsNcXPSQQRK9aNqbfySYXqZcdAnpRzsKaB_wqIbvQTZ17FYS1tN-Z1uBNwI-CuN91rEvPNlFY4n1vQfQ/w321-h400/LAVOISIER3.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="321" /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Engraving of Lavoisier by M.R.G. Brossard presented to the Institut de France in 1806.<br /> Grimaux identified this portrait as a last image made during Lavoisier's imprisonment.<br /> However, in an accompanying letter of dedication, the artist explains that the work was done from memory on the basis of previous sketches.</span> <br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">See Beretta, <i>Imaging a career in science</i> (2001), p.12-14.</span></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Lavoisier in 1790-91</span></b></p><p>In late 1789 order was temporarily restored in Paris and the work of national reconstruction could begin. Despite the ambiguities of his personal position as a Farmer-General, Lavoisier was a natural member of the new liberal élite and his financial and administrative expertise were much in demand. </p><p><b>In 1789-91 we see Lavoisier take his place in Revolutionary Paris, resume his social position and continue to play a prominent role in the international scientific community.</b> :</p><p><b>Although denied a place in the Assembly, he was active in the administration of Paris</b>. </p><p>In September 1789 he was elected to the reconstituted Commune of Paris as one of the five representatives for the district of Saint-Louis-la-Culture. His colleagues, besides Lafayette and Bailly, included Condorcet, Antoine Laurent de Jussieu and other members of the Academy of Sciences; <span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="background-color: white;">Louis Lefèvre-</span><span style="background-color: white;">Gineau</span>,</span> Professor at the Collège de France, the chemist Demachy and the Farmer General Duvaucel. When the Civic, later National, Guard was formed, Lavoisier was enrolled in the section for the Arsenal.</p><span></span><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>On July 14th 1790 he invited the representatives of the National Guard of Blois to stay in his house in the rue Neuve-des-Bons-Enfants, offered them hospitality and earned thanks of the inhabitants of Blois. <p></p><p><b>He was a member of the <i>Société de 1789.</i></b></p><p>The "Society of 1789" was formed in April 1790 when a group of constitutional monarchist ceded from the Jacobin Club: a splendid inaugural banquet took place at the Palais Royal on 13 May 1790. Members numbered around 300 men, including 40 or 50 deputies from the Constituent Assembly, among them Lafayette, Mirabeau, Bailly, Sieyès,Talleyrand, Condorcet and Le Chapelier. The Jacobins, perhaps with justification, condemned the Society as a remnant of the privilege and élitism of the Ancien Régime. The subscription was five louis and meetings featured fine dining followed by brandy and wine, served on a balcony overlooking the Palais Royal. The agenda was not day-to-day affairs but problems of a general kind and what was called "political metaphysics". According to the rubric it was "neither a sect nor a party, but a company of the friends of men or, as might be said, agents in the exchange of social truths". Such a forum chimed perfectly with the outlook of Lavoisier who - on principle and by temperament - saw no place in a well-run administration for faction and politicking.</p><p> Membership dwindled in course of 1790, with the majority moving to the Feuillants, founded in July 1791. See McKie, <i>Lavoisie</i>r, p.311: Little is known of the last days of the '89 Club; only one volume of its journal was ever published, so it probably came to an end in the course of 1791. Lavoisier himself was its last recorded secretary in January 1791.</p><p><b>He continued his scientific work</b></p><p>The <i>Traité élémentaire de chimie</i> had been published to much acclaim in February 1789 and was a rapid success throughout Europe. At the end of 1788 the <i>Société des Annales de chimie</i> was founded in order to publicise the new chemistry. Whilst he did not instigate the project, Lavoisier acted as treasurer and members included many of his collaborators, among them Claude Louis Berthollet and Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau. In 1789 the first issue of the <i>Annales de chimie</i> was published by Lavoisier’s printer, Gaspard-Joseph Cuchet, and its soon became a formidable tool of dissemination.</p><p>Although Revolutionary administration took up much of his time, we still find Lavoisier in his laboratory. In 1790 he resumed his work on respiration and transpiration with a new ambitious series of experiments in collaboration with his younger colleague Armand Séguin. As late as April 1793 he renewed a contract with the publisher Pankouche to provide entries for the <i>Encyclopédie méthodique </i>on gunpowder and allied topics. In 1791 he began work on the projected five-volume <i>Mémoires de physique et chimie.</i> The first proofs arrived at Pierre Samuel Dupont's publishing house on 10th March 1793, and printing went ahead under the supervision of Lavoisier and Séguin until July 1793. Madame Lavoisier was to distribute the first copies in the summer of 180<i>5.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><span style="color: #800180;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Financial advisor to the Revolution</span></b></span></p><p><b>During the Constituent Assembly, Lavoisier was much called upon as a financial expert, in his quasi-official capacity as director of the</b> <i style="font-weight: bold;">caisse d’escompte .</i></p><p>"Lavoisier possessed both the drive and the practical knowledge to take charge of industrial and financial initiatives. As Farmer-General and banker, he commanded a considerable personal fortune; he had close contacts in the world of royal administration, his precise accounting and commitment to practical science promised an effective outcome." (J.-P Poirier)</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimn7-ZkV7a8bTyMArC3KUF8jTLeJ3J0SGQraoYAjYMqUDGzcZHLrP_QfTjRWFJHE11Q2q7jQAm-51KzLFEvuUj9sQkudb7Ho6U_hhI_Hv5hCybm2I6V3CAnCLQjWQ1OsprbotV3zP-a_E52ayXen__Yioxk6V7bEUpc50V-vfjOW427yjhSRNPUYGO3Q/s604/Assignats.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="466" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimn7-ZkV7a8bTyMArC3KUF8jTLeJ3J0SGQraoYAjYMqUDGzcZHLrP_QfTjRWFJHE11Q2q7jQAm-51KzLFEvuUj9sQkudb7Ho6U_hhI_Hv5hCybm2I6V3CAnCLQjWQ1OsprbotV3zP-a_E52ayXen__Yioxk6V7bEUpc50V-vfjOW427yjhSRNPUYGO3Q/w154-h200/Assignats.JPG" width="154" /></a></div><b>However, he failed to convince the National Assembly of the need for a national bank, or the dangers of issuing large numbers of assignats.</b><p></p><p>The <i>Caisse d'escompte </i>or "Discount bank"was a private company set up by Turgot in 1776 as chief creditor of the Royal Treasury. Necker and Lavoisier proposed to buy out the shareholders and create a true national Bank, but the Assembly mistrusted the idea of so powerful an institution in the hands of the Royal Administration. </p><div>Lavoisier also tried unsuccessfully to oppose the uncontrolled issue of paper money; his <i>Reflexions sur les assignats </i>were delivered to the Society of 1789 and published by Dupont. Ironically enough, at beginning of 1793 Lavoisier would devote three months of his activity at the Advisory Board for Arts and Trades to finding a technical means to combatcounterfeit banknotes.</div><p></p><div><div>Réflexions sur les assignats et sur la liquidation de la dette exigible ou arriérée, Read to the <i>Société de 1789</i>, 29 August 1790, <i>Oeuvres,</i> vol.6, p.364-402.</div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k862714/f369.item.texteImage">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k862714/f369.item.texteImage</a></div></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><br /></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>In March 1791 Lavoisier was invited to present to the Committee on Taxation an evaluation of national revenue. </b><br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8TZhrX5DvNpy7mV0dvHmFUT-ZQCSUo-dwxI18C5IyTETFgZGF80m6nXbDHQa7EMAJt8O2Xanxg5prb1iSCIKtJPsr_PC-vnORSwUq5e4udx6HfJhns041spU7_zEFyroCHXDWTVZI_NcGxKgiQIxLV956KRRIRmmyqS2x_qV8ooFs_qaXn05ic_NpHA/s676/Richesse.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="676" data-original-width="411" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8TZhrX5DvNpy7mV0dvHmFUT-ZQCSUo-dwxI18C5IyTETFgZGF80m6nXbDHQa7EMAJt8O2Xanxg5prb1iSCIKtJPsr_PC-vnORSwUq5e4udx6HfJhns041spU7_zEFyroCHXDWTVZI_NcGxKgiQIxLV956KRRIRmmyqS2x_qV8ooFs_qaXn05ic_NpHA/w122-h200/Richesse.JPG" width="122" /></a></div><div>His report was a summary of extensive research which he had been working on since 1784 with a view to establishing the empirical foundations for a system of taxation based on net-yield of land</div><div> </div><div>Modern commentators see this as a landmark text in the development of national accounting, though at the time, it served mainly to highlight the concentration of wealth in aristocratic hands.</div><div><br /></div><div>The report was subsequently printed by Dupont as a brochure of 48 pages. Lavoisier never had the chance to publish anything further and by the beginning of 1792 he had abandoned the project. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><div><div><span style="color: #800180;"><p style="color: black;">In 1791, Lavoisier had been successively elected National Treasury Commissioner, member of the Committee on Weights and Measures, Treasurer of the Academy of Sciences and member of the Advisory Board for Arts and Trades.Thisextraordinarily talented man who had been able to hold ten jobs at once began to be overwhelmed, to the detriment of his personal research.</p><div><br /></div></span></div><div><p></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Commissioner of the National Treasury (April 1791 to February 1792)</span></b></p><p><b>Even at a fairly early date, Lavoisier was pessimistic about his prospects for future office in the new government:</b></p><p>In a letter of 24th July 1790 to the Scottish chemist Joseph Black, Lavoisier expressed his hope to travel to England and Edinburgh: "The Revolution that is taking place in France must naturally make some of those attached to the former administration superfluous and it is possible that I may enjoy more freedom". See McKie, <i>Lavoisier</i>, p.310-11. McKie observes, "There is a note of personal anxiety about the future not well concealed in his words" </p><p><b>However, in April 1791, he was appointed as a Commissioner to the National Treasury</b></p><p><b></b>Following departure of Necker the National Assembly dismantled the remaining organs of royal finance and took over direction of the Public Treasury; Lavoisier was appointed, along with Condorcet, as one of six Treasury commissioners. The post enjoyed a wide remit. </p><p>In 1997 Jean-Pierre Poirier published a hitherto unknown manuscript by Lavoisier and Condorcet which outlined a sweeping programme for the National Treasury ("De la situation du trésor public au 1er juin 1791", summaried in Poirier's biography, p.281-85). The document shows that the two men were still filled with optimism and idealism. They outline the plan for an quasi-independent treasury, which Condorcet was later to put forward in his project for the Constitution of 1793. As Poirier comments, the officials of the Treasury did indeed enjoy a high degree of autonomy and immunity throughout the Revolution.</p><p>In January 1792, two months after the convocation of the Legislative Assembly Lavoisier presented a report on the "State of the Finances of France". He was strongly advised to give an optimistic estimate, but characteristically confined himself impartial facts and met with little response. His speech betrayed his increasing discomfort with the political climate: </p><p><i> Lavoisier's success at administering the [National Treasury], and his failure to persuade the Assembly to adopt sound fiscal policy, offer an instructive instance of the interplay of expertise with politics in revolutionary circumstance. He was very bad at politics: "This piece of writing will be as cool as reason ("froid comme la raison") he wrote in the preamble to his estimate of the state of national finances in January 1792, a season of intense political heat"</i>.(Charles Gillispie, in the introduction to Poirier's biography p.xvi)</p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Lavoisier leaves office</span></b></p><p><b>By the time the Legislative Assembly met, Lavoisier must have been aware his situation was increasingly precarious. </b></p><p>He had wrong-footed himself with attempts to decline a salary for his post at the Treasury and was subject to searing personal attacks in the radical press, notably from Marat (See Readings). The King's flight to Varennes in June 1791 left the constitutional monarchists in disarray; the Scottish chemist Sir James Hall, who visited Paris in the course of 1791,describes Lavoisier himself in an uncharacteristic state of uncertainty about the merits of a republic (See Readings). His allies dispersed. In September 1791 Pétion replaced Bailly as mayor of Paris and Talleyrand discreetly disappeared to England. Condorcet also left the Treasury Commission in order to stand as a deputy in the new assembly. </p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>Lavoisier now began to distance himself from the world of finance.</b> </p><p>He resigned from the<i> caisse d'escompte</i> in January 1792. In February, as the mood of antagonism in the Convention intensified, he left the National Treasury, to be followed shortly afterwards by two of his colleagues, Savalette de Langes, and Rouillé de l'Estang. On 24th March the shortlived Girondin ministry ushered in the implacably hostile Étienne Clavière as Minster of Finance. On 12 June, in the subsequently reshuffle, Louis offered Lavoisier the post of Minister of Taxation, but he this he turned down (See letter below). He cited as his reasons his distaste for faction and his opinion that the Assembly had exceeded its authority. He must also have been well aware that the post was an empty shell. </p><p>By 15th August, when he finally left the Gunpowder Commission, he had relinquished all non-academic public office.</p><p>In his American biographer Arthur Donovan's graphic simile, Lavoisier had built his public career like a country estate. The Revolution now gradually demolished the carefully placed building blocks: the collapse of the Tax Farm, his disapproval of the government's reliance on assignats, his misgivings over the Gunpowder Commission, ran in tandem with the failure of the limited monarchy he believed should be at the heart of the French Constitution; ""one by one the subjects he was prepared to address were dragged beyond his reach by the unfolding drama of revolution" . He was to continue until "the last of the rooms in the estate that had been his career was converted into a prison cell" (Donovan, p.274). </p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Lavoisier and the fall of the monarchy</span></b></p><p><b>We catch a few glimpses of Lavoisier during the crisis of August 1792</b></p><p>On August 2nd the Arsenal Section met and asked Lavoisier and the lawyer Grillot to draw up a petition against the king's deposition. Three days later, on the 5th, he led a deputation, composed mainly of Gunpowder administration employees, lawyers and tax officials to read his declaration. He insisted that the decision belonged to the Assembly alone, as the only legally constituted authority. The occasion is described in Mortier-Tenaux's <i>Histoire de la Terreur</i> (see Readings) </p><p>This was not to be his hour. The report in the <i>Moniteur</i> did not even mention Lavoisier by name. On August 8th the local Jacobins, led by Juste Concedieu, wrested control of the Arsenal section and disavowed his text. They remained in control during the insurrection. On 10th August Feuillants like Dupont and Roederer were forced into hiding, but Lavoisier himself braved the crisis; as he later attested, he remained on duty with his National Guard battalion to defend the gunpower warehouse in the Arsenal. He was also to be on duty in the place de la Révolution during the insurrection of 31st May 1793.</p><p> In mid-September Lavoisier retreated to Freschines for what was to be his final sejourn. He returned to Paris in November 1792 in time for the reopening of the Academy of Sciences.</p>In these months, Lavoisier was asked to return to the Gunpowder Commission, which he now did with reluctance. Since the elder Le Faucheux was old and infirm, he was obliged to continue in post until the son, who was away on tour, returned. He gave notice of his resignation, but for some time continued his scientific studies on methods of production: "The State will have four directors instead of three; thus will I reconcile my duty and my principles; I shall serve my country as an independent and free man who owes nothing to the authorities" (quoted Grimaux, p.212) He published his analysis of saltpetre in the <i>Annales de chimie </i>in December 1792 and, in a final address, declared to Clavière with some pride that he had rendered France "in a condition to sustain the most formidable war."</div><div><p><i> </i></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Lavoisier's personal finance </span></b></p><p>This aspect of his life casts a light on Lavoisier, the <i>grand bourgeois,</i> as he attempted (ultimately unsuccessfully) to survive the Revolution with his assets intact. </p><p>As Jean-Pierre Poirier notes, from Lavoisier's discussions of salaries and his unremitting efforts to defend his interests, it might be assumed that his personal finances were meagre; but this was far from the case. </p><p>In 1791 he began to acquire <i>biens-nationaux</i> on a considerable scale. His primary concern was to safeguard his fortune, following the liquidation of the General-Farm on 20th March 1791. He also needed to invest large quantities of assignats issued in compensation for advances to the Treasury made as a member of the Caisse d'escompte. He conducted an active correspondence with his cousin Nicolas Charles Parisis who acted as his real-estate agent. A table drawn up by Patrice Bret shows that between February 1791 and October 1792 he made 16 different purchases, for a total of 1,456.875 livres.. The <i>ferme de Mortières </i>in Tremblay, which had belonged to the nuns of Saint-Cyr, accounted for about a third of his investment. </p><div>See: Hervé Revel, "Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, propriétaire de la ferme de Mortières" (2019)</div><div><a href="https://www.histoire-tremblay.org/507+antoine-laurent-lavoisier-proprietaire-de-la-ferme-de-mortieres.html">https://www.histoire-tremblay.org/507+antoine-laurent-lavoisier-proprietaire-de-la-ferme-de-mortieres.html</a></div><div><br /></div><div>His tax return for 1791 declared a total income of 37,500 livres. 27,500 livres came from his investments in property; 11,000 from his farm at Freschines, 11,000 from two houses in Paris on the rue des Bons Enfants and rue Saint-Honoré and 5,500 from the house and farm at Le Bourget which he had inherited. The Gunpowder Administration earned 10,000 livres, 4,000 fixed salary and 6,000 in bonuses. He made no mention of either his salary from the Academy or his remuneration and income as director of the Discount Bank. Under the heading "lifestyle information", he listed six servants: a chambermaid, cook, coachman and three footmen (Poirier, <i>Lavoisier</i>, p.272). </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA3Oa71xemZuAuBQ9GMCF6Q4N9ouUmqrpPLGwRQ-5ZaWD5IEyVCm7zhn5sE8bV2CwXQ4Ca7zAhwVIe3xikvBJHm-PT0iAeAvOvAbh3dkhZgxIsb0ILwUHSmhUVQ9kj3axWpphiyEpm8zFYZO49aoa5FEHgS2Tx8gIkyOWmZjgMHcgGDgSTF0pD9gYqal7V/s1091/972319.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="775" data-original-width="1091" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA3Oa71xemZuAuBQ9GMCF6Q4N9ouUmqrpPLGwRQ-5ZaWD5IEyVCm7zhn5sE8bV2CwXQ4Ca7zAhwVIe3xikvBJHm-PT0iAeAvOvAbh3dkhZgxIsb0ILwUHSmhUVQ9kj3axWpphiyEpm8zFYZO49aoa5FEHgS2Tx8gIkyOWmZjgMHcgGDgSTF0pD9gYqal7V/s320/972319.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">The Lavoisier residence in the Boulevard de la Madeleine<br />Engraving by Leroy, 1827</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: left;">With his resignation from the Gunpowder Commission in August 1792, Lavoisier was forced to vacate his well-appointed apartment at the Arsenal. At the end of September he moved into a new residence at 243 Boulevard de la Madeleine, a house which he rented from the banker Lecoulteux de La Noraye. Despite the times, this was a large and comfortable residence, where Lavoisier was able, at least in part, to reconstruct his magnificent laboratory. As a precaution he also acquired a bolt hole in St Cloud, where from August 1792 he leased an apartment.</div></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">A small anecdote: In a note of September 1792 Lavoisier certified that changes in fortune had obliged him to dismiss his principal servant Masselot who had served him for twenty years; he provided with him a horse which he declared to be "recognised as disabled" and therefore exempt from requisitioning . (p.298) It was this same loyal family servant who supported Mme Lavoisier in September 1794 when the confiscation of her husband's and father's property temporarily deprived her of all income. He was rehired in 1796.</p><div style="text-align: left;">See</div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>Denis I Duveen, "Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794): a note regarding his domicile during the French Revolution", <i>Isis,</i> Vol. 42, No. 3 (Oct., 1951), pp. 233-234 (2 pages) <span face=""GT America Standard", Helvetica, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Droid Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: -0.32px;"> [</span><span face=""GT America Standard", Helvetica, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Droid Sans", sans-serif" style="font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: -0.32px;"><a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/226561">JStor</a>]</span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Marco Beretta and Paolo Brenni, <i>The Arsenal of eighteenth-century chemistry: the laboratories of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794)</i> [Nuncius , Volume: 10], 2022. Appendix 1: Inventory of Lavoisier’s Residence and Laboratory on the Boulevard de la Madeleine (1796).<br /><a href="https://brill.com/display/book/9789004511217/BP000017.xml">https://brill.com/display/book/9789004511217/BP000017.xml</a></div><p><span style="color: #800180;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p><span style="color: #800180;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Terror and the defence of science</span></b></span></p><p></p><p><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 13.3px;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTs5arikK5OD0NOuL-kEvxnRunyExRynrHoe3B50Dt7LehMmthsV6934P5EUmmj76xIScyP5Qio_7Txa8db2nwu1q5BZlycNoEJiG5yJzdKofMdg8WlSRVYiK-IiDouGA-FU8HMuDGyvIXxY8e9fi9nKJme3XDRNA3PnENeGLBvD6W19KsVdARPAPerQ/s800/800px-Laboratoire-de-Lavoisier.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="483" data-original-width="800" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTs5arikK5OD0NOuL-kEvxnRunyExRynrHoe3B50Dt7LehMmthsV6934P5EUmmj76xIScyP5Qio_7Txa8db2nwu1q5BZlycNoEJiG5yJzdKofMdg8WlSRVYiK-IiDouGA-FU8HMuDGyvIXxY8e9fi9nKJme3XDRNA3PnENeGLBvD6W19KsVdARPAPerQ/w400-h241/800px-Laboratoire-de-Lavoisier.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Equipment from Lavoisier's laboratory at the Arsenal, Musée des Arts et Métiers <br />[<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laboratoire-de-Lavoisier.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia</a>]</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><p>During the final year of his life, Lavoisier, attempted, as did many others others, to weather the political maelstrom. Despite his withdrawal from public office, he continued to be in actively engaged with the Revolutionary authorities. The publication in 2012 of volume VII of his correspondence, for the period 1793-94, shows him constant communication with the Ministries, the Assembly and its committees. His concern was now for institutions of science. He was treasurer of the Academy of sciences from the end of 1791 and a member of the Advisory Board for Arts and Trades (<i>Bureau de consultation des arts et métiers</i>) from its creation in January 1792. Despite his efforts, the academies were suppressed in August 1793 but a temporary Commission on Weights and Measures was created, which continued the programme of standardisation and unification which he had long advocated.</p><p>The arrest of Lavoisier in November 1793 as part of the vendetta against the General Farm put a final end to his career. Commentators observe that his political, social and financial preoccupations had diverted him from scientific research in his final years. Ultimately, the guillotine put an end to his exceptional career. </p><p>Paradoxically, as Danielle Fauque remarks, his brand of enlightenment collided with the zeitgeist of the Revolutionary era: "He was too much a man of the Ancien Regime; he believed in natural order and the power of reason".</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b><span>References</span></b></p><div><div><div>For a summaries of modern assessments of Lavoisier's career: </div><div>Danielle Fauque, "Lavoisier, deux cent ans après: à propos des ouvrages du bicentenaire", <i>Revue d'histoire des sciences.</i> 1995, vol.48(1/2) p.143-69 [Open-Access article]</div><div><a href="https://www.persee.fr/doc/rhs_0151-4105_1995_num_48_1_1226">https://www.persee.fr/doc/rhs_0151-4105_1995_num_48_1_1226</a></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Isabelle Laboulais, Review of Volume 7 of Lavoisier's correspondence, for 1792-1794, published in 2012. AHRF, October-December 2013. [Open-access article]</div><div><a href="https://journals.openedition.org/ahrf/12992">https://journals.openedition.org/ahrf/12992</a></div></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>The information for this post is mostly from from the relevant chapters in Jean-Pierre Poirier's biography, <i>Lavoisier: chemist, biologist, economist</i> (Engl. trans. 1998) <a href="https://archive.org/details/lavoisierchemist00jean/page/n3/mode/2up" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a>]. </div><div>Additional material and comments are taken from the two other major English-language biographies, both of which are also available on Internet Archive/Open Library: </div><div><span style="background-color: #fbfbf9;">Douglas McKie, </span><i style="background-color: #fbfbf9;">Antoine Lavoisier: scientist, economist, social reformer </i><span style="background-color: #fbfbf9;">(1952) and </span></div><div>Arthur Donovan, <i>Antoine Lavoisier: science, administration, and Revolution</i>. (1993)</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Lavoisier's involvement with institutionalised science during the Revolutionary years are well explained in: Roger Hahn, <i>The anatomy of a scientific institution: the Paris Academy of Sciences</i> (1971) [<a href="https://archive.org/details/anatomyofscienti0000hahn">Internet Archive</a>]</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Readings</span></b></p><div><span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span></div><div><b>Marat's attack on Lavoisier , January 1791:</b></div><div><span><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></span></div><div><span><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">I denounce to you the Coryphaeus of charlatans, Sieur Lavoisier, son of a land-grabber, apprentice-chemist, pupil of the Genevan stock-jobber [Necker], Farmer-General, Commissioner for Gunpowder and Saltpetre, Governor of the Discount Bank, Secretary to the King, Member of the Academy of Sciences. Would you believe that this little gentleman, who enjoys an income of 40,000 livres and whose only claim to public recognition is that he put Paris in prison by cutting off the fresh air with a wall that cost the poor 33 millions and that he moved gunpowder from the Arsenal into the Bastille on the night of July 12 and 13, is engaged in a devilish intrigue to get himself elected as administrator of the Department of Paris....Would to Heaven that he had been strung to the lamp-post on August 6th. </span></i><span style="color: #cc0000;"> </span></span></div><div>Marat, <i>Ami du peuple</i>, no 252, Thursday January 27th 1791, p.5. </div><div>For the background, see McKie , <i>Antoine Lavoisier</i>, p.318-320.</div><p><br /></p><p><span><b>From the diaries of Sir James Hall, May/June 1791:</b></span></p><p>The Scottish geologist Sir James Hall spent several months in Paris in 1791. In May he was at the home of the Terray family where Lavoisier defend the political and fiscal achievements of the Revolution: </p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"></span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi23fWMA6Hr7IAM_Iu1VcwoF0-SOWqpZIf6QpY3Gp_UbLwmy6y-y-cYcmg9V5nCZmCrxzZF8hC-y4KD2rilt8fKSxGiEiXumUa1yD6tbfIaXd7HkWmZmu7FQdsiVo8v_26Ot19zrknmEM0efE82KUsHVXwXphHvh0y7YepF3MOgYEQWm8hw7GPyjbT7XA/s200/s200_sir_james.hall.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi23fWMA6Hr7IAM_Iu1VcwoF0-SOWqpZIf6QpY3Gp_UbLwmy6y-y-cYcmg9V5nCZmCrxzZF8hC-y4KD2rilt8fKSxGiEiXumUa1yD6tbfIaXd7HkWmZmu7FQdsiVo8v_26Ot19zrknmEM0efE82KUsHVXwXphHvh0y7YepF3MOgYEQWm8hw7GPyjbT7XA/s16000/s200_sir_james.hall.jpg" /></a></span></i></div><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Monsieur Lavoisier spoke with perfect reason and truth, tho' with a degree of heat; this I was glad to see in him as his manner is generally rather shy and as till lately he has not spoken out fully about the revolution.</span></i></p><div><p>On 28th June, in the immediate aftermath of the flight to Varennes, Hall dined with Lavoisier; also present were Dupont de Nemours, Achille Pierre Dionis du Séjour, Jean Antoine Cousin, Armand Séguin and Jean Baptiste Meusnier. Discussion turned to the possible deposition of the King: </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></b></p><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>We noticed the great wavering of almost every individual in the company, except M. Dupont, about royalty... The rest of the company, in particular M. Lavoisier, who is generally very steady, varied back and forwards several times. This appears to me to arise from the fact that they are now for the first time agitating in their minds the comparison between a republic and a monarchy; the subject is vast and admits of many views; as a man proceeds in his investigation, the most contradictory conclusions flow one another very rapidly in his </i><span style="font-style: italic;">mind.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">(Quoted in Poirier, <i>Lavoisier</i>, p.285.) </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><p><b>Lavoisier's letter of resignation to the King, 15th June 1792.</b></p></span></span></div></div><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Sire,-Neither through a pusillanimous fear wholly alien to my character, nor through indifference to public affairs, nor yet, I admit, through a sense of my own insufficiency, I am compelled to decline the mark of confidence with which your Majesty has honoured me, in the offer of the ministry of public contributions. Cognisant, during my connection with the national treasury, of your Majesty's patriotic motives, tender solicitude for the people's happiness, inflexible severity of principle, and unalterable probity, I feel more deeply than I can express all that I lose in renouncing the opportunity of becoming the mouth-piece of these sentiments to the nation. But, Sire, an honest man cannot, consistently with his duty, accept an important post unless with the hope of fully discharging its obligations.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i> I am neither a Jacobin nor a Feuillant. I belong to no society, to no club. Accustomed to form my opinions by the light of conscience and reason, I can never consent to place them at the disposal of any party. I have sincerely sworn fidelity to the constitution accepted by you, to the authorities established by the people, to you, Sire, the constitutional king of the French, whose virtues and misfortunes are too little appreciated. Persuaded, as he must be, that the legislative body has transcended the limits of the constitution, what could a constitutional minister do? Incapable of compounding with his principles and conscience, he would vainly invoke the authority of the law which all Frenchmen are bound by oath to obey. Should he counsel resistance, by means legally entrusted to your Majesty, it would be imputed to him as a crime; he would perish, the victim of duty, and the inflexibility of his character would serve but to originate fresh misfortunes.</i></span></p><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Permit me then, Sire, to devote my time and my existence to the welfare of the State in a position less elevated, but where I can render services perhaps more useful, and probably more durable. By promoting public instruction, I will seek to enlighten the people as to their duties. In the capacity of a soldier and a citizen I will bear arms for the defence of the country, of the law, and for the safety of the irremovable representative of the French people.<br /></i></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Translation from <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Edinburgh_Review/EpYJePrOdCQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA100&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank"><i>The Edinburgh Review </i>1890, p.100</a></span></div></span></div><p><span><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span><b>Lavoisier appears before the Assembly, 5th August 1792</b></span></p><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>That day (5th August) the Assembly was the scene of striking contrasts. Collot d'Herbois and his friends were followed by a deputation from the Section of the Arsenal. It was lead by one of the most illustrious citizens of Paris...Lavoisier. The great scientist read out, in a serious and calm voice, a resolution of his Section which poured scorn on the Address to the Army, "a ridiculous collection of flattery, impudent lies and absurdities" and the Address of the Parisian Sections "which sullies, degrades and paralyses constitutional authority". He loudly denounced the manoeuvres of "members of factions who seek to deceive the Assembly by presenting as the voice of an immense populace what is only the whim of a handful of citizens".</i></span><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Lavoisier was interrupted on several occasions by murmurs from the spectators. Several women...began to ridicule his manner of speech...However, on the motion of Lejosne, the women were brought to order, and the petitioners won the honours of the session.</i></span></div><div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mortier-Tenaux, <i>Histoire de la Terreur,</i> vol. 2, p.188-9. [<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Histoire_de_la_terreur_1792_1794/AAgVAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA188&printsec=frontcove" target="_blank">On Google Books</a>] </span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>See </span><span>p.397-405 for the relevant texts<span style="font-size: medium;">.</span></span></span></div></div></div></div></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Passport from 10th September 1792</b></span></div><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj6TwhqfatONpLmhzOGLAFoDGkpSgJiJFDCsHmSKUHotIiJt-CN3li6Wi7hEIicKOxuzhZ4s_9vxWyWC5U_qQs83PGhHplJ321jnG6I2gHtQ9fKXrH9XDXm6kDsWEtG9buZdQyTgSyxsgG95zyJ_OqJPncZbN-2pxHhEF2fIQDPjbG40DO6XZhkAoifw/s539/Passport.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="539" data-original-width="428" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj6TwhqfatONpLmhzOGLAFoDGkpSgJiJFDCsHmSKUHotIiJt-CN3li6Wi7hEIicKOxuzhZ4s_9vxWyWC5U_qQs83PGhHplJ321jnG6I2gHtQ9fKXrH9XDXm6kDsWEtG9buZdQyTgSyxsgG95zyJ_OqJPncZbN-2pxHhEF2fIQDPjbG40DO6XZhkAoifw/s320/Passport.JPG" width="254" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">This passport was on the occasion of Lavoisier's final journey to Freschines. It contains his only known physical description: </p><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">M. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier of the Academy of Sciences, native of Paris, aged 49 years, height five foot, four inches, brown hair and eyebrows, brown eyes, long nose, small mouth, round chin, average forehead, thin face.</span></i> </p><p style="text-align: left;">(Illustration from Denis Duveen, “Lavoisier.”<i> Scientific American </i>194, no. 5 (1956): 84–96. [<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/26122735">JStor</a>])</p></div><div><br /></div><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>An autobiographical note</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">This text, in which Lavoisier defends his Revolutionary record, is from a manuscript in his own hand, first published by Grimaux. There is no date but it was probably written close to the end of Lavoisier's life. It is moving, to see the great man reduced to sifting out the ideologically acceptable from the immense catalogue of his scientific and administrative achievements. See: Poirier, p.367-8.</span></p><p><b><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Notice of what Lavoisier, former Official of the National Treasury and of the Academy of Sciences, member of the Advisory Board for Arts and Trades, agriculturalist in the district of Blois, in the department of Loir-et-Cher, has done for the Revolution.</span></i></b></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Lavoisier, who is a member of almost all the academies of Europe, has devoted his life principally to the study of chemistry and physics.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">During the twenty-five years that he was a member of the Academy of Sciences, he published more than 80 papers, many of which contain important discoveries for the arts and sciences, and for humanity. He devoted a significant part of his personal fortune to this work.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">He did not wait for the Revolution to demonstrate his commitment to the principles of liberty and equality.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">In 1787, he was a member of the Provincial Assembly of Orléans, where he ceaselessly and courageously defended the interests of the people; the whole town of Orléans will bear witness to this.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">In the winter of 1788 to 1789 he lent without interest 50,000 livres to the commune of Blois and 6,000 to Romorantin, in order to feed the people, stock the granaries and lower the cost of subsistence.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Always constant in his principles, for the last ten years, in times of want, he has sold grain in the market at Blois at below its current price. </span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">He was an elector in 1789.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Reserve deputy to the Constituent Assembly in the same year. </span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Representative to the Provisional Commune of Paris at the end of 1789 and the beginning of 1790.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Active member of the National Guard from the first moments of the Revolution.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">A work of his on the wealth of the nation, its land, population and produce was printed by order of the Constituent Assembly in 1790.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">He was a member of the Committees on Public Health and on Monies.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">He was nominated as director of the National Treasury in 1791 in order to set up its organisation, a post which he left after a year-and-a half, only when the task was completed.</span></i></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>He was nominated in 1791 by decree of the Legislative Assembly as a member of the Advisory Board for Arts and Trades which was charged with the national recompense of artisans who were deserving but poor. </i></span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>In 1793 he was charged by the Committee on Assignats and Monies to devise a plan to reissue assignats and make them impossible to counterfeit.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>He was responsible from 1790 to 1792 for all operations related to the establishment of a new system of weights and measures, as decreed by the national representation.</i></span></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"></span></i></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Finally, on all occasions, he has borne arms for the defence of liberty; notably on 10th August 1792, when he was part of the guard for the gunpowder magazine at the Arsenal, and on 31st May 1793 when he served with the battalion of the Section des Piques in the place de la Révolution. <br /></i></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Translated from <a href="https://archive.org/details/lavoisier174317900grimuoft/page/384/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank">Grimaux, <i>Lavoisier</i> (1888), p.384</a></span></div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-87588084985888857002023-04-16T10:48:00.001-07:002023-07-29T03:57:07.585-07:00Lavoisier, Revolutionary: 3. A letter to Franklin (1790)<br />
<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVce8LOcxb6dDjXGHzbgyXBgjv2aMVZZA57TM-6p8KbxxJEZhD6P9yIr2VQkJ2amkN9CWlCnXSHhzXe3cA32GzwurbcvSEGoSJP7pBdY6Z_DwNvEhhqcZnhcxHtIeKDZRh9Nj9Xb4a_snYZxBdNJz-v7m9ygyKU7tO6J_N56xdSxr4lDlnKqpd1o_cog/s432/benjamin-franklin-by-charles-willson-peale-1785.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="348" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVce8LOcxb6dDjXGHzbgyXBgjv2aMVZZA57TM-6p8KbxxJEZhD6P9yIr2VQkJ2amkN9CWlCnXSHhzXe3cA32GzwurbcvSEGoSJP7pBdY6Z_DwNvEhhqcZnhcxHtIeKDZRh9Nj9Xb4a_snYZxBdNJz-v7m9ygyKU7tO6J_N56xdSxr4lDlnKqpd1o_cog/w161-h200/benjamin-franklin-by-charles-willson-peale-1785.jpg" width="161" /></a></div> There was no denying Lavoisier had a close call in 1789; he can have been left in little doubt that his personal position remained vulnerable. Nonetheless, by early 1790 the cause of Constitutional monarchy seemed to be triumphant. The spectre of popular revolution had receded and power appeared safely consolidated in the hands of Lavoisier's friends and allies. He looked forward to the work of national regeneration which lay ahead.<p></p><p>A rare piece of evidence as to Lavoisier's state of mind at this time is provided by a letter dated 2nd February 1790 written to Benjamin Franklin. Lavoisier informs his illustrious correspondent that the Revolution has succeeded but expresses regret that popular armed intervention had been necessary. One sense a certain unease: </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqI_Pk3LK6q-g65exR6O5Zt0gYe1tCKuVZ3y6qL05rrMKimGzG8La2GEnR-fYBWfcorck-uw4B3XK2YuDejmSOhvYD235g9NFbxYKIaMnOMmYrEAKQTguGJsu5Ndvu_XWfPdt7GBl6tZ-t25ZsAqj263Y1Vt0Y547xArbMMoO2PORdreMcwDAWKYkrUA/s520/LETTER1.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="297" data-original-width="520" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqI_Pk3LK6q-g65exR6O5Zt0gYe1tCKuVZ3y6qL05rrMKimGzG8La2GEnR-fYBWfcorck-uw4B3XK2YuDejmSOhvYD235g9NFbxYKIaMnOMmYrEAKQTguGJsu5Ndvu_XWfPdt7GBl6tZ-t25ZsAqj263Y1Vt0Y547xArbMMoO2PORdreMcwDAWKYkrUA/s320/LETTER1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p style="text-align: left;"></p><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><div style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><i>After telling you about what is happening in chemistry, it would be appropriate to give you news of our political revolution. We look upon it as successfully and irreversibly accomplished. The aristocratic party still exists and offers some useless resistance, but it is evidently the weaker. The democratic party is in the majority and is supported by the educated, philosophically-minded, and enlightened members of the nation.</i></div><div style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><i>Persons of moderate opinion, who kept their sang-froid during the general excitement, think that circumstances have carried us too far. They consider it very unfortunate that we were compelled to arm the people and all the citizens. It is not good political practice to allow the employment of force by those whose role is to obey. It is to be feared that the new constitution will be obstructed by the very people for whose benefit it was created...</i><i style="text-align: center;">. We greatly regret your absence from France at this time; you would have been our guide and would have marked out for us the boundaries that we should not cross.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; text-align: center;">Translation from the</span><span style="color: black; text-align: center;"> <i>Edinburgh Review</i> (1890), p.98 </span><span style="color: black; text-align: center;"> ["Even while announcing to Franklin, the "successful and irreversible accomplishment" of the political revolution in France, it is plain that Lavoisier was troubled, in his view of the rising sun of democracy, by some vapour of misgiving..."]</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; text-align: center;"><span></span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p></div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5ZA_hEl_tX25WTbTkIprACT5kJK8_3W-c0zFEziXKEz6IdZdxXvQFaHtVgwcWpv5Bg2HeT4kteoUAcka7HyXupvXQ8wF2fAHjIK1uFEGCa97lDnVVWVpKuN_SBjpy7u7IsUxU1fqVlUT_Z1Uu2Vc0zmHR_YLdp6pFMqXfPm1PRrG8jepyIFYy7xZp4w/s740/LETTER2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="560" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5ZA_hEl_tX25WTbTkIprACT5kJK8_3W-c0zFEziXKEz6IdZdxXvQFaHtVgwcWpv5Bg2HeT4kteoUAcka7HyXupvXQ8wF2fAHjIK1uFEGCa97lDnVVWVpKuN_SBjpy7u7IsUxU1fqVlUT_Z1Uu2Vc0zmHR_YLdp6pFMqXfPm1PRrG8jepyIFYy7xZp4w/w484-h640/LETTER2.jpg" width="484" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">On July 5th, Lavoisier wrote, equally revealingly, to the Scottish chemist Joseph Black: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>The state of public affairs in France during the last twelve months has temporarily retarded the progress of science and distracted scientists from the work that is most precious to them; but we must hope that tranquility and prosperity will follow the troubles through which we have passed and which are inseparable from a great revolution. <br /></i></span>(Reproduced in Grimaux, <i>Lavoisier</i> p.201-2)</div><p>Franklin himself was not so sanguine. On 13th November 1789 he had written to his friend, the physicist Jean-Baptiste Leroy, in some panic over the situation in France: </p><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“<i><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Are you still living? Or has the mob of Paris mistaken the head of a monopolizer of knowledge, for a monopolizer of corn, and paraded it about the streets upon a pole. Great part of the news we have had from Paris, for near a year past, has been very afflicting. I sincerely wish and pray it may all end well and happy, both for the King and the nation. The voice of Philosophy I apprehend can hardly be heard among those tumults. If any thing material in that way had occurred, I am persuaded you would have acquainted me with it. However, pray let me hear from you...a year’s silence between friends must needs give uneasiness. </span></i></span><br /><a href="https://books.google.de/books?id=jY8EAAAAYAAJ&dq=constitution&hl=de&pg=PA265#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Private correspondence, vol. 1, p.265.<br /></a>(It is this letter which contains Franklin's memorable <i>bon-mot </i>that nothing can be certain "except death and taxes").</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Franklin died on 17th April 1790, and so, perhaps fortunately, was spared knowledge of the Revolutionary excesses to come.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: left;"><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">References</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Lavoisier, Letter no.1230 to Frankin, from <i>Correspondance,</i> (vol. VI - 1789-1791), followed by the manuscript. Made available on the Academy of Sciences website.<br /><a href="https://www.academie-sciences.fr/pdf/dossiers/Franklin/Franklin_pdf/Lavoisier_Franklin_lettre.pdf">https://www.academie-sciences.fr/pdf/dossiers/Franklin/Franklin_pdf/Lavoisier_Franklin_lettre.pdf</a></div><p>Publication of Lavoisier's correspondence is being undertaken by the Comité Lavoisier of the Academy. There are more than than 2,000 letters in total. Vol. 6, which covers the period 1789-91, appeared in 1997 and vol. 7, for 1792-94, in 2012. Both volumes were edited by Patrice Bret, who is General Secretary of the Comité Lavoisier. For details, see <a href="http://historyofscience.free.fr/Comite-Lavoisier/f_correspondance.html">http://historyofscience.free.fr/Comite-Lavoisier/f_correspondance.html</a></p><div style="text-align: left;">See also Douglas McKie, "Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, 1743-1794" <i>Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London</i>, 1949, Vol.7 (1): p.1-44. <br /><a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsnr.1949.0001">https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsnr.1949.0001</a></div><div style="text-align: left;">This article contains transcripts of letters between Lavoisier and his English and Scottish correspondents, which were among the documents confiscated by the Revolutionary government in 1793. The letters illustrate well both the international scope of Lavoisier's scientific network and the dangerous ambiguity of his contacts outside France during the Revolution. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">On the friendship between Lavoisier and Franklin, and their joint involvement in the investigation of Mesmer:<br /> Denis I. Duveen and Herbert S. Klickstein, "Benjamin Franklin (1706) and Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794)" - 3 articles in the<i> Annals of Science</i> for 1955 [open-access article]</div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00033795500200115" target="_blank"> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00033795500200115</a></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-86624798884670169762023-04-12T13:33:00.003-07:002023-08-06T04:18:07.917-07:00Lavoisier, Revolutionary: 2. Explosive situations (1789)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiJw0ag_vdgbL8C9l-QkKpFWRDGpPe1c85EmyfGgIUk5qqwUK0k8pbj_BoYa5hZwwR0sX5E0vxsVcJWtzvkNSXfLXSm5LVPK903SShhTuik-apwzXWrXxxQE_H-U9vNym2qrkSsN6y-YLHAguFQbYZ4UXFY8-ZEgs4Om-cVt0IHFYmi3lYs5lUssJurw/s561/Lavoisier2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="432" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiJw0ag_vdgbL8C9l-QkKpFWRDGpPe1c85EmyfGgIUk5qqwUK0k8pbj_BoYa5hZwwR0sX5E0vxsVcJWtzvkNSXfLXSm5LVPK903SShhTuik-apwzXWrXxxQE_H-U9vNym2qrkSsN6y-YLHAguFQbYZ4UXFY8-ZEgs4Om-cVt0IHFYmi3lYs5lUssJurw/w308-h400/Lavoisier2.jpg" width="308" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">François Louis Brossard de Beaulieu, or Marie-Renée-Geneviève Brossard de Beaulieu, <br /> Portrait of a man, presumed to be Lavoisier, in the uniform of <i>Inspecteur général des poudres </i>and holding<i> </i> a Leyden jar. (1784) Musée de Versailles<br /><a href="http://collections.chateauversailles.fr/#ecc08042-f0d9-4e5a-8605-244736877204">http://collections.chateauversailles.fr/#ecc08042-f0d9-4e5a-8605-244736877204</a><br />See Beretta, <i>Imaging a career in science</i> p.10-13.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><div>In July 1789, as one of the directors of the <i>Régie des poudres et salpêtres - </i>the state gunpowder monopoly - , Lavoisier quite literally faced an explosive situation. The Petit-Arsenal, which housed the gunpowder warehouse, stood immediately adjacent to the Bastille.</div><div><br /></div><div>The <i>Plan Turgot </i>shows clearly this area of Paris, with the looming walls of the old fortress and the twin complexes of the Grand and Petit Arsenal. To the right, on the Seine, occupying the site of the present quai des Celestins, was the Port-St. Paul which handled cargoes to and from the Arsenal. The entrance gate to the Petit Arsenal, was at the end of the rue de la Ceriseraie.</div><div><br /></div><div><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc3BwvQV3_5v9aXTJFN79Dcm7YDggTHFcmhr4q_Q64owHDAMlDoADjulWmSTTAKKpIkkL6vgedp9wEIqd-hYWZ6LFfQeDtH_Alpm8SqDfUyhS5aXmmMaH8LBbuPOeNorW25F-TOcRwzlpxQHf0My4vde8eE4pizfDFQTG8KTs305vSHazb07d9WJSoNg/s2774/Paris_-_Plan_de_Turgot_Arsenal.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1425" data-original-width="2774" height="329" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc3BwvQV3_5v9aXTJFN79Dcm7YDggTHFcmhr4q_Q64owHDAMlDoADjulWmSTTAKKpIkkL6vgedp9wEIqd-hYWZ6LFfQeDtH_Alpm8SqDfUyhS5aXmmMaH8LBbuPOeNorW25F-TOcRwzlpxQHf0My4vde8eE4pizfDFQTG8KTs305vSHazb07d9WJSoNg/w640-h329/Paris_-_Plan_de_Turgot_Arsenal.jpg" width="640" /></a></p>Gunpowder had not been actually manufactured at the Arsenal for a long time. The main function of the Grand Arsenal, with its five courtyards, overlooking the river, was to accommodate the marquis d'Argenson's magnificent library. The Petit Arsenal, however, housed the offices of the Régie and served as a gunpowder warehouse. From 1775 onwards Lavoisier had occupied a private apartment here, which accommodated his extensive library, and a huge laboratory in the attic. His apparatus had soon proliferated in adjoining sheds and warehouses. The exact location is not known (See Beretta, 2022 for all the available details) </div><div><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGvSz5NiUbIUxwSJjz_SIQSXihVyf0JQQi8MC5BKlnGkMRg6LQb83JHkHkpWWf33bUvNMSoJuwSMC6j76upcOmHGItfzeCwlhoxnyrxLHL4vKPTP5Dl4pqiVvy4cYV1pUMnssdj8K3fEICWUV46dtyEmKsVltFbARmuOkZVmVvr7P7fNh8uzqoZg120g/s1280/Plaque_Lavoisier_rue_Bassompierre.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="834" data-original-width="1280" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGvSz5NiUbIUxwSJjz_SIQSXihVyf0JQQi8MC5BKlnGkMRg6LQb83JHkHkpWWf33bUvNMSoJuwSMC6j76upcOmHGItfzeCwlhoxnyrxLHL4vKPTP5Dl4pqiVvy4cYV1pUMnssdj8K3fEICWUV46dtyEmKsVltFbARmuOkZVmVvr7P7fNh8uzqoZg120g/w400-h261/Plaque_Lavoisier_rue_Bassompierre.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIOD14GYUcSRyx5DdRZjOo8Ws_ZqIF9qawBJ_VvV7lBUZvV3r1rUiEaHHX-B14ls1jm2v_GoOakYuBQPsRkGPTEhY93hN4623R0VBrIRtUG1i2I3q1N9hMbi2o2xtdmjnWDknPKlWqvVorTiD_u8i9PHhmUJAfsU4GqPsDGzk6HWnFLNiLEibM50C6Vw/s751/plaque.bmp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="751" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIOD14GYUcSRyx5DdRZjOo8Ws_ZqIF9qawBJ_VvV7lBUZvV3r1rUiEaHHX-B14ls1jm2v_GoOakYuBQPsRkGPTEhY93hN4623R0VBrIRtUG1i2I3q1N9hMbi2o2xtdmjnWDknPKlWqvVorTiD_u8i9PHhmUJAfsU4GqPsDGzk6HWnFLNiLEibM50C6Vw/w400-h168/plaque.bmp" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="text-align: left;">There is not much to see today of Lavoisier's residence in the Arsenal -<br />1 rue Bassompierre, once site of the </span>Hôtel <span style="text-align: left;">of the </span></span><i style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Régie des poudres</span> </i></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Prelude - The Gunpowder Commission and the Fall of the Bastille</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In the immediate run-up to the attack on the Bastille, the atmosphere in Paris was tense. The 407 district electors for the Third Estate had seized power and installed themselves in the Hôtel de Ville, and a bourgeois militia had been formed. On 13th July the electors from Saint-Louis-de-la-Culture, which contained the Arsenal and the Bastille, appointed twelve commissioners to maintain order, one of whom was Lavoisier.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">On the night of the 12th to 13th the governor of the Bastille, Launay, requested the transfer of a large quantity of gunpowder from the Petit Arsenal as a precautionary measure: 250 barrels were moved by the Swiss Guards (thirty-two of whom were assigned to the fortress). At six o'clock in the morning of the 14th, Jean-Baptiste Clouet, one of the four directors and intendant to the Bastille, supervised the final transfer of the powder from the Bastille's kitchens, where it had been stowed in violation of all safety regulations, to the cellars of the fortress. He left at about ten o'clock. The basement of the Tour de la Liberté now contained 20 <i>milliers </i>of powder (about 9.8 tonnes/21,000 pounds). </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">That morning, nonetheless, it was business as usual for the four directors of the Gunpowder Commission - Lavoisier, Clouet and Le Faucheux, father and son; a routine note dated the 14th bears all four of their signatures. In addition, a letter from Lavoisier to the Belgian chemist Van Mons is dated 14th July - perhaps Lavoisier penned it before commencing his official duties. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As the day progressed the situation in the surrounding area grew dangerously volatile. In the afternoon, a considerable crowd forced its way into the Bastille and by five o'clock in the afternoon the fortress had surrendered. There is little doubt that Launoy could have held his position, had he be prepared to use his cannon, or if his men, the majority of whom were war veterans and invalids, had been an effective force. At one point Launay had indeed decided to set fire to the gunpowder, which would have blown most of the <i>quartier</i> sky-high - but two of his soldiers had barred the way. He finally gave in to popular demands, and was subsequently lynched.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Lavoisier, meanwhile, had made his way to the Hôtel de Ville for the meeting of the Assembly of Electors. He was well aware that his situation was a delicate one since, by ceding the gunpowder to Launay, he could be seen as serving the enemies of the Revolution. As a guarantee of loyalty, he pledged a week's supply of gunpowder to the new National Guard and proposed that additional supplies should be brought from the powder mill at Essonne as necessary. In a memoir, probably written shortly afterwards, though not published until January 1791, he emphasised that the directors of the Régie had played no direct part in the defence of the Bastille [see Reading below]. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7QddLWX8UtXpdSGud-MuJYq06I7XOIlIZhxZIaObMVdBIA6NCt9UewNHrx9QTgHK-oKaguTsTP_mNrRI4IzNrhwJzrfDV3dUdIJzlSLXCHPbE2V5M8KGU01fUbYdqgg7OEsHOcTPWLCw45wKI9hVvh9eyxhm4bynhI-AyOKTBpV_Dt87CygK_Fz-J9w/s1036/Turgot%202.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="1036" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7QddLWX8UtXpdSGud-MuJYq06I7XOIlIZhxZIaObMVdBIA6NCt9UewNHrx9QTgHK-oKaguTsTP_mNrRI4IzNrhwJzrfDV3dUdIJzlSLXCHPbE2V5M8KGU01fUbYdqgg7OEsHOcTPWLCw45wKI9hVvh9eyxhm4bynhI-AyOKTBpV_Dt87CygK_Fz-J9w/w640-h334/Turgot%202.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">There is little doubt that Laviosier and his colleagues had been in some personal danger. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The Lavoisier residence, with its precious laboratory equipment, was absolutely in the line of fire. In a letter to the Italian chemist Landriani, dated 1st October 1789, Madame Lavoisier noted that their house would have been one of the first to be destroyed had the cannons from the Bastille been deployed. The gate of the Arsenal in the rue de la Ceriseraie was one of the principal entry points to the fortress. It was through this gate that the insurgents brought their captured cannons to position them in the place de l'Orme, against the Bastille walls. Since the Arsenal was part of the Royal Household rather than a military position, it was minimally defended - it boasted only a few Guardsmen and veterans from Les Invalides. Rebel Gardes françaises were later able to force their way into the<i> Hôtel des</i> <i>Régisseurs,</i> open the munitions chests and take the weapons they had captured to the crowd. In the 19th-century it was erroneously (but plausibly) rumoured that Lavoisier's library had been ransacked and he himself had been obliged to take refuge at his aunt's property in Metz.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">For the unfortunate Clouet, death had indeed come close. Smartly dressed and on horseback he was mistaken for Launay and set upon by the crowd in the rue Beautreillis; he was rescued only by the timely intervention of the newly appointed deputy commander of the National Guard, Charles Désaudray. Both men were seriously wounded [See Readings].</div><div><br /></div><div>The record is reticent about Lavoisier's whereabouts in immediate aftermath of the fall of the Bastille. There is even some suggestion that his family might have subsequently tried to conceal his active involvement in the consolidation of the Revolution. Lavoisier's allies were now in the ascendant. On 15th July his fellow Academician, Bailly, was elected Mayor of Paris and Lafayette took over command of the newly formed National Guard. As part of the deputation to the Assembly of electors at the Hôtel de Ville, Lavoisier took part in meetings, votes, and missions. On 20th July he was at Versailles with members of the directorate of the <i>Caisse d'escompte</i>. On 23rd he was mandated by his district to attend the Commune to request Lafayette to continue as commander of the National Guard. He was active in the newly formed Commission on sewers and public health. Since the Bastille was sited within his district, Lavoisier also found himself heavily engaged in supervising its safe demolition - an odd outlet for his expertise, but one which no doubt provided a welcome opportunity to demonstrate Revolutionary commitment.</div><div><span style="color: #800180;"><br /></span><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">The Gunpowder shipment</span></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMNdFaQbf9B8lvqHucfRXEBlwBwKHaa9crN7WVRf447ar8PmfwWLZjYmucxvgJsYQyXsC3fP0aiJVlodKkALvVYiZiDI6pBlS_NF4-h90iWOqyFhDUjBc4Q_uud1igVlV5spkbMZb1EP_G7ruIPQssqhvxrlJXOu6h0--qKeCI4GM92gqu9zepSQotnA/s740/Bateau_de_poudre_arr%C3%AAt%C3%A9_au_%5B...%5DBerthault_Pierre-Gabriel_btv1b6942996k_1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="740" height="474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMNdFaQbf9B8lvqHucfRXEBlwBwKHaa9crN7WVRf447ar8PmfwWLZjYmucxvgJsYQyXsC3fP0aiJVlodKkALvVYiZiDI6pBlS_NF4-h90iWOqyFhDUjBc4Q_uud1igVlV5spkbMZb1EP_G7ruIPQssqhvxrlJXOu6h0--qKeCI4GM92gqu9zepSQotnA/w640-h474/Bateau_de_poudre_arr%C3%AAt%C3%A9_au_%5B...%5DBerthault_Pierre-Gabriel_btv1b6942996k_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><span style="text-align: left;">Engraving after Jean-Louis Prieur, Bateau de poudre arrêté au port Saint-Paul (le 6 août 1789)<br />From Berthault's </span><i>Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française</i><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6942996k.item">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6942996k.item</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>In August a new crisis erupted at the Arsenal. At 10 o'clock in the evening of 5th August the alarm was raised at the Hôtel de Ville that a huge consignment of gunpowder was being loaded onto a boat at the Port Saint-Paul. The quarter was in uproar, suspecting that the powder was destined for the the troops of the prince de Lambesc. Bailly and Lafayette, who knew nothing about the affair, ordered that the powder be placed under guard and returned to the warehouse the following morning.</p><p>Lavoisier subsequently explained that the powder was a consignment of <i>poudre de traité, </i>an inferior grade of gunpowder used by slave traders for exchange. 21,000 pounds had been shipped from factories in Metz and Mézières to Paris, where it was to be divided into two consignments, one to be sent to Orléans for shipment along the Loire to Nantes, and the other to make its way down the Seine to Rouen. In order to free up space in the Arsenal warehouse, which was filled to capacity, it had been arranged to send 10,000 pounds immediately on the mill at Essonne; the boat carrying it was then to return with a cargo of the high-grade powder required by the National Guard (and the hunters) of Paris. As luck would have it, authorisation for this shipment had been signed by the marquis de La Salle on 14th July, only a day before he relinquished command of the National Guard to Lafayette.</p><p>On the morning of the 6th August, the district committees were more than ever convinced that the boat contained not only gunpowder but guns and ammunition to suppress Revolution in Paris. According to Jean Dusaulx at the Commune, they misunderstood <i>poudre de traité </i>(trade powder) for <i>poudre de traître </i>(traitors' powder)<i> </i>and nothing could be said to persuade them out of this error. Passions continued to rise. A few ringleaders put to the test Lavoisier's claim that the gunpowder was of inferior quality by trying it out in a musket; the fact that it duly ignited, did nothing to allay their suspicions. Lavoisier and his fellow <i>régisseur </i>Jean-Pierre Le Facheux, an infirm man of seventy<i>,</i> were now seized by the crowd and escorted to the Hôtel de Ville. It is possible that only the presence of the National Guard saved them from being lynched. Le Faucheux's son, joined them voluntarily "with the courage of innocence" (See Lavoisier's account below) In the heated public debate which followed Lavoisier calmly and patiently explained where the gunpowder had come from, its nature, quality and destination. He emphasised that everything had been done openly and in due form. According to botanist Auguste Fougeroux de Bondaroy, who kept a diary of events, members of the Academy of Sciences waited fearfully, "dreading that we were about to learn the end of our colleague, M. Lavoisier, and the persons compromised in his misfortune." (quoted, Poirier, p243.; Bondaroy had a house on the rue des Lions Saint-Paul; his manuscript journal was published by Charles Gillespie in 1961.)</p><p>With Lavoisier finally exonerated, the crowd turned instead on La Salle, who beat a hasty retreat. Lavoisier himself was able to slip away to his apartment close to the Palais Royal - presumably the house in the rue Neuve-des-Bons-Enfants which he still owned - where, on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, it was his custom to discuss science or carry out experiments with his colleagues from the Academy. </p><p>As was inevitable, a replay of the incident took place on the morning of 8th August when the boat docked at Port Saint-Louis on its return journey with a new cargo of gunpowder from Essonne. This time representatives from the four adjacent districts were present to oversee its unloading and transfer to the Arsenal warehouse. Lavoisier was also there, with six commissioners appointed by the Commune, to make a detailed inventory of the munitions. At three o'clock Lavoisier calmly left for the Academy of Science and resumed his activities. According to Fougeroux, "This afternoon I was at the Academy where I saw M. Lavoisier who assured me that the night before, when he had been taken to the Hôtel de Ville, he had remained completely serene" (Poirier, p.243-4)</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><b>Aftermath</b></span></p><p>Lavoisier's situation remained precarious and he was probably more rattled than he let on. He insisted on reading a statement of justification to the Committee of Saint-Louis-de-la-Culture but the district refused to print it. On 18th August the director of the <i>salon de Peinture</i> asked him to remove his portrait by David from the exhibition. In the capital popular violence remained close to the surface. On 5th October 1789 Gouverneur Morris, the American Minister to France, reported that Madame Lavoisier had been detained in town because women were being obliged to descend from their carriages and walk with the crowd which was about to march on Versailles. (Morris, <i>Diary of the French Revolution</i>, vol.1, p.243). </p><p>After October, the Gunpowder Commission came under the control of the Commune of Paris. Lavoisier continued as a director until December 1791 when he took on a position with the National Treasury and the <i>Régie</i> was reduced to three men. Within a year of the fall of the Bastille, he would ask for nine authorisations to move further consignments of gunpowder. When a convoy was stopped in Étampes, Lavoiser wrote in exasperation to Bailly, that it was high time the municipal authorities believed that powder was not in the hands of the nation's enemies: "those who are in charge of producing and distributing it are second to none in their patriotism". (Poirier, p.246, note 90) </p><p class="MsoNormal">Lavoisier returned to the Commission for a short time in 1792 after the departure of Clouet, then resigned definitively and quit his residence in the Arsenal on 15th August 1792. Three days later the <i>Hôtel des Régisseurs </i>was invaded by Sectional commissioners and seals placed on the Commission's papers. Jean-Pierre Le Facheux, helpless through age and infirmity, is said to have killed himself in despair. His son<span style="font-family: inherit;">, <span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">Jean-Baptiste-Antoine</span><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"> ("</span></span>Lefaucheux Desaunois") was detained in La Force for only five days, then allowed to resume direction of the C</span>ommission, a duty which he fulfilled until the suppression of the <i>Régie</i> by the Committee of Public Safety on 5th July 1794.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b>References</b></div><p></p><p>The narrative in this post is mostly summarised from Jean Pierre Poirier's biography, <i>Lavoisier: chemist, biologist, economist</i> (Engl. trans. 1998) Available for loan on <a href="https://archive.org/details/lavoisierchemist00jean/page/n3/mode/2up" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a></p><p>See also: William Nuttle, "Paris walking tour - Antoine Lavoisier escapes an explosive situation in the Marais", <i>Eiffel's Paris - an Engineer's Guide</i>, post of 26.12.2016.<br /><a href="https://medium.com/eiffels-paris-an-engineers-guide/walking-tour-lavoisier-and-the-explosive-situation-at-port-saint-paul-47a60d0d9dbd">https://medium.com/eiffels-paris-an-engineers-guide/walking-tour-lavoisier-and-the-explosive-situation-at-port-saint-paul-47a60d0d9dbd</a></p><div style="text-align: left;">All the available evidence concerning Lavoisier's residence in the Arsenal can be found in:<br />Marco Beretta and Paolo Brenni, <i>The Arsenal of eighteenth-century chemistry: the laboratories of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794)</i> [Nuncius , Volume: 10], 2022. Chapter 3, "Sites of experiments" [<a href="https://brill.com/display/book/9789004511217/BP000014.xml?language=en">Open access book</a>].</div><p>See also: Patrice Bret, "Lavoisier à la régie des poudres : Le savant, le financier, l'administrateur et le pédagogue" 1994. <a href="https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00002883/document">https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00002883/document</a></p><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Readings</b></div><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Lavoisier's Memoir in defence of the <i>Régie: </i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">For some time the Gunpowder Commission and its directors have been so maliciously maligned in public papers and respectable societies, ...that I am obliged to defend their honour and to justify publicly the confidence and esteem that the administration has always invested in them. ..</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Lavoisier goes on to describe the organisation of the Commission, the improvements to gunpowder production it had made possible, its benefits to the Treasury and its public accountability. He defends the personal probity of the four directors.</span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> The first, Jean-Pierre </span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Le Faucheux is characterised as "an old man of seventy, infirm and suffering from paralysis, fatigued by fifty years of work, simple in his habits". In proposing the formation of the Commission he had showed himself to be a patriot at a time when the word "patrie" was rarely heard or taken to heart.(p.717).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Lavoisier then outlines his own record:</span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Another (le sieur Lavoisier) was chosen by M. Turgot because of his knowledge of chemistry and physics, so necessary for gunpowder and saltpetre. He hurried to fulfil the wishes of this wise minister, in addition to his many other important administrative services which have contributed more than one might suppose to the success of the Revolution. He has published works, translated into many languages, which have become the basis of public education in chemistry in many places and have earned him membership of almost all the learned societies of two worlds....Before and since the Revolution, he has never ceased - as elector, representative of the Commune, substitute deputy, adviser to the committees of the Assembly - to demonstrate pure patriotism and tireless activity. </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Thirdly, Clouet:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The third (le sieur Clouet) was for a longtime the director of a considerable powder mill; he knows all the practical details of the industry [and has proved his patriotism by the many improvements he has introduced]. Sustained by the sincere conviction that the Revolution would bring about felicitous results, his zeal has not been dampened by his decline in fortune. Nor has he been put off by the ill treatment meted out to him by the people on the 14th July, when he was mistaken, on a false denunciation, for the governor of the Bastille. Having recovered from twenty wounds inflicted on that day, he has devoted himself without reserve to the service of the municipality. This he has done despite the appalling new danger to which the Régie was subjected on 6th August, a danger shared by the younger Le Faucheux who, with the courage of innocence, presented</span></i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i> himself voluntarily at the Hôtel de Ville where his father and Lavoisier had been escorted. Le sieur Clouet has served continuously in the National Guard, as a simple soldier, as a grenadier, and then as a captain....</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">And finally, the younger Le Facheux, who </span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">had been promoted to director in 1788. He had previously been an Inspector General, a post which demands "expertise, absolute personal probility, a scrupulous sense of justice and a spirit of economy" </span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">During the Revolution he has devoted himself without reservation to civic duties, and has twice been elected president of the Arsenal district.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">EVENTS:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>After this presentation of honest and irreproachable individuals, the Régie would be justified in abandoning its calumniators to public scorn; but hatred would only interpret their silence as an admission. They must therefore provide a summary justification of their actions.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Lavoisier goes on to review the events of July and August 1789.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">From 15th May to 14th July the Régie delivered only 3,400 livres of <i>poudre de guerre </i>by order of the government - to the barracks at Saint-Denis and to the Swiss guards. This was normal practice. There was usually little military grade gunpowder stored in the Arsenal magazine. No powder was sent to troops stationed outside Paris, who had their own supplies.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The transfer of powder from the Arsenal to the Bastille took place on the night of Sunday 12th to Monday 13th. It was carried out by a detachment from the garrison, acting on a superior order addressed to the governor. The officer in command at the Arsenal notified the directors at about midnight; at this time two were absent, the third had to be roused from his bed to open up the magazine. The reason given for the action was as a safeguard in case the magazine was set on fire. The Commissioners were not in a position to object, but they stipulated that a week's worth of powder should be left behind. At six in the morning an alarmed Launoy sent for Clouet to advise on a safe place for the powder to be stored. He chose the basements furthest away from the kitchens and servants' areas where the powder had been deposited. He left the Bastille at 9 or 10 in the morning. The Commissioners did not have close contacts with the governor, whom they saw hardly twice a year. That Tuesday was an ordinary working day for the Régie. At about midday Clouet went with the intendant of finances to his offices in the rue Sainte-Avoye. It was on his return, in the rue Beautreillis, that he was set upon and assaulted by the crowd.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Lavoisier now describes the events of 6th August which had almost cost three of the Commissioners their lives. The <i>poudre de traite</i> which was discovered had been destined for Nantes. It was to be sent first to Essonnes. The barge was intended to return to Paris with 10 milliers of military grade power for the municipality. The powder was loaded in broad daylight with an escort from the Saint-Louis de la Culture district. There were no other munitions involved. Lavoisier's procès-verbal to this effect was delivered in the presence of 500 people and subsequently published. Its acceptance had saved the lives of three patriots and the honour of the people of Paris. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">On the morning of the 14th, when the National Guard was formed, one of the directors (ie. Lavoisier himself) went to the Hôtel de Ville to agree with the electors on the powder supplies for the new service. He offered them the powder which remained in the Arsenal magazine with an undertaking to bring more from Essonne. Since then the directors have been under the orders of the municipality and have not only fulfilled, but often anticipated requirements. They have been assisted by the commissioner in Essonne, who is an excellent citizen. They regard the defence of liberty and the Constitution against those hostile to the Revolution in the same light as the defence of the empire against its external enemies...</span></p></div><div><div>"Mémoire de la Régie des poudres" <i>Oeuvres</i> V, p.714-22. MS. A printed copy is dated January 1791, but the composition is probably earlier.<br /><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k86270s/f720.item">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k86270s/f720.item</a></div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From the <i>Moniteur</i> - The director Clouet is mistaken for Launay</b></span></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The crowd rushed into the square from the rue de l'Orme-Saint-Gervais shouting that they had captured the governor of the Bastille and were taking him to the Hôtel de Ville.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">At that moment several people came running up to say that the man arrested was not the governor of the Bastille. There was not a moment to lose if he was to be rescued from the angry crowd. </span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The leaders of the militia placed themselves at the head of as many men of good will as they could muster; they forced their way to the captured man, despite the press of people which blocked the main staircase of the hotel, and despite the threats and blows which rained down on them. </span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">M. le chevalier de Saudray, the second in command, threw himself on the prisoner to protect him from the weapons that threatened him; he received a sabre wound to the head which seriously wounded him, but failed to deter his efforts.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">When he was forced back by the blow, M. le marquis de la Salle immediately seized hold of the captive and, between them, they managed to get him to safety and save his life.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Despite the rough treatment he had received and the blood from numerous wounds which covered him, the man was universally recognised as M. Clouet, director at the poudres et saltpetres. He declared that he had gone out on horseback that morning to report to M. Blondel the maitre de requetes in charge of the department of powders and saltpetres. Having given his customary account of the morning's business he made his way back peaceably along the rue Saint-Antoine. The huge crowd which had already gathered around the Bastille, made him doubt he would be able to get through the passage to the Cour de l'Orme, so he took a detour which seemed to take him away from the Bastille. This, and the fact that he was wearing a blue coat, with gold trim, provoked several women to shout that the governor of the Bastille was escaping. He found himself surrounded by a crowd of workmen, which gradualy swelled to five or six hundred. He was thrown down from his horse, seized, and dragged, overwhelmed with blows, as far the Hotel de ville. Without the help of a few honest citizens who had defended him tirelessly, he would have been killed a thousand times.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">M. Clouet did not appear to have any part of his body that was free from a cut or wound of some sort; he was hastily brought the help his situation demanded. </span></i></div><div><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/R%C3%A9impression_de_l_ancien_Moniteur/WZgFAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA563&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank"><i>Réimpression de l'ancien Moniteur</i>, vol. 1, p.563</a>. </div></div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;">It is always interesting to follow the subsequent histories of the participants in these Revolutionary incidents. Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Le Faucheux (1752-1834) was to enjoy a long and illustrious public career, becoming first Prefect of the Vendée, then deputy to the Corps législatif under the Consulate. Clouet too prospered: Having left Paris, he a<span style="text-align: center;">cquired a property at Vic-sur-Aisne near Soissons where he served as Mayor from September 1792 to 1795. He died in 1815. (S</span><span style="text-align: center;">ee "La vie de Jean-Baptiste Cloüet" on the </span> genealogical website <i><a href="http://www.larminat.fr/larminat/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=26&Itemid=126" target="_blank"> Larminat.com</a> )</i></div></div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-72402161777271247062023-04-08T10:09:00.003-07:002023-08-16T02:44:51.346-07:00Lavoisier, Revolutionary: 1. the Estates-General (1788-89)<div style="text-align: left;"><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b> </b><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">We shall, therefore, not take as our guide what our fathers did, for they were wrong; we shall not travel along the road of ancient abuses; the time of enlightenment has come and we must now speak the language of reason and claim those human rights that are inalienable</span></i></li><li><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Happiness ought not to be confined to a small number of men; it belongs to all. </i> </li></ul> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Antoine Lavoisier </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh17-b0Jg4aMjDS-1tyU5LaX97Ur0DHb2dsVmULM2K3VhmxcvQFFToKeEJrsBxB8xr7ThWTuVSfoPD2YZID_yyzpA1xKDSf4UfriNMQOQDPyEaiQlTgjpXQHF7al9c_JMwsqIRMJ7wCC98k-n4AhB6k4W71TGDpNyezrPqvWzTddg22cImZzKQmY_htlA/s923/David_-_Portrait_of_Monsieur_Lavoisier_(cropped).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="923" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh17-b0Jg4aMjDS-1tyU5LaX97Ur0DHb2dsVmULM2K3VhmxcvQFFToKeEJrsBxB8xr7ThWTuVSfoPD2YZID_yyzpA1xKDSf4UfriNMQOQDPyEaiQlTgjpXQHF7al9c_JMwsqIRMJ7wCC98k-n4AhB6k4W71TGDpNyezrPqvWzTddg22cImZzKQmY_htlA/w173-h200/David_-_Portrait_of_Monsieur_Lavoisier_(cropped).jpg" width="173" /></a></div>The opening act of the Revolution found Lavoisier, in his mid 40s, at the height of both his international scientific reputation and his influence in government circles. A first opportunity for him to further his ideas for economic improvement on a large scale came in 1787 when Calonne revived Turgot's provincial assemblies. Lavoisier became a leading member of the new Assembly of Orléanais, which opened with great ceremony in September 1787. <i> </i> He was designated as representative of the Third Estate, even though he was technically a noble. We see him spearheading a sweeping programme of proposed reforms aimed at greater economic freedom and fiscal equality. [For details, see particularly the chapter in McKie, <i>Lavoisier</i> (1953) , p.231-49.].</div><div><br /></div><div><span></span>Lavoisier welcomed the calling of the Estates General as a means to further his aims: the Nation is too enlightened, he wrote to his colleagues in Orléans, not to act in the interests of the majority: "if it is allowable to make exceptions in favour of any class, especially with regard to taxes, it can only be in favour of the poor." (quoted McKie, p.291).</div><div><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Memoir on the Estates General (1788)</span></b></div><p>Lavoisier's political views at this time can be gauged most clearly from a manuscript memoir which he submitted to Necker in 1788 on the composition of the Estates-General [See Reading below]</p><p>His specific proposals followed Turgot's scheme of 1774, which retained election by order but envisaged the deputies sitting together in a single assembly. However, unlike Turgot and the Physiocrats, who saw assemblies purely as an adjunct to royal administration, Lavoisier supported a limited monarchy on the English model. He defends the radical view that the national representative body should share in legislative sovereignty: "the plenitude of legislative power resides in the Estates-General presided over by the king." Executive power, on the other hand, remains wholly with the monarch. Its proper exercise should be ensured by constitutional guarantees - immunity of deputies, freedom of the press and regular meetings of the Assembly. The principal of consent, already acknowledged for taxation, should be extended to the whole spectrum of individual rights, notably freedom from arbitrary arrest. </p><p>How inclusive was Lavoisier's social vision? Lavoisier consistently identifies himself as a "democrat" by which he means an opponent of noble privilege, particularly fiscal exemptions. His scheme for the Estates-General assumes the continued existence of three orders, but he includes a long discussion of how their representation should most equitably be weighted. In his view, the Third Estate was "the most numerous, the hardest working and most oppressed" part of the nation. He also declares: "When it is a question of representing the nation, the least individual has rights just like the foremost"(p.319) Clearly, like most liberals of 1789, he failed to see any collision of interests between economic classes and did not anticipate the degree of popular resentment which the Revolution was soon to articulate. Although he does not explicitly say so, he almost certainly envisaged a property qualification for election to the Third Estate.</p><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDkUGXwiA3TiM4ymRXlaAkVLevFe_kL1aUiVdtwlUB_qwD5QUSRqnoFuFsZFwmpCGS2rnc-NzYV34jPzZ0KUu45Ykt6eGc1lsVfVTICJnAppLSwVKUtCJYrE9a4mCi0uu8gJxH6TtIY0RtxiNp85Dfn8sPRn9m0lvvF0CLrcOxohWES5MIlh4U5C0cMQ/s1922/ouverture_des_etats_generaux.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="1922" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDkUGXwiA3TiM4ymRXlaAkVLevFe_kL1aUiVdtwlUB_qwD5QUSRqnoFuFsZFwmpCGS2rnc-NzYV34jPzZ0KUu45Ykt6eGc1lsVfVTICJnAppLSwVKUtCJYrE9a4mCi0uu8gJxH6TtIY0RtxiNp85Dfn8sPRn9m0lvvF0CLrcOxohWES5MIlh4U5C0cMQ/w640-h134/ouverture_des_etats_generaux.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Lavoisier's candidature </span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>Lavoisier left Paris in late February 1789 in order to secure his own election to the Estates-General. He stood initially in Blois as a candidate for the Third Estate. The electoral assembly met on 9th March at the Palais Royal. Lavoisier was taken by surprise at the degree of animosity which greeted him; for all his reforming zeal, he remained a noble and, even worse, a member of the hated General-Farm; the lawyer, Jacques Samuel Dinocheau, who was subsequently elected as one of the two deputies, directed at him a "web of insults fit for inflaming passions" (Poirier, p.226). In the end he was disqualified on the technicality that Villefrancoeur was in the <i>bailliage</i> of Tours. </div><div><br /></div><div>Since there was no time to appeal against this decision, Lavoisier then tried his luck with the Nobility of Blois. His candidacy was again rebuffed, though his services were retained as recording secretary. In this capacity he drafted the <i>cahier</i> adopted on 28th March 1789; the assembled nobles, went on to elect the Vicomte de Beauharnais and the Chevalier de Phelines, with Lavoisier selected only as substitute. The <i>cahier,</i> with its pristine Enlightenment agenda, was published in the same year as a brochure of fifty-three pages [See Reading] </div><div><br /></div><div>On 22nd April 1789, after his return to Paris, Lavoisier was chosen as one of eight elector for the nobility of the Hôtel de Ville district in Paris, which included the gunpowder administration and his residence in the Arsenal. For reasons which are uncertain, he did not go on to pursue candidature as a deputy (Poirier <i>Lavoisier</i>, p.231-2)</div><div><br /></div><div>Lavoisier's career in Revolutionary politics thus stalled at the outset. </div><div><br /></div><p><b><span>Readings</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Lavoisier's Memorandum on the Estates-General (MS of 1788) - SUMMARY</span></b></p><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b>Preamble :</b> The conditions which must be fulfilled by the Estates-General are firstly that it must be truly representative; and, secondly, that it must be be organised in such a way as to procure, as far as possible, the greatest good for all those represented (p.313)</span></div><div><b><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></b></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b>Historical precedents: </b>We should consult history, to discover the nature of our existing constitution, and what needs to be done to make it a good and wise constitution, one that protects "all the individuals of the nation" (p.313)<br />However, a historical survey leads us to the conclusion that the French government has never had "a fixed and certain" constitution (p.314) The Parlements, as bodies composed only of legal officials, are not truly representative (p.317). Likewise the Estates-General in its historical form is not fit for purpose. </span></div><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>We shall, therefore, not take as our guide what our fathers did, for they were wrong; we shall not travel along the road of ancient abuses; the time of enlightenment has come and we must now speak the language of reason and claim those human rights that are inalienable</i> (p.320)</span></p><p><b><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The authority of the Estates-General</span></b></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The King of France does not reign by divine Right or by the power of the sword but by the "free choice of the French people".</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Let us speak frankly: legislative power does not reside in the King alone, but in the concurrence of his will and that of the nation. The King and his Ministers have recognized this principle with regard to taxation; they have agreed that no subsidy or subvention can be raised unless it is agreed and consented to; indeed, the contrary principle would attack the inviolable right of property.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>And what then? The King, as he himself declares, cannot make a law to dispose of the meanest possessions of his subjects, and yet he would be able to make laws to dispose at his will of their liberty, their honour, their lives! What good is there in respecting the right of property, if other rights, no less inviolable but much more important, are to be trampled underfoot?</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i> Let us therefore take it as established that, whether a law must be proposed by the King and approved by the people, or whether it must be proposed by the people and approved by the King, the plenitude of legislative power resides in the States-General presided over by the King; that this august assembly has the right, not only to grant or to reject taxation, not only to draw up vain records of grievances, but also to examine the laws and how they can be reformed, and to make general regulations on legislation, on their own internal government, on trade, as well as on taxation.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><span><i> As the King has sole and undivided executive power, it belongs to him alone, after having concurred in giving the law the necessary approval, to decree it and to order its publication, to watch over its execution, and to pursue and punish those who break it.</i></span> (p.293-4).</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Preliminaries to the calling of the Estates-General (p.322-24)</span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b>There are three indispensable precautions to safeguard the assembly and ensure freedom of deliberation</b>:</span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">1. Immunity of deputies from coercion and arbitrary arrest (p.322)</span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">2. Freedom of the press (p.324). Lavoisier remarks that all individuals in society "even those who are neither deputies nor participants" should be allowed to express their opinions. He is confident that common voice will lead to "as great a degree of perfection as it is allowed humanity to achieve".</span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">3. Regular meetings of the assembly should be guaranteed.</span></p><p><b><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Form of the Estates-General</span></b></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Following a historical survey (p.324-28), Lavoisier outlines his specific proposals.</span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">He follows Turgot's scheme of 1774 which advocated a three-tier electoral system based on division of Provinces into electoral districts, then municipalities. He envisages elected members sitting in a single assembly.</span></p><div><i>"</i>Mémoire sur la convocation des États Généraux<i>"</i> (1788) <i>Oeuvres,</i> vol.6, p.313-334.</div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k862714/f318.item.texteImage">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k862714/f318.item.texteImage</a></div><div>According to an editorial note, the manuscript is written by a copyist but has corrections in Lavoisier's own hand. An accompanying note by Lavoisier contains an outline plan for publication.</div><div><br /></div><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Address to the inhabitants of Villefrancoeur</span></b></p><p><b>Adresse de remerciemens aux habitans de la paroisse de Villefrancœur, bailliage de Blois, le 4 mars 1789 (Bailliage de Blois, 4th March 1789, p.2) </b></p><p></p><p>See Poirier, <i>Lavoisier, </i> p.235: "As candidate for the Third Estate from Villefranceour, Lavoisier had made a slightly demagogic procession of political faith on 4th March: I declare that in accepting the noble post as your representative, I henceforth renounce all financial exemptions not shared by you; I will have myself included on the next roll for the <i>taille</i> for the farms I am exploiting in the parish of Villecoeur and Champgny; I will pay all the ancillary taxes including in the roll, even the representative right of the corve, in proportion to the vingtièmes. Thus from now on there will be no financial distinction separating us; we shall all be brothers and friends".</p><p>A copy of this very rare leaflet was sold by Alde in January 2022:</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgew5CLDnUfYBayAmUHH7ocQCo5EeAZ4A_Z12TFHMmf_m5zVj6hRxl_r2Hr07aohRqGsxtPsnjbpLhfXTqMTUby_SLPRmYiarNF5SEGXe9lJxbE9HLK8hykhhZI7zqSJoW1habEXynWDgkwpHXCX1oo7CQCaC-UadoMQERhoZP-GTcoVYdqzbvmlHXilw/s757/Adresse.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="757" data-original-width="521" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgew5CLDnUfYBayAmUHH7ocQCo5EeAZ4A_Z12TFHMmf_m5zVj6hRxl_r2Hr07aohRqGsxtPsnjbpLhfXTqMTUby_SLPRmYiarNF5SEGXe9lJxbE9HLK8hykhhZI7zqSJoW1habEXynWDgkwpHXCX1oo7CQCaC-UadoMQERhoZP-GTcoVYdqzbvmlHXilw/w275-h400/Adresse.JPG" width="275" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> <span style="color: #38761d;"><a href="https://alde.fr/ventes/livres-anciens-2/adresse-de-remerciemens-aux-habitans-de-la-paroisse-de-villefrancur-bailliage-de-blois-le-4-mars-1789-s-l-n-d-1789-1?pg=0&scroll=603.9500122070312" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">Adresse de remerciemens aux habitans de la paroisse de Villefrancœur</span></a><span style="text-align: left;">, <br /></span><a href="https://alde.fr/ventes/livres-anciens-2/adresse-de-remerciemens-aux-habitans-de-la-paroisse-de-villefrancur-bailliage-de-blois-le-4-mars-1789-s-l-n-d-1789-1?pg=0&scroll=603.9500122070312" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">bailliage de Blois, le 4 mars 1789. S.l.n.d. [1789]. – Alde.fr</span></a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p></p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Instructions given by the nobility of the Bailiwick of Blois to its deputies - SUMMARY</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b>Preamble:</b></span></div><div><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>The object of every social institution is to confer the greatest possible happiness upon those who live under its laws.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Happiness ought not to be confined to a small number of men; it belongs to all. It is not an exclusive privilege to be contested for; it is a common right which must be preserved, which must be shared, and the public happiness is a source from which each has a right to draw his supply.</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Such are the sentiments which animate the nobility of the bailliage of Blois, at a moment when we are called upon by the sovereign to give our representatives to the nation.</i></span></p></div></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The text goes on to make a series of recommendations under various headings: ..</span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b>The liberty of the individual,</b> "the first and most sacred of human rights", must be safeguarded by the abolition of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment without trial. There should be freedom of the press, provided that publications carry the names of authors and printers to protect against libel. </span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b>Taxation</b> should be imposed on all citizens without exemption according to their net incomes. </span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b>The legal system </b>should be simplified and procedures improved; advisory councils should operate in parishes to settle differences without resort to the courts. A panel of experts, included some who had studied English criminal jurisprudence, should be appointed to reform the civil and criminal codes. </span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b>Public finance</b> should be subject to strict budgetary control, with Royal ministers made financially accountable to the Estates General. Sinecures and useless offices should be suppressed and detailed annual accounts submitted. </span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b>A national constitution</b> should by established by the Estates-General, with a law that the assembly should meet frequently, without interference from the executive power. </span></li></ul></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Among other recommendations, which clearly reflect Lavoisier's input, are improved stipends for parish priests, a uniform system of weights and measures, and a council to draw up a national system of education. </span><br />"Instruction donnée par la noblesse du bailliage de Blois à ses députés aux États-Généraux" (1789), <br />in Lavoisier,<i> Oeuvres, </i>vol<i>.</i> 6, p.335-363. <br /><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k862714/f340.item.texteImage">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k862714/f340.item.texteImage<br /></a>A full English translation is available here: <a href="https://history.hanover.edu/texts/cahiers2.html">Cahiers 2 (hanover.edu)</a></p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>On the social worth of science</b></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lavoisier and his younger colleague Armand Séguin published a report on "Memoir on Animal Respiration" in the </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Memoirs</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> of the Academy of Sciences for 1789. [</span><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k86267w/f691.item" target="_blank"><i>Oeuvres</i> II, p.688-703</a>]<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>Lavoisier's frustration at his exclusion from political life can perhaps be discerned in the concluding comments on the utility of scientific research:</div><div><br /></div><div><span><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">We finish this memoir with a consoling reflection. To be of merit to humanity and pay tribute to one's country, it is not indispensable to be called to prominent public functions that contribute to the organisation and regeneration of empires. The physicist, too, can, in the silence of his laboratory, carry out the functions of a patriot. He can hope, by his work, to lessen the evils that afflict mankind; to increase happiness....and so also to aspire to the glorious title of benefactor of humanity.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">(p.703)</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>As the writer of this post on <i><a href="http://histoires-de-sciences.over-blog.fr/2018/02/o2-co2-et-la-respiration-des-animaux.html" target="_blank">Le blog d'histoire des sciences</a> </i>notes<i>, </i>Lavoisier and his young associate had a Revolutionary take on respiration, which they saw as taking a greater toll on the health of the hardworking poor man: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Let us praise philosophy and humanity, which join together to promise us wise institutions, which tend to make fortunes more equal, </i></span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">increase the just rewards of labour, and to present to all classes of society, above all the indigent, greater enjoyment and happiness. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">(p.699)</span></div></span></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-24195504074034667352023-04-05T09:33:00.016-07:002023-07-10T13:52:28.785-07:00Lavoisier at Freschines <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX1-fDUJPXJw4qpbuI3dcksjYN3h0OBHvtTllRkqY2ssPC87uBu8Tu1I586Z6Mtegwt9fn6pXCkJYRqyCdalr4evq-jRU3NZa225z8Dqzf04aw-fLGlZDRhUt4SO3-rhazCpp2GcT_aE5BpiKpSDFzRoReZuszJEpk1btsxYxYgvdh2Pe_0mIO1DyfSw/s939/Freschines.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="939" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX1-fDUJPXJw4qpbuI3dcksjYN3h0OBHvtTllRkqY2ssPC87uBu8Tu1I586Z6Mtegwt9fn6pXCkJYRqyCdalr4evq-jRU3NZa225z8Dqzf04aw-fLGlZDRhUt4SO3-rhazCpp2GcT_aE5BpiKpSDFzRoReZuszJEpk1btsxYxYgvdh2Pe_0mIO1DyfSw/s320/Freschines.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>The château de Freschines at Villefrancoeur, twenty kilometres north of Blois, once belonged to Lavoisier. This fine 18th-century mansion is yet another historic French property which has recently been happily preserved for posterity. Having served for forty years as a psychiatric hospital, the house was put on the market in January 2013. It stood empty and neglected for a further six years until 2019, when it was finally rescued by the Austrian architect Elisabeth Herring. It has since been opened as an Airbnb so, for a (relatively) modest price, you can actually go and stay there. As the video below shows, the ongoing restoration is a labour of love. The atmosphere is stylish but relaxed, mostly 18th-century in inspiration, but with a few quirky mementos of the house's long years as an asylum.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv0kn_jAMXjRXj091APk-cZH_G9cAATPkkoDhMu2Q8brR0QdUO8f3OG7jTqOg5xtBmpqUwPST24izKyDsBCYZ8Uc-Nr6vPkHM-sI2_Cl1NG3xZRCWPeMmq9R6E1_Ho0pBy_6j5_ePI3x95faHSPg7IRj2-mD5yAylbtyXSnk4NQYq-exyxSqkPKi69Vg/s1024/236847409.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="762" data-original-width="1024" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv0kn_jAMXjRXj091APk-cZH_G9cAATPkkoDhMu2Q8brR0QdUO8f3OG7jTqOg5xtBmpqUwPST24izKyDsBCYZ8Uc-Nr6vPkHM-sI2_Cl1NG3xZRCWPeMmq9R6E1_Ho0pBy_6j5_ePI3x95faHSPg7IRj2-mD5yAylbtyXSnk4NQYq-exyxSqkPKi69Vg/s320/236847409.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYq0DzhN0zsf-SNdma941-zT1hhoug9jyPCXZBAw9ljVYn1fJFotsX2f5r8cMOM29Gl3WnKKJ33c2rrQTLnkTs3sPc0DBP0jXwQsnp90AnvrHTRY3JfNxkI14BFWClo7Oei7uY5V4bHkVF75g9aNJdhaa7kJyOHNvsDsWjpoDdHKc-Q1vQF79CByQJmQ/s543/Capture3.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="543" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYq0DzhN0zsf-SNdma941-zT1hhoug9jyPCXZBAw9ljVYn1fJFotsX2f5r8cMOM29Gl3WnKKJ33c2rrQTLnkTs3sPc0DBP0jXwQsnp90AnvrHTRY3JfNxkI14BFWClo7Oei7uY5V4bHkVF75g9aNJdhaa7kJyOHNvsDsWjpoDdHKc-Q1vQF79CByQJmQ/s320/Capture3.JPG" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div>"Château de Lavoisier" - website of the Château de Freschines</div><div><a href="https://chateau-de-lavoisier.com/">https://chateau-de-lavoisier.com/</a></div><div><div><br /></div><div>TV Tours-Val de Loire: PATRIMOINE / Portes ouvertes au château de Freschines</div><div><span style="color: #0000ee;"><a href="https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7wazid">https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7wazid</a></span></div></div><div><br /></div></div>
<p></p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvv64nMPxJGEjnQ6B_gd48BFWGqw2DRvZLA04MPfSJfLnTN4O1aKCKqJZG_N2fTVd8P5yKnxR7MfawTsw_mJeHc7Ibu4i0vNsHNq0-yO9SR4KYoN70LTn6C8gc3iYgDgVOUX3YkfBaKU4JKonyw6AD5WaAnXA-hyN4FzNH4avUaw6dga57LBc6QGu4Qg/s640/chateau-de-freschines-41_a%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvv64nMPxJGEjnQ6B_gd48BFWGqw2DRvZLA04MPfSJfLnTN4O1aKCKqJZG_N2fTVd8P5yKnxR7MfawTsw_mJeHc7Ibu4i0vNsHNq0-yO9SR4KYoN70LTn6C8gc3iYgDgVOUX3YkfBaKU4JKonyw6AD5WaAnXA-hyN4FzNH4avUaw6dga57LBc6QGu4Qg/s320/chateau-de-freschines-41_a%20(1).jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></b></div>Lavoisier the landowner</span></b><p></p><p>In the late 1770, under the influence of Du Pont Nemour and the Physiocrats, Lavoisier became seriously interested in agricultural economics. He initially experimented on the estate he had inherited at Le Bourget, then from 1778 began to acquire land in the Beauce. In March 1778 he purchased, within a few days of each other, the estate of Champrenault, which had belonged to the future American War hero, the comte de Rochambeau, and Freschines, both near the commune of Villefrancoeur. In 1784 he acquired as a final major addition, the <i>seigneurie</i> of Thoisy (parish of La Chapelle-Vendômoise). In total his holdings amounted to about 1,100 hectares (2,250 acres) for an investment of some 389,000 livres. </p><p>Facsimiles of documents relating to Lavoisier's 1778 purchases can be found on the website of the Departmental archives for Loir-et-Cher (See below) The archives also hold "lettres à terrier" dated 1781 which authorise Lavoisier as seigneur of Freschines to renew the register of landholdings, rents and dues. According to the website, this exercise exemplifies the "feudal reaction" of the 1780s - certainly Lavoisier, as a careful administrator, would have been keen to know the exact extent of his property. The details of the various transactions, are available in an article by Amédée Cauchie, published in 1900, which gives a good sense of the complexities of tenure and the encumbrances of the various manors.</p><p>Loir-et-Cher Departmental Archives, "Rendez-vous de l'histoire 2017: Sciences en Loir-et-Cher sous l'Ancien Régime: Lavoisier en Loir-et-Cher"<br /><a href="http://archives.culture41.fr/archives/archives/fonds/RVH2017">http://archives.culture41.fr/archives/archives/fonds/RVH2017</a></p><p><span style="background-color: #fbfbf9; font-family: inherit;">Amédée Cauchie, "Le domaine de Freschines sous Lavoisier", </span><i style="background-color: #fbfbf9; font-family: inherit;">Mémoires de la Société de Sciences et Lettres du Loir-et-Che</i><span style="background-color: #fbfbf9; font-family: inherit;">r, 1900, 14(2): p. 47-71.</span><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5505190h/f143.image.r=lavoisier#" style="background-color: #fbfbf9; font-family: inherit;">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5505190h/f143.image.r=lavoisier#</a></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">The château</span></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg1CuZrVEKkns3nLZL3rv-Jm90v-gE0oy9KAaUNrpLef8WR6EqiLJDjCjOevHDmzq5UbdMIfTmqC9oQ8KXhLLWHoS1tt3QZ9nSCq4OOZlrMLk-LexcAzRF2A1jo28CLk4kb3h1hlZbGU1oz-rGUNv3RZ58Qd0F8rgTsl2ogOcd3I1mEiPXJ-w3blzMjA/s742/Freschines2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: xx-small;"><b><img border="0" data-original-height="539" data-original-width="742" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg1CuZrVEKkns3nLZL3rv-Jm90v-gE0oy9KAaUNrpLef8WR6EqiLJDjCjOevHDmzq5UbdMIfTmqC9oQ8KXhLLWHoS1tt3QZ9nSCq4OOZlrMLk-LexcAzRF2A1jo28CLk4kb3h1hlZbGU1oz-rGUNv3RZ58Qd0F8rgTsl2ogOcd3I1mEiPXJ-w3blzMjA/w400-h291/Freschines2.jpg" width="400" /></b></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">View of Lavoisier's estate at Freschines<br />Denis Duveen, <i>A bibliography of the works of Antoine Lavoisier</i>, supplement. Frontispiece.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>The house at Freschines, which now became Lavoisier's country residence, already bore the mark of the newly moneyed financial aristocracy. The previous owner of the estate had been Jean-Baptiste Bégon,<i> conseiller du roi et receveur général des Finances</i>, a protegé of Madame de Pompadour. It was Bégon who was responsible for the construction of the present château in 1763. The imposing classical design was the work of the royal architect Jean-Baptiste Collet, who was in charge of various prestigious projects in the area: the châteaux of Candé-sur-Beuvron, Madon and du Plessis-Villelouet, plus additions at Chambord and Menar, and the gardens of the bishop of Blois. <div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0I7dfuNMl_hUm0Ok-WAtgv8jtjC2LIVicqWpWk4baACVP8xD2jhzQIEhU94EvA8mlwVg0-O6lfOFKw0BbQTVNpH1uWZ7dD6LFNY3evippIFtpwQaFYNuCysduNLjO21sACwZ2mE5qkCHlA-45N_yX0RMiIKMiPzh2ciPdLF7YMjT1bWcE-nB3qVn9Bw/s200/54511725_132799521179351_8919451140231493664_n-930x930.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0I7dfuNMl_hUm0Ok-WAtgv8jtjC2LIVicqWpWk4baACVP8xD2jhzQIEhU94EvA8mlwVg0-O6lfOFKw0BbQTVNpH1uWZ7dD6LFNY3evippIFtpwQaFYNuCysduNLjO21sACwZ2mE5qkCHlA-45N_yX0RMiIKMiPzh2ciPdLF7YMjT1bWcE-nB3qVn9Bw/w200-h200/54511725_132799521179351_8919451140231493664_n-930x930.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />Pierre de Bizemont, a local expert on Collet, visited Freschines in 2019 and pronounced himself well pleased with the château's state of preservation. The 18th-century wing was substantially intact; there were original fireplaces and even an 18th-century carved wooden screen in the sacristy. (The chapel itself is a 19th-century addition.) <div><div>See: <a href="https://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/loir-et-cher/commune/villefrancoeur/villefrancoeur-le-chateau-de-freschines-rouvre-ses-portes">La NouvelleRepublique.fr, 04.05.2019.</a></div><div><br /></div><div>The promotional video on the Château website also shows gilded mouldings (left) which look as though they must be be original features.<div><div></div><div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Despite the fact that the Lavoisiers spent comparatively little time at the house, the interior was lavishly appointed. The inventories drawn up when the property was sequestered in 1794 make it possible to reconstruct the furnishings in some detail. The inventories are reproduced by Cauchie and the main features summarised by J.-P. Poirier in his biography of Lavoisier:</span><div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The Lavoisiers lived in the ch</span></i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>â</i></span><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">teau, a handsome rectangular building of three stories overlooking a lawn surrounded by large old trees. The main entrance, reached by a long flight of stone steps, opened into a hall decorated with elegant stucco. The reception rooms on the ground floor offered a fine view of the countryside. In one, a set of armchairs was covered with tapestries depicting animals from La Fontaine's fables. In another, the gilded chairs were upholstered in a red flower-patterned damask with touches of white, blue and yellow. Gracing the dining room were two mahogany sideboards and a large table whose centre was adorned by a wooden fountain painted to look like marble.</span></i></div><div><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">On the other side of the grand salon was the wood-panelled library.... [Here] </span></i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Lavoisier kept six large ledgers to record the results of his agronomic experiments as well as a few scientific instruments.</i></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Upstairs were six bedrooms, three with adjoining bathrooms, each decorated with different coloured hangings; red damask with blue flowers; blue damask with white flowers, red moire with green flowers, red and white striped moire. </span></i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>The furniture was painted. On the third floor, the rooms were less luxurious, the furniture less handsome, and the hangings were made of printed calico, cotton woven in a flame pattern and painted fabric.</i></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">Poirier, </span><i style="color: black;">Lavoisier: chemist, biologist, economist</i><span style="color: black;"> (Engl. trans. 1998), p.124-5.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The inventories also confirm the existence of an extensive laboratory at Freschines. This was housed in a "vast building", close to the stable, part of the old 15th-century château which had been converted into a farm. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The<i> vieux château </i>still stands: when the local archaeological society visited Freschines in 2005, it was owned by Michel Jouanneau, the mayor of Villefrancoeur. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg0ZDO94xCqPeGHRM1ZTRVVUdpdkuzjE-y2qE82i7vAYW6u8Mlmwk3IyHZSCfmdUItR6dnLIrMahhf-wNoUe4D4UaAonMma9qyXK2CLPLKVoT4kxPv-YDyVx0t8WqgWFjfsoF79S3COJALCfnv6OkWCMRkDzrLzGGf6ldMwi2ptxmkCF3BQlTAOvXgTA/s950/postcard.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="950" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg0ZDO94xCqPeGHRM1ZTRVVUdpdkuzjE-y2qE82i7vAYW6u8Mlmwk3IyHZSCfmdUItR6dnLIrMahhf-wNoUe4D4UaAonMma9qyXK2CLPLKVoT4kxPv-YDyVx0t8WqgWFjfsoF79S3COJALCfnv6OkWCMRkDzrLzGGf6ldMwi2ptxmkCF3BQlTAOvXgTA/w400-h240/postcard.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> <span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">Postcard of Freschines, with the old château in the background</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Lavoisier was able to spare time to visit Freschines for only a few weeks, two or three times a year, in spring and at harvest time. Madame Lavoisier, it seems, was a reluctant visitor: she was uninterested in agriculture and disliked the conservative small-town society on offer. She at first she took an interest in the development of local trade and industry, such as cotton spinning and hosiery production; but soon returned to Paris, where she began a liaison with Dupont Nemours. </p><div><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Agricultural reform</span></b></p><p> In 1788 Lavoisier was able to present the results of ten years of agronomic research at Freschines to the Society of Agriculture in Paris and to the Committee of Agriculture, set up by the Controller of Finance in 1785, of which he was secretary and prime-mover.</p><p>His report emphasised the need for practical experiment and the relevance of agricultural production to the wider context of national wealth: "It is not simply in armchairs that economics must be studied; it is only by a well planned investigation of an extensive development of land, by sustained calculations over a number of years on the distribution of recurring wealth, that one can form an accurate idea of what contributes to the prosperity of a large kingdom." (translated in Poirier, p.121)</p><p>Lavoisier's own work was characterised not only by an interest in the scientific basis of agricultural improvement but also by scrupulous attention to local conditions. As the basis for his study he cultivated 120 hectares of the poorest soil directly, and took over a half-lease on arable land on three other farms, making 360 hectares in all. Although he was Freschines for only a few weeks each year, he keep close control of operations through the intermediary of his intendant, the Blois notary Louis Michel Lefebvre, who visited at least once a fortnight. The estate steward, Joseph Roger and his son-in-law Nicolas Mercier, were in charge of the day-to-day work. Precise measurements and costings were entered into the ledgers kept in the library - those for the period 1781-87 have survived in the dossiers o<span style="font-family: inherit;">f the <span style="background-color: white;">Archives de l’Académie des sciences (see Beretta, note 34).</span></span></p><p>Lavoisier sought to improve the fertility of his land by supporting more livestock. He created artificial meadows, experimented with forage crops and introduced the cultivation of turnips and potatoes. Breeding stock was imported, sheep from Spain and cows from Choiseul's model<i> vacherie</i> at Chanteloup. Although initial results were encouraging, Lavoisier admitted that progress had been slow and fraught with setbacks. It had taken eight or ten years of considerable investment to get a return, and even then his wheat yield had improved only slightly. He had not realised an income of even 5 percent on his invested capital. The problems besetting French agriculture were financial as well as technical; the peasant farmer, hampered by short-term leases, was caught in a cycle of poverty: "At the end of the year, the cultivator has nothing left; he counts himself lucky if he can make ends meet". The <i>taille</i> destroyed incentives to improvement and even wealthier farmers saw little point in investing in agriculture when they could get better returns on government bonds.</p><p>The production at Freschines continued to improve in the years after 1788. According to Madame Lavoisier, by 1793 the wheat harvest had doubled, yielding ten times the amount sown, and the number of livestock had increased fivefold. Farmers in the Blois region had also accepted Lavoisier's innovations: potatoes, artificial meadows, and the use of sheep folds as a means of fertilising the soil.</p><p><b>References</b></p><p> Lavoisier, "Résultats de quelques expériences d'agriculture, et réflexions sur leurs relations avec l'économie politique" <i>Oeuvres, </i>vol. 2 (1862) [On <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Oeuvres_de_Lavoisier_publiees_par_les_so/PoBojwoQc-oC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA812&printsec=frontcover">Google Books</a>]. </p><div><div><span style="background-color: #fbfbf9;">Lavoisier's work as an agricultural reformer is conveniently summarised in Douglas McKie's biography, </span><i style="background-color: #fbfbf9;">Antoine Lavoisier: scientist, economist, social reformer </i><span style="background-color: #fbfbf9;">(1952), chpts 18-19, p. 203-30. (Available on <a href="https://archive.org/details/antoinelavoisier00mcki/page/202/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a>) </span><span style="background-color: #fbfbf9;">See also </span><span>Poirier, <i>Lavoisier </i>(1998)<i>,</i></span><span> p.121-127. (On</span><a href="https://archive.org/details/lavoisierchemist00jean/page/121/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank"> Internet Archive</a>)</div></div><div>On Lavoisier's equipment at Freschines: Marco Beretta and Paolo Brenni, <i>The Arsenal of eighteenth-century chemistry: the laboratories of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794)</i> [Nuncius , Volume: 10], 2022. Chapter 3, "Sites of experiments" [<a href="https://brill.com/display/book/9789004511217/BP000014.xml?language=en">Open access book</a>].</div></div><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Lavoisier and the people of Villefrancoeur</span></b></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMdv_XI4-qhqxm2DQ-F6hWOYxXSmwv6u4VpvQuNxq_mW_OUpdl9HfBljpxn7l510i3oiBGlvAkyMACBPXWHKg0aTfAt-qVO_3T3i9ayrucAnxGfTjRy0a0mF4v_1FWPDSSUIqteTdUHJl23DYqWBN4UC-LlLU3CbD7PX826BPdMWIlDkqFg2gUDfPbxg/s1182/Villefrancoeur.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="1182" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMdv_XI4-qhqxm2DQ-F6hWOYxXSmwv6u4VpvQuNxq_mW_OUpdl9HfBljpxn7l510i3oiBGlvAkyMACBPXWHKg0aTfAt-qVO_3T3i9ayrucAnxGfTjRy0a0mF4v_1FWPDSSUIqteTdUHJl23DYqWBN4UC-LlLU3CbD7PX826BPdMWIlDkqFg2gUDfPbxg/w640-h204/Villefrancoeur.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">View of Villefrancoeur from <i>mapcarta.com</i> </span><br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table>Lavoisier played his role in the community with good grace. </div><div><br /></div><div> On Sundays he attended the church in Villefrancoeur with its seigneurial pew and, afterwards, dispensed justice in the traditional manner. During the Revolutionary years he was to create an elementary school in Villefrancoeur and provided a salary 450 livres a year for the teacher, though, according to J-P Poirier, far from making himself loved he succeeded only in earning the resentment of the local curé. The first schoolmaster Jean-François Bellanger was appointed in June 1792.<div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p>Meghan Roberts in her 2016 book <i>Sentimental Savants </i>emphasises the importance of Freschines for Lavoisier's self-image. "Lavoisier cast himself as an enlightened patriarch and benevolent public reformer. The estate became an "enlightened oasis" which featured values close to Lavoisier's heart: public education, charity and strong family ties." (p.152, limited preview on Google Books)</p><p>This is perhaps a little exaggerated. The image of Lavoisier as a much loved patriarch comes almost entirely from posthumous eulogies. Lavoisier's own writings - notoriously - have little in the way of personal comment: he totally lacked the effusive sentimentality which came so easily to many men of his generation. Lavoisier was also a modernist. Although he was acutely aware of the plight of the poor, and capable of acts of considerable generosity, he saw the solution to poverty not in paternalistic charity but in economic progress and fiscal reform. </p><p><br /></p><p>In the immediate pre-Revolutionary years, Lavoisier became more involved in the local affairs, at least at provincial level. Following the devastating drought of 1785, he was a prime mover in the foundation of the Committee of Agriculture<i>, </i>a short-lived but ambitious government sponsored initiative to steer French agriculture. In 1788 he generously offered the mayor of Blois a loan without interest for 50,000 livres to alleviate shortages caused by the poor grain harvest. From September 1787 he was a prominent member of the new Provincial Assembly set up in Orléans, where he advocated a sweeping programme of fiscal reforms. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir39MOo7O6c6UL6JhmyqVpQ7-rsYi-DjpyuZ3yl2O8mW8eL4a3iM6UKGlH3Gn-EAoLWrf95Y2F9LMya5Gj6y3JIhvhkY5NSBOiQ_0CT95cWsdNmP7bJTO5aX0W7caH_plfoXkecNz3im0gOupnDkuH8opqNF-59oKsECn4sA6iFoTnn0DpaEEzvMzhRw/s591/download.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="426" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir39MOo7O6c6UL6JhmyqVpQ7-rsYi-DjpyuZ3yl2O8mW8eL4a3iM6UKGlH3Gn-EAoLWrf95Y2F9LMya5Gj6y3JIhvhkY5NSBOiQ_0CT95cWsdNmP7bJTO5aX0W7caH_plfoXkecNz3im0gOupnDkuH8opqNF-59oKsECn4sA6iFoTnn0DpaEEzvMzhRw/s320/download.png" width="231" /></a></div>During the years which followed, Lavoisier's provincial base became an important element in identifying his Revolutionary credentials. In the run up to the Estates-General, he sought election as a deputy for the Third Estate of Blois. The first phase of the elective process took place at parish level. Lavoisier, as chief landowner, was chosen to represent Villefrancoeur. <p></p><p>The Loir-et-Cher archives preserves the <i>cahier de doléances</i> for the parish of La Chapelle-Vendômoise, where Lavoisier's estate of Thoisy was located.</p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><b>Cahier de doléances for the parish of La Chapelle-Vendômoise</b>. The cahier for Villefrancoeur does not survive, but Lavoisier participated in drawing up this one, in his capacity as landowner of the parish. He is named first in the list of inhabitants. His influence is visible in the first article of cahier which speaks of the exercise of "personal and individual liberty". One of the two deputies from the parish was Lefebvre, Lavoisier's intendant.</i></span></p><p>For the text, see <i>Département de Loir-et-Cher. Cahiers de doléances du bailliage de Blois... pour les États généraux de 1789</i> <a href="https://archive.org/details/dpartementdeloir01lesu/page/58/mode/2up?view=theater">[Internet Archive]</a>, p.58ff.</p><p>Although his hopes of election were ultimately frustrated, Lavoisier continued to support the patriots of Blois. He offered accommodation and hospitality to the representatives who came to Paris for Fête de la Fédération in 1790, one of whom was Lefebvre. </p><p>Lavoisier made his final visit to Freschines in the autumn of 1792. He set out on 15th September and stayed for two months, through the momentous events of Valmy, the September massacres and the declaration of the Republic. At Villefrancoeur he attempted to support village celebrations by having a tree of liberty planted in the public square and donating a considerable sum of money to the local National Guard. (p.298-9) He returned to Paris in November 1792 for the reopening of the Academy of Sciences.</p><p><br /></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><p><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><b>Later history of the </b></span><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">château</span></b></p><p>In 1795 Freschines was restored to Marie Lavoisier, who in 1803 sold the house to the diplomat Charles René de la Forest. In 1863 the property was purchased by Joseph Law, marquis de Lauriston, on whose death it was inherited by his son-in-law, Le Général, Comte de Vibraye. His daughter, the Comtesse de Vienne ultimately ceded it to the nuns of the Providence de Blois, who still owned it when Douglas McKie visited in the early 1950s: </p></div></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Today the château has become a maison de repos in the charge of the Catholic sisters from Blois and externally it is unchanged. Beneath the fine old trees, including some magnificent cedars, Lavoisier must have walked during his visits there; to the south, towards Blois, is a delightful tree-lined vista. A short distance away is the little village of Villefrancoeur, for the children of which Lavoisier built the first school, long since demolished. In the church is a beautifully decorated statue of St. Laurent, so clearly of the eighteenth century that is is not unreasonable to hazard a guess that it may have been the gift of Lavoisier. Further off are the various other lands that he farmed. This old house will always be interesting as the only habitation of Lavoisier that is now standing. In the grounds there is the earlier château, built in the fifteenth century and still inhabited, where, according to tradition, Catherine de Medici once lived.</span></i><br /> <span style="background-color: #fbfbf9;">Douglas McKie, </span><i style="background-color: #fbfbf9;">Antoine Lavoisier: scientist, economist, social reformer </i><span style="background-color: #fbfbf9;">(1952), </span>p.217</div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Readings</span></b></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b>From Madame Lavoisier's biographical notes:</b></span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The work of the tireless Duhamel had given Lavoisier many new ideas about agricultural production. In 1779 he established a farm for practical experiment and observation on his estate at Freschines, near Blois</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">He introduced potatoes, which were unknown before him. Artificial meadows were established where none had existed. The farm was stocked with fine livestock. Precise registers entries were kept each piece of ground and its produce - one could say, there was a running account for each piece of land. All the work, the farming methods, the sowings and harvests were recorded: on one side the costs, on the other the production....The success was such that by the fifteen year the yield of wheat had doubled and the number of livestock the land could support had increased fivefold.</span></i></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe;">In this place, where Lavoisier did so much useful work, he should be imagined among the local people. He acted as magistrate of the peace, to resolve disputes between neighbours or to restore a son to paternal obedience; he set an example of patriarchal virtues; he cared for the sick not just by financial aid but by visits, attentions, exhortations to patience and hope. He founded a school for the young generation. He always sold foodstuffs at below market price out of consideration for those who were ashamed to receive charity, and were thus the more to be pitied. In a year of great famine, he came to the aid of the people of Blois. He advanced fifty thousand francs to the magistrates to buy corn...and feed the town, without asking for interest or for a single extra centime in return.</span></i></span><br />Translated from: Charles C. Gillispie "Notice biographique de Lavoisier par Madame Lavoisier", <i>Revue d'histoire des sciences et de leurs applications, </i> 1956. Vol.9(1): p. 52-61.<br /><a href="http://www.persee.fr/doc/rhs_0048-7996_1956_num_9_1_4347">www.persee.fr/doc/rhs_0048-7996_1956_num_9_1_4347</a></p><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b>Eulogy of Lavoisier by </b></span></i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b><i>Antoine François Fourcroy </i></b></span><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b> </b></span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Without ceremony or comment he assisted a host of unfortunates. The inhabitants of several communes in the department of Loir-et-Cher where he owned land, will long remember his kindness and active humanity. How many times did he and his worthy wife offer them refuge from indigence and misery! How many tears have they shed together! His kindness and virtue, will perpetuate Lavoisier's memory among the unfortunate, just as his genius is immortalised among friends of science and the arts.</span></i><br />Fourcroy , <i>Notice sur la vie et les travaux de Lavoisier, lue, le 15 Thermidor, an 4, au Lycée des Arts</i> (Paris, 1796), p.43-4. [<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Notice_sur_la_vie_et_les_travaux_de_Lavo/VShCAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA46&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">On Google Books</a>]</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-54044123514042624152023-02-16T11:40:00.000-08:002024-02-27T06:05:17.220-08:00The Drummer Boy of Wattignies<p><b style="background-color: white;"><span><i><br /></i></span></b></p><p><b style="background-color: white;"><span><i>"<span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">You are too small," said the sergeant to little Stroh, who had just enlisted under his country's colours.</span></i></span></b></p><div><div style="background-color: white;"><div><div><b><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>The lad gave him the memorable reply: "I will grow up fighting".</i></span></b></div></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><br /></div><div> According to legend "Tambour Stroh" or "Strauh" was a young hero of the war on the Belgian frontier, killed at Dourlers on 15th October 1793 on the day preceding the French victory at Wattignies. He is remembered today chiefly through two monuments by the 19th-century sculptor Léon Fagelin, a relief on the Wattignies monument in Mauberge (1893) and a sculpture erected in the commune of Avesnes-sur-Helpe in 1905.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg56nOFgANvex_d8T6byXlaoDyghX37_KFbCAv2ozYU1t2XB_AqBqbuAUxL_reHxg1PTqUDvFrYduSMe5AjOC9499gPi7ky0VW4Vb714DNmyVclLat_6wlk5WsXQ_ByGZwh0B7tH9OqfjTAgcVOuzv0VXmFBCK01EHkqH5Wwbs6Te33_TZcBs6EdU2jpECa/s996/Allons_Enfants_de_la_Patrie_%5B...%5DRichepin_Jean_bpt6k9734542n_65.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="693" data-original-width="996" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg56nOFgANvex_d8T6byXlaoDyghX37_KFbCAv2ozYU1t2XB_AqBqbuAUxL_reHxg1PTqUDvFrYduSMe5AjOC9499gPi7ky0VW4Vb714DNmyVclLat_6wlk5WsXQ_ByGZwh0B7tH9OqfjTAgcVOuzv0VXmFBCK01EHkqH5Wwbs6Te33_TZcBs6EdU2jpECa/w640-h446/Allons_Enfants_de_la_Patrie_%5B...%5DRichepin_Jean_bpt6k9734542n_65.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">"Le Petit Tambour De Wattignies" illustration by Onfray de Bréville ("JOB") for Jean Richepin's book of patriotic poems for children <i>Allons, enfants de la patrie</i> (1920) </span><br /><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9734542n/f65.item" style="font-family: georgia;">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9734542n/f65.item</a><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"> </span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxvNXemdTL39zdlzsuXyVzt5rjl8e7YcWMKiXFHu8gN5THx6YItZYYLS-xbUbiln0oDrzRvq60fF1YycCE7MDOLyHxZnAz1WOkT5ExI6ZJ0fgE6q96gSAwFml78Gq-pAyNg_CQeO8hrBeIUNV5sIszIVLHM5aRcxwp_XNkT_Ik7UKpcm7bDo8SdSw6xUoN/s314/tambour1.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="264" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxvNXemdTL39zdlzsuXyVzt5rjl8e7YcWMKiXFHu8gN5THx6YItZYYLS-xbUbiln0oDrzRvq60fF1YycCE7MDOLyHxZnAz1WOkT5ExI6ZJ0fgE6q96gSAwFml78Gq-pAyNg_CQeO8hrBeIUNV5sIszIVLHM5aRcxwp_XNkT_Ik7UKpcm7bDo8SdSw6xUoN/w168-h200/tambour1.JPG" width="168" /></a></div>For over half a century story of the "Tambour Stroh" was the preserve of local folklore and soldiers' tales. His existence rested on little more than an incoherent oral tradition and a half-remembered name. He was mentioned in print for the first time only in 1850, in a local history by <b><span style="font-weight: 400;">Zéphir Píerart, to be followed, </span></b>briefly but influentially, in 1853 by Michelet in volume 13 of his history of the Revolution. Despite the lack of information, under the Third Republic his patriotic exploits passed into children's books: Étienne Charavay felt confident enough to include him with Bara and Viala in his <i>Enfants de la République </i>in 1882; and in 1888 the novelist Sixte Delorme produced a fictionalised account for young readers - quite a best seller if the number of copies available on ebay is anything to go by.<br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div> In the 1890s a concerted research effort was made in preparation for the inauguration of the memorial at Avesnes, which took place with considerable pomp in 1905 in the presence of the War Minister Bertaux. A coherent narrative was pieced together for the occasion but in reality the exploits of "the Tambour Stroh" remained (and still remain) very uncertain. </div><div><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><b>What we know about the Tambour Stroh</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div>The context can be briefly related. At Carnot's insistance, on the morning of 15th October 1793, the day before the victory at Wattignies, the Republican general Jourdan ordered an ill-judged attack on the the commune of Dourlers, in the middle of the Austrian line. The offensive involved 16,000 men of the 89th Regiment of foot under the command of General Balland. There was considerable carnage on both sides over several hours. At some time in mid-morning the Austrians seem to have panicked and retreated. French troops rashly pursued them well behind enemy lines, only to find themselves under intense fire from a concealed battery and obliged to retreat in disarray back through Dourlers. The Austrians thus carried the day.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXNMbfyZMVHcXgSsfDN_SVmdZX0N_yssJ0V15gIp0xcXc9irKcuQoG7iDIb5ufy878ZGnHLACSdbQBELk-vz2WmyKeSUyWugb0La9KfOaE4dfGdZuzgSMoZsudqaMl9wP6tUEpJZ7x2ck2Ic1biT-itNgrnriTZmcAaR6ba3HEUBD4HWbTwU1NH-hjwL9H/s2048/Dourlers_D33_290407_(41).JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXNMbfyZMVHcXgSsfDN_SVmdZX0N_yssJ0V15gIp0xcXc9irKcuQoG7iDIb5ufy878ZGnHLACSdbQBELk-vz2WmyKeSUyWugb0La9KfOaE4dfGdZuzgSMoZsudqaMl9wP6tUEpJZ7x2ck2Ic1biT-itNgrnriTZmcAaR6ba3HEUBD4HWbTwU1NH-hjwL9H/w400-h300/Dourlers_D33_290407_(41).JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Where exactly the Tambour Stroh fitted in was never made entirely clear. </div><div><br /></div><div> In Michelet's version, which follows a brief reference by Piérart, an unnamed drummer boy had sounded the attack on the church square in Dourlers and "unnerved" the Austrians. It was not specified at what point this episode took place, nor whether, as was later assumed, the boy was to be credited with a deliberate (and daring) ruse.</div><div><br /></div><div>A second component, based on local tradition, was the eyewitness account of a local barber who claimed to have seen the drummer boy meet his death in combat with a group of Hungarian grenadiers. The only formal record of this testimony was given secondhand by his son-in-law in 1893, a full century after events. All that could be established with any degree of certainty was that a child or youth had been killed by the enemy in an alley near the church at some time course of the French retreat.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 1837 a group of skeletons was uncovered, which were taken to be Stroh and his adversaries. According to Piérart, at least three of the individuals were Austrian soldiers. This was impossible to verify, though, as Sixte Delorme pointed out, soldiers could readily be identified from buttons, belt buckles and the like. Perhaps the Tambour's opponents only became "Hungarian grenadiers" at this stage. The bones were subsequently reburied and lost without trace underneath a school playground.</div><div> </div><p><b>Identities?</b></p><p>Apart from the name Strou (or "Sthrau" - both are recorded), almost nothing came down in the way of personal details. No Christian name was ever given. The boy was said to have been born in Alsace and to have joined the 89th Regiment, formerly the Royal-Suède Regiment, with his brothers in 1792. According to Piérart, the barber from Dourlers had actually talked to these brothers. But no-one knew how he had identified the boy in the first place; perhaps, Sixtus Delorme suggested a little weakly, he had read Carnot's <i>Défenseur </i>or talked to the soldiers? </p><div>Inquiries in 1893 failed to trace a likely candidate in Alsace - this was not really surprising: French army drummers were generically Alsatian. However, in 1905 a well-informed letter to the editors of a local paper identified three brothers Stroh in the 89th Regiment, all of them drummers; sadly, the youngest, Julien, would have been 28 years old in 1793 and was a respectable 1.73m/5ft 9in tall. The committee in charge of the memorial understandably chose to ignore this revelation. (See Readings)</div><div><br /></div><div>In all probability, two different individuals - the adult Tambour Stroh and the boy killed in Dourlers - have become conflated. (Today <i>Wikipedia </i>and other websites sidestep the issue by repeating the story of the juvenile hero but also stating that he was 28-years old and called Julien.)</div><div><br /></div><div>.....Fortunately, no name appears on the statue in Avesnes, which was restored and safely reerected on its plinth in 2013:</div><div><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="210" src="https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x17q3eq" title="YouTube video player" width="373"></iframe> </div><div><div><div><b>References</b></div><div><br /></div><div>"Tambour Stroh" on<i> Wikipédia.fr</i></div></div><div><a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambour_Stroh">https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambour_Stroh</a></div><div><br /></div><div>"La légende du tambour Stroh" on the blog <i>Wattignies 1793</i></div><div><a href="https://wattignies1793.blog4ever.com/articles/la-lagende-du-tambour-stroh">https://wattignies1793.blog4ever.com/articles/la-lagende-du-tambour-stroh</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Madeleine-Anna Charmelot, "Joseph Strauh et Jacques Amand, jeunes héros révolutionnaires oubliés" <i>Annales historiques de la Revolution française,</i> 1985, No.262: p.538-542.</div><div><a href="https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1985_num_262_1_1138">https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1985_num_262_1_1138</a></div></div><div><br /></div></div><div>"Monument au tambour Stroh" on <i>e-monumen.net</i></div><div><a href="https://e-monumen.net/patrimoine-monumental/monument-au-tambour-stroh-avesnes-sur-helpe">https://e-monumen.net/patrimoine-monumental/monument-au-tambour-stroh-avesnes-sur-helpe</a>/</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span><div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Readings</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Early written accounts: </b></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><span><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Zéphir Piérart, 1850/51</b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The first published references to the Tambour appeared in works of the prominent local historian, and later spiritualist, Zéphir Píerart in 1850 and 1851.</span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></b></div><div style="color: black;"><span><span><div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><div style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>At the height of the action, a young drummer of the grenadiers of the Royal-Suède Regiment aged fourteen, named Sthrau, advanced unnoticed by a covered path. He went to beat the charge close to the Austrian battalions in the centre of the village who believed themselves surprised and suddenly took flight in terror.</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><b>Note</b>: This young drummer, who was the first to attack, was the last to flee. A</i></span><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-weight: 400;">t the moment he fled</i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-weight: 400;"><i>, he was surrounded near the church, by some Hungarian grenadiers. He defended himself heroically against them, killing several, but was finally overwhelmed by weight of numbers. </i></span><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-weight: 400;"> A resident of the village, named Brasseur, who was hiding in his attic, was an eye-witness to the combat. Later, in the Armée d'Allemagne, he met Sthrau's brothers who, although they knew that he had been killed on 15th October, did not know the heroic circumstances and heard them recounted with great emotion.</i></div></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Zéphyr-Joseph Piérart, <i style="font-weight: 400;">Recherches historiques sur Maubeuge, son canton et les communes limitrophes </i>(1850)</span></div><div style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IckWAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA204#v=onepage&q&f=false">https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IckWAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA204#v=onepage&q&f=false</a></span></div></div></span></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>An alleyway between the cemetery and the neighbouring farm, which led across the fields to the plain occupied by the French, was a scene of particular carnage. In their haste the retreating troops crowded into this alley to the point that nobody could move. The Austrians fell upon their rear and killed several of them. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">It was in these circumstances that a young drummer of the grenadiers of the Royal-Suède Regiment, aged fifteen, named Sthrau perished. .... He was buried at the end of the cemetery and, in 1837, his skeleton was rediscovered along with seven others, three of which were recognised as the Austrian soldiers that he had killed..... <br /></span></i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Zéphyr-Joseph Piérart, <i>Notice historique sur les communes de Floursies, Semousies, Saint-Aubin et Dourlers </i>(1850) p.51-52.<br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6526181m/f59">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6526181m/f59</a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Michelet's version of events, 1853<br /></b></span>Michelet gives a slightly confused account of the drummer boy's ruse (probably based on Piérart?)<br /><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Carnot gave the signal for attack, first on the flanks and then at the centre.<br /></i><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">For four hours, our troops in the centre, climbing towards Dourlers, fought with their bayonets, led by Jourdan in person. At the first encounter, the whole body of the enemy went into retreat. Our men arrived breathless at the foot of the slopes, only to find themselves facing the cannon and met by a hail of bullets. Some continued to advance; a drummer of fifteen years found his way through and took up position in the village of Dourlers, on the church square, where he beat the charge behind the Austrians; their battalions lost their nerve and started to disperse. <br /></i><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">In 1837 they discovered there the bones of the young boy between seven Hungarian grenadiers.<br /></i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>At the point when our men, under the torrent of gunfire, hesitated and drifted, the Austrian cavalry arrived on our flank and the infantry which had given way fell back on us. We were forced to give way.......Nightfall brought an end to this terrible execution.<br /></i></span><i>Histoire de la Révolution française ,</i>Book 13, chapter 8.<i> </i>First published in 1853</div></div><div style="color: #2b00fe;"><div style="color: black;"><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>An Army tradition?</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">The writer Sixte Delorme recalled that in 1888 he was persuaded by his editor to go the Elysée Palace to present a copy of his novel <i>Le tambour de Wattignies</i> to President Sadi Carnot (Lazare Carnot's grandson). The president received him cordially and encouraged him to talk about his sources. It turned out that Carnot was already very familiar with the tale of Tambour Stroh: </span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>...My father told me many times the story of this child's heroic death. It</i></span><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> was one of those sublime examples, accounts of which my grandfather had distributed in barracks and army camps in order to inspire patriotic heights. What an impression it must have produced when it was recounted by eye-witnesses at the bar of the Convention!</span></i></div><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">W</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">hen a surprised Delorme observed that he had found no record in the <i>Moniteur,</i> the president retracted slightly, and suggested that he might look instead in the leaves of Carnot's <i>Défenseur de la Patrie.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Notice in <i>Le Journal des Fourmies</i> for 16th December 1900.</span></div></div><div style="color: black;"><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1257407g/f2"><span style="font-family: inherit;">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1257407g/f2</span></a></div><div style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></div></div><div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Local memories:</span></b></div></div><div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">The eyewitness mentioned by </span>Zéphir <span style="font-family: inherit;">Piérart is identified as Pierre-Joseph Brasseur, a barber in Dourlers. In 1893 the man's son-in-law Constant Caille, then aged 71, was persuaded to make a formal deposition concerning the tales he had been told by his wife's father. The document was countersigned</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> by several witnesses and certified by the deputy mayor. This account is more or less identical to that of</span> Piérart:</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> "An alley situated between the cemetery and a neighbouring farm led out towards the plain occupied the French and had already been traversed by the troops several times. At a certain point it became so crowded by French soldiers that the enemy were able to kill a certain number. It was in these circumstances that there perished a young drummer of the Royal-Suèdois grenadiers. He refused to sound the retreat but continued to march through the alley furiously beating the charge. He was soon noticed by the enemy. He was surrounded by several Hungarian grenadiers who demanded his surrender. The young drummer boy refused emphatically and attacked his enemies, killing several before he was overwhelmed and killed. He was buried with those that he had killed and with the Hungarian grenadiers shot by French soldiers who rushed to the poor child's aid.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">In 1837 the skeleton of the little drummer boy was recovered alongside seven other larger ones. The discovery was made by M. Pierre Deresmes, who was digging foundations for an extension to his property. The remains were immediately buried by the said Deresmes in the nearby communal cemetery. This part of the cemetery has now been converted into a playground for the boys' school."</span></i><br /></i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Text reproduced in <i>L'Intermédiaire des chercheurs et curieux, </i>Vol. 51 (1905) 20th February 1905<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k73409b/f128.item"><span style="color: black;">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k73409b/f128.item</span></a></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">See also, the comments of Sixtus Delorme:</span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>It is public knowledge in these parts that in 1838 the skeleton of the drummer boy was found with seven other, much larger skeletons. This discovery was made by M. Pierre Deresme, who must have been able to identify from many indications - uniform buttons, badges, buckles - the nationality of the child and of the soldiers, who were Hungarian grenadiers.</i></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: inherit;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Delorme wanted to make it clear that Stroh did not kill seven men single-handedly:</span></div><div style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>It is public knowledge at Dourlers that the barber Brasseur was very willingly tell to his clients the story of the heroic death of Stroh...According to [his] account, based on <b>unbroken </b><b>tradition</b>, </i></span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>in order to defend his life he snatched a gun from the hands of one of his giant adversaries and fought for a long time, with admirable energy, calling for help to the brave soldiers of the 89th Regiment. His comrades could not save him, but they avenged him.</i></span></div><div style="color: black;"><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sixte Delorme in <i>Le Journal des Fourmies</i> for 16th December 1900</span></div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1257407g/f2"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1257407g/f2</span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">It might be noted that according to Zéphir <span>Piérart only three enemy soldiers were identified; the other four were perhaps Frenchmen, who were presumed to have come to the drummer boy's aid.</span></span></div></div></div></span></span></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><b><span><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Contested identities</span></b></div><div><div><br /></div><div>The following letter, dated 26th June 1893, was sent from the mayor of La Wantzenau, near</div><div>Strassbourg:</div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>After some long and difficult research, I can share with you the following:</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Philippe Stroh and his wife Catherine Ohlmann had four children:</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>1. Philippe, born 6/12 1774; 2. Antoine, born 8/4 1777; 3. André, born 17/1 1779; 4. Joseph, born 15/1 1781.</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Philippe and Antoine Stroh seem to have served with the Army of the Rhine; André was probably the drummer in question; Joseph was mayor of our commune for several years. A descendant of this family, Jean Stroh, ironsmith, lives in La Wantzenau.</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>I asked him for details of the four individuals but he could not provide me with any precise information. However, from their birth dates they may be the men in question.</i></span></div></div><div><div><i>L'Intermédiaire des chercheurs et curieux, </i>Vol. 51 (1905) 20th February 1905</div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k73409b/f129.item">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k73409b/f129.item</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>The modern online database of the <i>Féderation des Sociétés d'histoire et d'archéologie d'Alsace </i>has the following entry<i>: </i><b>Stroh (Strauh) Joseph</b>: "The only Stroh born in La Wantzenau in 1779 (17th January) had the first name André and was the son of Philippe Stroh, locksmith and Marie Catherine Ohlmann. His younger brother Joseph (born 15th January 1781) seems too young to be our hero. There is no other Joseph Stroh born in La Wantzenau at the end of the 18th century."</div><div><a href="https://www.alsace-histoire.org/netdba/stroh-strauh-joseph/">https://www.alsace-histoire.org/netdba/stroh-strauh-joseph/</a></div><div><br /></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>In January 1905 an anonymous letter was sent to the newspaper <i>l'Éclair </i>which had announced plans for the monument at Avesnes. It seems to have remained unanswered. </div><div><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Monsieur le directeur,</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">I read that a committee is to be formed to erect a monument to Stroh, the drummer of Wattignies, and I want to gain its attention. In view of the article in L'Éclair this morning, it has become necessary to clip the wings of the legend.</span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">There were three Stroh brothers serving in 1793 in the 89th Infantry Regiment (formally the Royal-Suédois): Joseph born in 1750 in Dunkirk; Adam born "au corps" in Buding in 1760; Julien born "au corps" in Landau in 1765. All three, "enfants du corps", were drummers, but Joseph was sergeant of the 162th demi-brigade in 1794. Adam was drum-corporal in 1788, then became drum-major; he retired in 1805 and died in 1824. Therefore there remains only Julien, who disappears in 1793.</span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Julien who was taller than his brothers, measured 1 metre 73 [5ft 7ins]. Thus he was not small in height. But he was little in that he was the last born and very much younger; thus he might have been called "le petit" to distinguish him from his brothers</span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Therefore, the little drummer boy of Wattignies, if he is Stroh of the 89th, was 28 years old and 1 metre 73 in height!<br /></span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Age and height do not detract from the merit of a glorious death and service given, and it is precisely to respect his memory that we oppose the commemoration of a man in the guise of a child.<br /></span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">If there was a drummer boy who distinguished himself at Dourlers - and this seems likely since there were many at this time - then this drummer boy was not called Stroh. Conversely, if the action can be attributed to the Tambour Stroh, then he was not a child.</span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">To erect a monument to a anonymous drummer of Wattignies is fine; but to add the name of Stroh is to commit an error. It shows the danger of accepting local legends uncritically, and without the support of contemporary documents. <br /></span></i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Published in: <i>L'Intermédaire des chercheurs et curieux</i>, Vol. 51 30 January 1905. <br /><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k73409b/f70.item">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k73409b/f70.item</a></span></p><p>Note that the brothers Stroh are described as "enfants du corps". After 1766, a limited number of sons of soldiers or women servants were officially recognised and paid a small wage. They remained with the regiment until they were of an age to engage. This explains why the brothers were born in different places and all trained as drummers, as was no doubt common practice among young boys in this position. </p><p><br /></p><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>The synthesis of 1905</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: inherit; text-align: right;"><br /></div></span></div><div><span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Speech given by Alfred Jennepin, local schoolteacher and President of the subscription committee, at the inauguration of the monument in Avesnes-sur-Helpe on 3rd September 1905.</b></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"><br /></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">Little is known about the origins of the young Stroh; we only know that he came from Alsace and that in 1792 he joined the army with his brothers as a volunteer.</div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"><br /></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">He served as a drummer boy in the former Régiment de Royal Suédois, now the 89th Regiment of the line; at the time he was fourteen or fifteen years old. </div></span></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The combat at Dourlers, which took place on 15th October 1793 was one of the bitterest engagements of the Revolutionary wars.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">After a murderous struggle which lasted several hours, our soldiers forces found themselves masters of the enemy positions. The Austrians retreated slowly, contesting the terrain inch by inch. But suddenly, they heard, on their left flank, a drum roll beating the charge. They were in no doubt that the Republicans had taken the village and were about to attack their rear. In panic, they hurriedly abandoned their positions, closely pursued by the French.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">In reality, these powerful reinforcements which had so alarmed the Austrians were only one child of fifteen, the Drummer Boy Stroh, who had sneaked into a side road and was beating his drum furiously. </span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Rather than wait for the main army, the 89th imprudently rushed after the enemy. They came down from the high ground, crossed the valley of the river Bracquière and only came to a breathless halt at the foot of the opposite slope.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> The French were so carried away by their triumph that they forgot that they were now behind enemy lines. Only a hundred feet away, a battery which they had not noticed, began to spew out grapeshot. Entire ranks were cut down, whilst a cloud of cavalry fell on them from both sides and butchered them before they had the chance to use their guns.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Faced with this murderous and unexpected attack, the men at the head of the column did a volte-face, pushing the rest of the army in front of them in disorder back towards Dourlers. </span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The Little Drummer Boy, left on his own, remained in position; he refused to beat a retreat and continued to sound the charge. Then he turned his back on his comrades and strode towards the main square of the village. A few latecomers wanted to take the child with them and stopped next to him for a instant; this moment of hesitation cost them their lives.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">A group of Hungarian grenadiers noticed the little hero and cried out to him to surrender. The child defended himself desperately; he threw away his drum, snatched a gun from the hands of one of the grenadiers and shot him. But he was overwhelmed by weight of numbers and fell gloriously.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The memory of the Little Drummer Boy has remained alive among the residents of Dourlers; the tale of his glorious death has often enlivened winter evenings. The young people who listen are filled with admiration for the youthful hero, and promise themselves that they will imitate him later should the occasion arise.</span></i></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><div><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;">Reproduced in "Le petit tambour de Wattignes", </span><i style="color: black;">Revue pédagogique </i><span style="color: black;">(1905, Vol.47(2): p.292-6. (full text on "Perséide Éducation")</span></span></div><div><span><a href="https://education.persee.fr/doc/revpe_2021-4111_1905_num_47_2_9796">https://education.persee.fr/doc/revpe_2021-4111_1905_num_47_2_9796</a></span></div></span></span></div><div style="font-size: large;"><br style="font-size: medium;" /></div></span></div></div></div></div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-8324124415268633692023-02-15T10:17:00.000-08:002024-02-27T12:15:08.193-08:00Viala(?) by Prud'hon(?)<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Depictions of the boy-hero Viala are rare in art. This striking image, attributed to Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, would seem to owe more to David's visions of the Revolutionary martyr than to later 19th-century realism. But is it really by Prud'hon and, more questionable still, does it really represent the feisty child-hero of Year II?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinTIBOoCeRbzKulwdNgcjNLE9jCiBvvCC3qUWYRVZZe04DGdNWBmopRJ7sKULoi6eurRGunTaxPTwNhE-D4oVdgCLlCJb9XXGbVMr8hiEDnTz5orTXRAuJfOeE_A_zbmR38q2aVeelTBiSmcS0XUAAjX4loO9zMMN8BvfUwHBLMTjbfpnV60DFLGA2DW06/s741/741px-Death_of_Viala-Pierre-Paul_Prudhon-MBA_Lyon_1966-13-IMG_0455.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="741" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinTIBOoCeRbzKulwdNgcjNLE9jCiBvvCC3qUWYRVZZe04DGdNWBmopRJ7sKULoi6eurRGunTaxPTwNhE-D4oVdgCLlCJb9XXGbVMr8hiEDnTz5orTXRAuJfOeE_A_zbmR38q2aVeelTBiSmcS0XUAAjX4loO9zMMN8BvfUwHBLMTjbfpnV60DFLGA2DW06/w400-h324/741px-Death_of_Viala-Pierre-Paul_Prudhon-MBA_Lyon_1966-13-IMG_0455.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><b>Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, "Death of Viala", Musée des Beaux-arts, Lyon</b>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><b><i>Image on Wikimedia</i>: Supplied by user "Rama" as one of a set of accredited photographs from the Musée des Beaux-arts in Lyon. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><b>Paintings department, accession number 1966-13. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><b>Donated by the heirs of Emile Labeyrie in 1966. </b></span></div><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><b>Taken on 27th April 2011.</b></span></div><div><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Death_of_Viala-Pierre-Paul_Prudhon-MBA_Lyon_1966-13-IMG_0455.jpg" style="font-family: georgia;">h</a><a href="ttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Death_of_Viala-Pierre-Paul_Prudhon-MBA_Lyon_1966-13-IMG_0455.jpg" style="font-family: georgia;">ttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Death_of_Viala-Pierre-Paul_Prudhon-MBA_Lyon_1966-13-IMG_0455.jpg</a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The painting is from the collections of the Musée des Beaux-arts in Lyon. It pops up frequently on the internet, but almost all the images derive from a single photograph on <i>Wikipedia / Wikimedia</i>, taken in April 2011. The photographer, "Rama" kindly sent me an email to confirm that the work is indeed (or was) on display in the museum and that their annotation was taken from the museum label. It is an oil painting; no dimensions are given.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I had some trouble finding further references. The picture is not included in either the museum's online catalogue or in the accessible extract from the <i>Catalogue raisonné </i>of French paintings in the collection, published in 2014. It is a comparatively recent acquisition, given by the heirs of the politician Émile Labeyrie in 1966, with no earlier provenance available. There are entries on the various commercial sites selling reproductions or digital images, but these add no new facts. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><span></span><span><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The same is true of references in modern works on masculinity in art:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>Germaine Greer in <i>The beautiful boy </i>(2003) refers to the work as "attributed" to Prud'hon. Dominique Fernandez, <i>Le rapt de Ganymède </i>(Grasset, 2014), lists Prud'hon's Death of Viala as dated 1794 and "hors Salons".[<a href="Dominique Fernandez, Le rapt de Ganymède (Grasset, 2014) - dated 1794, "hors Salons". https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=A4bp2OtlrPQC&lpg=PT83&ots=2OLvufoQ0y&dq=prud'hon%20mort%20de%20viala&pg=PT83#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Google Books preview</a>])</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I finally came across a reference to a relevant article by the curator Madeleine Vincent published in the <i>Bulletin des musées et monuments lyonnais </i>for 1967: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Madeleine Vincent, "Deux oeuvres attribuée à Pierre-Paul Prudhon au musée des beaux-arts, <i>Bull. des musées et monuments lyonnais </i>1967, p.1-10. 3 figs, 1 plate. Subject: "two works in the museum attributed to Prud'hon, a self-portrait and the a nude considered as "la mort de Viala" of 1794." [Catalogued in <i>Annales de Bourgogne</i>, 1972]</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A summary in another listing reads: "An <i>académie</i> by Prud'hon, which has recently entered the musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyons, could be, according to Mlle Madeleine Vincent, a study for a Mort de Viala." </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Unfortunately, I do not have access to this article, but we can draw a few preliminary inferences:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><span style="color: #800180;">The work is only "attributed to Prud'hon".</span></b></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><span style="color: #800180;">It may be regarded as an </span></b><span style="color: #800180;"><b>"académie", that is a study from life</b></span></li></ul></div><div style="text-align: left;">Nowadays Prud'hon is much admired for his beautiful studio portraits, a "body of stunning figure drawings" (See Rubenstein, 2007). These were essentially private pieces, and not necessarily preliminary studies for finished works. The pose in the Viala portrait is similar to some of these compositions. On the other hand, as an oil painting, it does not fit neatly within this corpus. Arguably, it is less accomplished, particularly the head and facial features.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnYuDeRCSCguB8CI4OS4KllK_3MkyKW4eya9NRE509zm8P308j-xOV0ega7YiVwjphzi6Lc2SfC6Pw2HJZZWvaaWDVSHP2ajzgyQrk9kBkcHbCSCysPE5iPUQT0nYOlvsu3kFmJ2G6kDlJOhVbhDtZXoUsY8Ona85CvFre5IY9fysOOioZkQx4vxljYTBh/s1053/Acad%C3%A9mies.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="1053" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnYuDeRCSCguB8CI4OS4KllK_3MkyKW4eya9NRE509zm8P308j-xOV0ega7YiVwjphzi6Lc2SfC6Pw2HJZZWvaaWDVSHP2ajzgyQrk9kBkcHbCSCysPE5iPUQT0nYOlvsu3kFmJ2G6kDlJOhVbhDtZXoUsY8Ona85CvFre5IY9fysOOioZkQx4vxljYTBh/w400-h185/Acad%C3%A9mies.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Images from Rubenstein, 2007</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUUV7YxmIBjRnuAtoEFXE0ZESFXLlNCDt66spzn5ma2mcU-BsKA0THojAhoEh06dYb7ddCkhWJNQn8SLZ6qt5wmUv-_KswfMi61V5sPZLIPPm0EIeG7uskqPpFtmYbEx-oV3zFFap69FSdi1QfbMmMEVBdnmTiOScZk1_1CORWBhzKsVQIGrkiniyVP8i_/s495/Acad%C3%A9mie%202.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="355" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUUV7YxmIBjRnuAtoEFXE0ZESFXLlNCDt66spzn5ma2mcU-BsKA0THojAhoEh06dYb7ddCkhWJNQn8SLZ6qt5wmUv-_KswfMi61V5sPZLIPPm0EIeG7uskqPpFtmYbEx-oV3zFFap69FSdi1QfbMmMEVBdnmTiOScZk1_1CORWBhzKsVQIGrkiniyVP8i_/w286-h400/Acad%C3%A9mie%202.JPG" width="286" /></a></div><b><span style="color: #800180;"><br /></span></b><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><span style="color: #800180;">It does not certainly represent Viala</span></b></li></ul></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>There is (presumably) some prior reference to a "Mort de Viala" of 1794 by Prud'hon. But if so, I have failed to find it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Most of what is know of Prud'hon's Revolutionary career is summarised in Sylvain Laveissière's study<i>, </i><i>Pierre-Paul Prud'hon,</i> which was published to accompany an exhibition held at the Grand Palais and Metropolitan Museum in 1998: </div><div><br /></div><div>Prud'hon was born 1758, the son of a stone carver from Cluny in Saône-et-Loire. He studied in Dijon, Paris and Rome, before returning to France in 1787. He was broadly sympathetic towards the ideas of the Revolution and participated actively in the reformed artistic institutions of the capital, but was never closely associated with David and his circle. The idea he was an ardent Jacobin rests only on the anecdote that during the Legislative Assembly he and his friends would listen admiringly to Robespierre speak at the Jacobin Club. (See p.157-9) The famous portrait of Saint-Just, also in the Musée des Beaux-arts in Lyon, is no longer attributed to him (p.91).</div><div><br /></div><div>Prud'hon had a reputation as a reticent and dreamy man. </div><div><br /></div><div>His Revolutionary output was almost entirely confined to a series of allegorical designs for engravings by Jacques-Louis Copia. His few known projects for monumental paintings, for the Panthéon and the Ministry of Agriculture, were either never realised or have not been preserved. They were again patriotic allegories. In 1794 the <i>Concours de l'an II </i>he presented a project for<i> La Sagesse et la Vérité descendent sur la terre</i> which was finally exhibited the Salon of 1799. </div><div><br /></div><div>Sylvain Laveissière's book has a detailed chronology which lists Prud'hon's attested works in some detail, but no Viala.</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The reference might of course turn up. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In the meantime, there is nothing about the picture itself to suggest the identification: no suggestive accoutrements such as accompany David's Bara - and, clearly, this is a grown man. This seems especially odd, as Prud'hon was capable of conceiving such delicious boneless ephebes!</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKkgBmwy_ZR3YrzyrN8cCi3_Jbt8pRV5vUxiWH1PIApKAjRJepq1fBbKTMgRT17hdiKV0v9jQuHzWlQNXItyvIySOg3q6gTd0BJrXJIBcXzvBo1XyFqq69oleldPSD15bP5BBo8YwDlDGNCf4q5k8Ok9XPrNQ_NFPguFw_gyjLIR0zaoaQa2b5f6bkOyz_/s647/Union%20of%20Love.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="495" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKkgBmwy_ZR3YrzyrN8cCi3_Jbt8pRV5vUxiWH1PIApKAjRJepq1fBbKTMgRT17hdiKV0v9jQuHzWlQNXItyvIySOg3q6gTd0BJrXJIBcXzvBo1XyFqq69oleldPSD15bP5BBo8YwDlDGNCf4q5k8Ok9XPrNQ_NFPguFw_gyjLIR0zaoaQa2b5f6bkOyz_/w306-h400/Union%20of%20Love.JPG" width="306" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Prud'hon, "Union of Love and Friendship", c. 1793, Minneapolis Institute of Art</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>References</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>Sylvain Laveissière, <i>Pierre-Paul Prud'hon</i> (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1998), p.157-59.</div><div><a href="https://archive.org/details/pierrepaulprudho0000lave/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/pierrepaulprudho0000lave/page/157/mode/1up?view=theater</a></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Ephraim Rubenstein, "The erotic frigidaire: the académies of Pierre-Paul Prud'hon", article from <i>Drawing Magazine</i>, 2007.</div><div><a href="https://ephraimrubenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/Erotic_Frigidaire-1.pdf">https://ephraimrubenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/Erotic_Frigidaire-1.pdf</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Nicole Levis-Godechot, "Prud'hon Jacobin", <i>Bulletin d'histoire de la Revolution Française</i>; Années 1982-83 (Paris, 1985), pp. 92-94 <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wcYRAQAAMAAJ">[On Google Books - snippet view only]</a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>Alfred Sensier, « Le Roman de Prud'hon »<i>. Revue internationale de l'art et de la curiosité</i>, 15 décembre 1869, p. 502-515.</div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6212790d/f514.item.r=prud'hon">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6212790d/f514.item.r=prud'hon</a></div><div>Sensier is the origin of the anedote about Robespierre:</div><div>We learn that Prud'hon was an enthusiast for the American war, the reforms of Louis XVI, the Encyclopédistes. On his return from Paris, he and his friends would go to listen to the speakers at the Jacobins or Cordeliers. The family Fauconnier, with whom he lodged, reported that he admired Robespierre's oratory during the Legislative when Robespierre still supported the Constitutional monarchy (p.514).</div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-68353656206838252662023-02-12T12:38:00.000-08:002024-02-23T08:51:04.488-08:00Agricol Viala<p> </p><div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYsnZtGxWUmNv6ZzSfttyhTqA-xAj1KC-efQnpxIiPX-j5w7tE3oWK__doUUNvC1i8Dgi5fjTlNgZ1VhrZBo0joGJeNYnZoPclD38vmPN5U6rcKM4tB4zOGiSyA85UYMl0zV2_svEjsUo1PGN4C9lbMs2tSMvyECRGs6PTewGWOiJSDYS3h_8p3tvHpsW8/s800/Descourtis-Viala.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="800" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYsnZtGxWUmNv6ZzSfttyhTqA-xAj1KC-efQnpxIiPX-j5w7tE3oWK__doUUNvC1i8Dgi5fjTlNgZ1VhrZBo0joGJeNYnZoPclD38vmPN5U6rcKM4tB4zOGiSyA85UYMl0zV2_svEjsUo1PGN4C9lbMs2tSMvyECRGs6PTewGWOiJSDYS3h_8p3tvHpsW8/w640-h478/Descourtis-Viala.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">"Joseph Agricole Vialla", 1793. Engraving by Charles-Melchior Descourtis after Joseph Swebach Desfontaines <br /><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b69506180">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b69506180</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div>In February 1794 Joseph Bara was belatedly compelled to share the laurels of the Republic with a second, even more obscure, "child martyr", the splendidly-named Joseph-Agricol Viala. </div><div><br /></div><div>This Republican of thirteen years - even younger than Bara - had been killed in Avignon seven months previously attempting to cut the cable of a ferry that Federalist troops needed to cross the River Durance and take the town. </div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #800180;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><a name='more'></a></span>The making of a hero</span></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYVQz-Aihr9KkQAuTrNSZd2ybUVxEwRHCHVbfPCdcOMynG37PxUEZsN8OSmJyC_ZTupYeA46bzKwR0UjApjH7NsIDLCAg_eQfYtb2Eole1WddQCYpfi-ZZtKQmLZTAWOSAChQgfEDZBY8iz2N1UgMxP8HuQZdlib7U0HRgBDre-46J-nmgLQ-7P0eRiPVT/s855/D'Agricola_Viala_ag__de_11_%5B...%5D_btv1b6950627z_1.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="851" data-original-width="855" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYVQz-Aihr9KkQAuTrNSZd2ybUVxEwRHCHVbfPCdcOMynG37PxUEZsN8OSmJyC_ZTupYeA46bzKwR0UjApjH7NsIDLCAg_eQfYtb2Eole1WddQCYpfi-ZZtKQmLZTAWOSAChQgfEDZBY8iz2N1UgMxP8HuQZdlib7U0HRgBDre-46J-nmgLQ-7P0eRiPVT/s320/D'Agricola_Viala_ag__de_11_%5B...%5D_btv1b6950627z_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">"Agricola Viala, aged 11" - anonymous early engraving<br /><a href="http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6950627z">http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6950627z</a></span><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6950627z"> </a> </span></td></tr></tbody></table>Like that of Bara - perhaps even more blatantly - the glory of Viala was entirely a political fabrication. His opportunistic promoter was the radical journalist Agricol Moureau, the leader of the Avignon Jacobins and administrator of the newly created department of Vaucluse. In December 1793 Moureau had fallen foul of Representatives Rovè<span style="font-size: var(--h1-font-size); font-weight: var(--headings-font-weight);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">re and Poultier and ended up in the Luxembourg prison, under threat of the guillotine. He was Viala's uncle, and editor of the newspaper the <i>Avignon courrier</i> since September 1793, so he must have had been well aware of events; but he hadn't taken the slightest notice of the boy's existence until this point. Now he saw the relationship as a possible means to extricate himself from a tight situation.</span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><div>Viala's story was first brought to attention of readers in Paris in an article in the<i> Journal des Hommes libres de tous les pays, </i>owned by Moureau's friend Charles Duval, for 16 Pluviôse (4th February 1794), and reprised two days later in the <i>Journal universal </i>of d'Audouin<i> </i>(See Readings).</div><div><br /></div><div>Moureau then wrote directly to Robespierre to inform him of the heroic death of his "pupil and nephew". His letter, dated 19 Pluviôse (7th February 1794), was found among the Robespierre's papers at the time of his execution. Moureau, no doubt, hoped to benefit from his close association with Claude Payan, Robespierre's agent in the Commune and a native of Drôme.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><br /></div><div>If Robespierre intervened on receipt of the Moureau's letter, there was a long delay, for Moureau remained in prison for two more months. He was eventually liberated on 26 Germinal (15th April) and on 6 Floréal appeared at the Jacobins to thank his defenders. The recall of Rovère and Poultier from Vaucluze, and the arrival of Maignet, a strict Robespierrist, temporarily restored his political fortunes. </div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Commemorations are set in motion</span></b></div><div><div><div><br /></div><div>Two weeks later Viala was rescued from oblivion. His heroic action was presented to the Convention in the famous session of 18 Floréal. Robespierre associated his name with that of Bara and lamented the fact that he had so far been denied the accolades of posterity. On the proposal of Barère, it was ordered his ashes were to be solemnly conveyed to the Panthéon with those of Bara, the date being fixed for 30 Prairial (later fatefully postponed to 10 Thermidor). </div><div><br /></div><div>As Michel Vovelle notes, this was more than Moureau himself had hoped for. In his letter to Robespierre, he wrote that he did not expect his nephew to be treated on a par with Bara but wanted only a "pyramid" to be erected in his honour, in the public square in Avignon or else on the banks of the Durance.</div><div><br /></div><div>By voting Viala the honours of the Panthéon, the Convention set in motion a whole series of symbolic gestures. On 3 Prairial Moureau was formally admitted to the Assembly hall with a delegation of Avignon patriots, and on 10 Prairial he appeared again, this time accompanied by Viala's mother, sister and younger brother. In a letter read to the Assembly, Viala's parents announced that one of their older sons had already avenged his brother at Toulon: if the country required further sacrifices, "let our children perish, and <i>Vive la république</i>!" A <i>Précis historiques sur Agricol Viala </i>was published under the aegis of the Commission of Public Instruction and, on 23 Messidor, David read his plans for the forthcoming ceremony to the Convention. Marie-Joseph Chénier included Viala alongside Bara, in the couplets of the <i>Chant du départ</i></div><div><br /></div></div><div>The Republican publicity machine made a brave effort, though, with little lead time, Viala was always a poor second to Bara. There are half a dozen different engravings in various French collections, mostly portraits. In the winter of 1793-94 calendars featured medallions of Bara along with those of the established "martyrs of liberty", Marat, Lepeletier and Chalier - in one at least Viala joins him:</div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: roboto_condensed; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPFQrsGxLdgFk3-KEayFYJ8cZE5sV0dXdfF6dFuAC-tf-K5mRCbwlybLdxRAUncWqauFmjn6o_ATlY04dE05SLOJPQ6lX1EL2P_9i_kjIyYAbXs5nHRtmRkbDSI97qcV4ZAfqLYPIV5-yuJ1KSHqUtaeHYT7JZpxS_4gj0sWUt-GLRwgvifwccHEp9qd6I/s989/%5BLe_Peletier_Marat_Chalier_Viala_%5B...%5D_btv1b69498987_1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="911" data-original-width="989" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPFQrsGxLdgFk3-KEayFYJ8cZE5sV0dXdfF6dFuAC-tf-K5mRCbwlybLdxRAUncWqauFmjn6o_ATlY04dE05SLOJPQ6lX1EL2P_9i_kjIyYAbXs5nHRtmRkbDSI97qcV4ZAfqLYPIV5-yuJ1KSHqUtaeHYT7JZpxS_4gj0sWUt-GLRwgvifwccHEp9qd6I/s320/%5BLe_Peletier_Marat_Chalier_Viala_%5B...%5D_btv1b69498987_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b69498987"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b69498987</span></a><br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrmHNt1AFq1Fyy3YekPpS8crKCgJwSwVzG1lINAZqg6RuK-b_90gjkn9t4XYPS5pR5wvGcYSgFuA10PfUkU9diafH_fC2LzMio_e79p0Ikr3P2X93aGYT0UP49MACkhRQFFRQypCyj09TOm9kWwP3TT2kKUyYY_zc41l8B0UfJwKbN9Y84aaoh88dM1an7/s1046/Mazetti.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1046" data-original-width="696" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrmHNt1AFq1Fyy3YekPpS8crKCgJwSwVzG1lINAZqg6RuK-b_90gjkn9t4XYPS5pR5wvGcYSgFuA10PfUkU9diafH_fC2LzMio_e79p0Ikr3P2X93aGYT0UP49MACkhRQFFRQypCyj09TOm9kWwP3TT2kKUyYY_zc41l8B0UfJwKbN9Y84aaoh88dM1an7/s320/Mazetti.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>The Musée Calvet in Avignon holds a marble bust commissioned from the local sculptor Joseph-Bernard Mazetti (d.1828). It is said to be the original carried in procession during the commemorations in Avignon on 18th July 1794 - and is thus a precious lone survivor of the many busts of Bara and Viala inaugurated with such great pomp throughout France at this time. (Musée Calvet, <i>La mort de Bara</i> (1989) p.17.) Victorin Laval, in his study of 1903, reports that the likeness was based on Viala's younger brother, Augustin-Agricol. The story goes that the sculptor, who was suspected of Federalist sympathies, stalled over the statue's completion as long as possible to avoid arrest; years afterwards an Avignon workman who only pretended to work was proverbially known "a Mazetti"(Laval,p.134)</div><div><br /></div><div>The illustration (left) is from Laval - I can't find a modern reference online, but the sculpture was clearly still in the Calvet's collections in 1989.</div><div><br /></div><div> Models of Bara and Viala were also created by Branchard at the Sèvres factory; there are several examples of these busts on museum and auction sites, though majority are late 19th-century. </div><div><br /></div><div><div><br /></div>In the run up to the ceremony, Viala featured in plays at the<i> Opéra-Comique</i>,and various other theatres of Paris. (Laval, p.125). For two productions, of which details survive, see the entries on the website <i>Le Théâtre français de la Révolution à l'Empire</i>: </div><div><a href="http://theatre1789-1815.e-monsite.com/pages/pieces-gens-et-lieux/les-pieces/j/le-jeune-heros-de-la-durance-ou-agricole-viala.html">Le Jeune héros de la Durance, ou Agricole Viala (e-monsite.com)</a> </div><div><a href="http://theatre1789-1815.e-monsite.com/pages/pieces-gens-et-lieux/les-pieces/a/agricole-viala-ou-le-heros-de-treize-ans.html">Agricole Viala, ou le héros de treize ans (e-monsite.com)</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, we learn from <i>Wikipedia</i> that a French ship-of-the-line was launched in 1795 as <i>Le Vialla</i>, though it rapidly metamorphosised into <i>Le Voltaire </i>(1795), <i>Le Constitution</i> (1795) and eventually <i>Le Jupiter</i> (1803).</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">A ceremony in Avignon</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>Whilst celebrations in Paris were abruptly halted by the events of Thermidor, an elaborate ceremony in honour of Viala went ahead in Avignon, on 30 Messidor (18th July 1794) as originally planned. The occasion is unusually well-documented - Laval reproduces the official account, the dossier of speeches and a number of patriotic songs and sententious epitaphs from the event (p.354-355). The most noteworthy of the orations was given by the young Citizen Avid, who had been Viala's aide-de-camp as leader of the National Guard cadet organisation in Avignon, known as<i> L'Espérance de la patrie</i>. This corps, which mirrored other children's battalions in the provinces, had featured prominently in local ceremonies and processions from end of 1792. Avid's college rhetoric reveals a quasi-military hierarchy among the youthful citizens; he evokes Viala as "a daring chief, brave commander and object of our love" and ends by enjoining the "soldiers of Agricol" to be prepared to die in their turn for the Republic. The event finished with a moving but altogether briefer declaration of patriotic loyalty from Viala's father.</div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9uYhVRPBz_h-VT5zPIhT8Urz2Ge5VfLpUYUnd_x-g-f3cKTT6xX1dkKO3cDDR2Q1AkEHRi-PIiu68KROJuISGgiHDX58kW7ZW8NTDqbmar4jOp0APk2WrPTR6pHMyU3pPSqzGWomqeOyx7cA2VtsFara9mUQT-j1HxeFcv-JRN8NKQn1tm2fw2N489dDu/s979/Viala_couronn%C3%A9_par_l'Egalit%C3%A9___%5B...%5DMorret_Jean_btv1b8411943h_1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="979" data-original-width="752" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9uYhVRPBz_h-VT5zPIhT8Urz2Ge5VfLpUYUnd_x-g-f3cKTT6xX1dkKO3cDDR2Q1AkEHRi-PIiu68KROJuISGgiHDX58kW7ZW8NTDqbmar4jOp0APk2WrPTR6pHMyU3pPSqzGWomqeOyx7cA2VtsFara9mUQT-j1HxeFcv-JRN8NKQn1tm2fw2N489dDu/w308-h400/Viala_couronn%C3%A9_par_l'Egalit%C3%A9___%5B...%5DMorret_Jean_btv1b8411943h_1.jpeg" width="308" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">"Viala crowned by Equality", engraving of 1794</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8411943h">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8411943h</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Who was Viala?</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>As Jean-Clément Martin notes, unlike that of Bara, Viala's death had witnesses, so that it is possible to get some idea of the degree of invention his story involved. According to the version given by his uncle, the thirteen-year-old Viala, commander of the children's National Guard, had volunteered to cut cable of the ferry at Bonpas /Noves in order to prevent the Federalist troops on the far side of the Durance from crossing. Despite efforts to restrain him, he rushed under fire to the exposed position where the ferry cable was attached to a pole on the bank. According to some accounts he fired several shots from his practice musket, then, arming himself with an axe, began to hack away violently at the cable. He survived several volleys of musket fire but on the sixth was hit by a ball in the head. The sources record his moving last words in the local patois: "M'an pas manquat: aquo es egaou, mori per la libertat" ("I have been hit, but it does not matter; I die for liberty"). The Federalists were said to have later callously plunged their bayonets into the corpse and tossed it into the water. The date given is vague - but some time in July 1793.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>There were significant errors and ambiguities in this account:</div><div><br /></div><div>Firstly, Moureau was mistaken, or guilty of deliberate falsification, over Viala's age. At the time of his death, the boy was not thirteen but already turned fifteen, and thus was older than Bara - by the standards of the time almost of an age to fight. Laval confirms: the birth date of Joseph-Agricol Viala is recorded as 22nd February 1778. He was the third son of François-Hilarion Viala, a shopkeeper with modest premises on the place de l'Horloge in central Avignon, and his wife, Honorade Moureau, the sister of the Revolutionary. (Laval, p.41-42)</div><div><br /></div><div>There was also some confusion over the details of when events happened and what exactly took place.</div><div><br /></div><div>It turns out that Viala did not die, as was generally assumed, on 6th July, when the Federalist troops from Marseilles arrived before Avignon, but on the 5th, the day before, when a small group of defenders went out in advance to disable the ferry at Noves. Laval assembles the available evidence (See Readings below) The manuscript diary of the Avignon lawyer Chambaud, states that Viala was shot in head on the 5th; his father wrongly assumed that a substantial enemy force had already assembled and falsely raised the alarm. Another witness reported seeing on the 5th, the body of a young man, identified as Viala, who had been killed near the ferry post by a ball "above the left nipple". This scenario detracts somewhat from Viala's heroism. Perhaps he had not after all braved volleys of fire, but been the victim of an isolated shot. More damning still, according to Chambaud he had simply been on guard duty by the ferry when he had provoked the armed men on the opposite bank by "some act of imprudence". His uncle's enemies took pleasure in spreading the rumour that he had been killed presenting his rear to the Federalists in an obscene gesture.</div><div><br /></div><div>There is no means to verify the exact circumstances further. In a letter to the Convention dated 24th July 1793 - so long before Viala's rise to fame - the Representative Rovère, no friend of Moureau, reports simply that "a young Avignonnais aged sixteen was killed by gunshot at the moment when he was going to cut the rope of the cable ferry." (see Reading)</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguecW60k8z3jJPwVpFJvAVZG_93p4VE99H16xSgu5CERj__qe01F2moDcxa5i457iad2P2QRUu-8qm-o3c2iQaMZC-eGvX9pt7P9OdXBLAmHMeI9J64V7VpTGqygOxEIIgaea4wq4ZDk1hA30_PQTSz7yOQitDvmwprm5JJYbnyorJD1IgUKIX39-M-nVj/s2560/initial-troncon-de-bonpas-de-la-digue-de-la-durance-qui-sera-entierement-repris-a-avignon-par-le-smavd.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguecW60k8z3jJPwVpFJvAVZG_93p4VE99H16xSgu5CERj__qe01F2moDcxa5i457iad2P2QRUu-8qm-o3c2iQaMZC-eGvX9pt7P9OdXBLAmHMeI9J64V7VpTGqygOxEIIgaea4wq4ZDk1hA30_PQTSz7yOQitDvmwprm5JJYbnyorJD1IgUKIX39-M-nVj/w400-h225/initial-troncon-de-bonpas-de-la-digue-de-la-durance-qui-sera-entierement-repris-a-avignon-par-le-smavd.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">The Durance at Bonpas, with Noves to the right - traversed nowadays by two major road bridges</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Finally there was some misunderstanding over the strategic significance of Viala's action. Perhaps advisedly, Moureau left the context of his nephew's action imprecise. However, in fairness, he wrote again to Robespierre to correct his assumption in the speech of 18 Floréal that Viala had actually succeeded in his mission: Moureau confirms: "The cable was not cut, the rebels crossed the river and threw his body in the water" (See Readings).</div><div><div><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"></i></div><div><br /></div><div>In reality Viala's contribution had been marginal and ineffective. The whole episode also cast an unwelcome light on the ambiguities of local politics. Other cable ferries along the Durance had been disabled without difficulty. The Noves ferry remained intact only because the inhabitants of Noves themselves favoured the Federalist cause and had kept it in operation. </div><div><br /></div><div>The capitulation of Avignon, though shortlived, was swift and ignominious. Rousselet's <i>Marseillais</i> troops arrived from Arles in the night of 5th/6th July and made camp in Noves in the early morning. By 10 o'clock they were ranged in battle formation along the Durance. On the near bank a small contingent from Avignon, equipped with two pieces of artillery, made ready to defend the crossing Rousselet first sent a proclamation inviting capitulation, but this was refused. Artillery and musket fire were then exchanged for an hour or so. However, the Avignonais, fearing the arrival of Federalist reinforcements at the nearby Charterhouse of Bonpas, subsequently retired.</div><div><br /></div><div>The next day Avignon simply opened its gates to Rousselet.</div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The end of a cult</span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><br /></div><div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig14ZNHKC3heWhkK9a8Cf6d5b1774ek1rx8Za-e9ye1XGoTIG4OvUIsrSFmVTES4QFHGB7QyealVs8U1Sr7rUD9eOXmstgQYZl6vnsL5L5sz4QpX823cQfuikwNS2kRlj-3fOK2cy4Lt_PiUlvTOr7YL2Sb8rTy1gYtjbP6xAnuM42rYeT839a0D8GmWq1/s2048/224789948_1726320360890486_8193531594180601087_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig14ZNHKC3heWhkK9a8Cf6d5b1774ek1rx8Za-e9ye1XGoTIG4OvUIsrSFmVTES4QFHGB7QyealVs8U1Sr7rUD9eOXmstgQYZl6vnsL5L5sz4QpX823cQfuikwNS2kRlj-3fOK2cy4Lt_PiUlvTOr7YL2Sb8rTy1gYtjbP6xAnuM42rYeT839a0D8GmWq1/w640-h426/224789948_1726320360890486_8193531594180601087_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"> Musée d'Histoire Jean Garcin, Avignon: display for the exhibition "Memoires Républicaines en Vaucluse" in 2021. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MuseeJeanGarcin/posts/pfbid02qXdvsvoQr1wKvA2Ug5SpMK2zXKW9zMRAiduL1xQ6jMcREHnPpFcB2baR2UmMebdEl?__tn__=%2CO*F">Facebook post, August 2021</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>After Thermidor, Moureau once again fell from grace, and his nephew's memory swiftly fell victim to the vagaries of Revolutionary politics. Courtois, in his report on Robespierre's papers read 16 Nivôse (5 January 1795), made public Poultier's view that Viala had died as the result of an ill-received rude gesture ("une simple polissonnerie mal prise"). In a letter to the Convention in February , the patriots of Avignon attacked Robespierre as a "French Cromwell" and demanded the withdrawal of the honours of Panthéon from "the memory of a child who merited nothing": in their view, it was a fable that young Viala had made even the slightest attempt to cut the cable across the Durance; the Representatives of the People alone had saved Avignon. In the event, the intervention was superfluous - eight days earlier the Convention had already voted to remove from the Panthéon all individuals who had died less than ten years previously.</div><div><br /></div><div> A few months later, on 4 Messidor Year III (22nd June), Courtois read a new report to the Convention in which, to general applause from the assembly, he referred to Viala as the "héros fabuleux de la Durance".</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>As Michel Vovelle has emphasised, Viala also achieved little or no lasting place in popular Revolutionary consciousness. He was not, for instance, included among the Revolutionary martyrs commemorated in the new place names of Year II. The ceremony in Avignon found no echo elsewhere in the Midi, despite a well-established tradition of extravagant, often carnivalesque, Revolutionary festivals. (The only other event which coincided was an improvised affair by the "Comités maratistes" of Arles which focused entirely on Bara and ended in a rather raucous picnic.) (See Vovelle, p.354-355). In the years which followed, his name was perpetuated, if at all, largely through his association with Bara. </div><div><br /></div></div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><b>References</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div><div>Jean-Clément Martin, "Bara, de l'imaginaire révolutionnaire à la mémoire nationale". In :<i> Révolution et Contre-Révolution en France de 1789 à 1989</i> (1996)</div><div><a href="https://books.openedition.org/pur/17398" target="_blank"> https://books.openedition.org/pur/17398</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Michel Vovelle, "Agricol Viala ou le héros malheureux", AHRF, 1980, 241: p.345-64.<br /><a href="https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1980_num_241_1_4213">https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1980_num_241_1_4213</a></div><div><br /></div><div><div style="background-color: white;">Victorin Laval « J.A. Viala, sa naissance, sa mort et sa glorification », <i>Mémoires de l’Académie du Vaucluse</i>, 1903, n° 3, p. 41-58, 111-13</div><div style="background-color: white;">Part 1, p.41-58: <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k55055185/f65.item">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k55055185/f65.item</a></div><div style="background-color: white;">Part 2, p.111-39: <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k55055185/f137.item">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k55055185/f137.item</a></div><div style="background-color: white;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white;">Many of the relevant documents are reproduced and discussed by James Guillaume in his edition of the papers of the Committee of Public Instruction: <span style="background-color: transparent;">Vol.4 (1901), p.328ff.</span></div></div></div><div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k292917/f428.item">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k292917/f428.item</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div><b>Readings</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Initial reports:</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><div><b>Letter of Representative Rovère to the Convention, Avignon, 24th July 1793.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The patriots of Avignon, reduced to very small numbers and almost devoid of ammunition, nevertheless assembled with courage on the banks of the Durance to prevent the troops from Marseilles from crossing... But the inhabitants of l'Isle and some other neighbouring communes, who had sold themselves to the Marseillais and the aristocracy, had already seized an advantageous position called Bonpas. They held the Avignon troops in check, exposing them to fire from two sides. A young Avignonnais aged sixteen was killed by a gunshot at the moment when he was going to cut the rope of the cable ferry. </span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">In spite of the disadvantage of their position, the loyal troops opened fire on the Marseillais hoard, who replied in kind. They then withdrew in good order and without losses to Avignon, where the gates had been closed. The mayor and his accomplices had the cowardice to deliver up the town the next day, though it could have resisted for several days more.</span></i></div></div><div>Text in Aulard, <i>Actes du Comité du Salut public</i>, t.v. p.360 (See Laval, p.50)</div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k49267s/f373.item">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k49267s/f373.item</a></div></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span>Article signed by </span>the poet Joseph Lavallée,<i> </i><i style="font-family: inherit;">Journal des hommes libres de tous les pays ou le Républicain,</i><span> no.56. 16 Pluviose II (4th February 1794)</span></b></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">...The rebels from Marseilles wanted to cross the Durance. A Republican column from Avignon went out to the right bank to force the Federalists to remain in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône; they had to capture the ferries and cut the cables. A terrible musket fire defended the approach; the most courageous men hesitated; a child undertook the task; this was Agricol Viala; he was only thirteen years old: he put himself forward; it was futile to refuse him: he seized an axe, escaped their grasp, threw himself forward and ran; in the blink of an eye he was at the foot of the post and already hacking away with all his feeble strength at the cable which was attached: five rounds of musket fire did not deter him: at the sixth a ball found its mark and he fell. <br /></span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><b>"M'an pas manqua</b>," he said,<b> "aquo es egau, moré per la liberta."<br /></b></span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">I will not translate this phrase; this child has made it sacred. "Moré per la liberta," and with that he died.</span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The grace and charms of youth and beauty adorned the face of this child; his mother adored him; she learned of his death: He died for the country, she said, and her tears dried.</span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i><i>Procès-verbaux du Comité d'instruction publique,</i> vol. 4, p.362-3.</div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div><b>Letter from Agricol Moreau to Robespierre, dated 19 Pluviôse II (7th February 1794)</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Learn to know the blood that flows in my veins, through the heroic death of my pupil and nephew. You must have read the account of his death in Number 16 of Duval or yesterday in d'Audouin...I invite you in the name of public good, not to ask that he be put alongside young Bara, but that a pyramid be decreed in the middle of the public square in Avignon, or on the banks of the Durance, on which should be engraved a tableau of his death and his last works....The name of my nephew is Agricol Viala: he was the first martyr of unity and indivisibility, killed with arms in his hands.</span></i></div><div><i>Procès-verbaux du Comité d'instruction publique,</i> vol. 4, p.361. Originally published by Courtois in his Report of 16 Nivôse, p.389.</div></div></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Official accounts</span></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Robespierre's speech of 18 Prairial</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>By what fatal chance or ingratitude has a hero been forgotten who was even younger [than Bara] and worthy of the homage of posterity? The rebels of Marseilles, assembled on the banks of the Durance, prepared to cross this river in order to slaughter the feeble and disarmed patriots of these unfortunate areas. A small troop of Republicans gathered together on the opposite bank had no other recourse but to cut the cables of the ferries which were in the power of their enemies; but to attempt such an enterprise in the presence of the numerous battalions which covered the bank, within range of their guns, appeared a forlorn hope even to the boldest man. Suddenly an infant of thirteen threw himself on an axe, flew towards the banks of the river and struck at the cable with all his might. Several rounds of musket fire were directed towards him; he continued to strike. Finally he was delivered a mortal blow: he cried out "I die, it is the same to me; it is for liberty" He fell down dead! Respected child, how the country swells with pride to have given birth to you! With what pride Greece and Rome would have honoured your memory, if they had produced a hero such as you!</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Note: The name of this hero is Agricola Viala. The Republic is shown two examples of very different sorts. When the mother of young Viala learned of the death of her son, her sorrow was as profound as was justified. But when they told her that he died for the country, she said that it was true and her tears dried. On the other hand, the Marseilles rebels, having crossed the Durance, had the cowardice to insult the remains of the young hero and throw his body into the water. </i></span></div></div><div><a href="https://archive.org/details/oeuvrescomplte10robe/page/460/mode/2up?view=theater"><span style="color: black;">Oeuvres complètes : Robespierre, Maximilien, 1758-1794</span></a></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div>The treatment of Viala in this speech is a good example of Robespierre's careful redaction of his work for publication. Moureau was present in the Convention for the session of 18 Floréal, and afterwards wrote a letter offering corrections, which was also found among Robespierre's papers after Thermidor. </div><div><b><i>In original version Robespierre had stated that Viala was aged eleven. This was now corrected to thirteen which, however, still made him younger than Bara. </i></b><b><i>The paragraph "Several rounds of musket fire were directed towards him, he continued to strike" is an amendment.</i></b><b><i> </i></b><b><i> In his speech Robespierre had claimed that the cable was actually cut: "And so the Midi was saved" </i></b></div><div><div>The original text, with notes of the corrections, is given by Guillaume in<span> </span><i>Procès-verbaux du Comité d'instruction publique,</i> vol. 4, p.343-44; text of Moureau's letter: p.363-4.</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>Historical Summary concerning Agricole [sic]Viala, </i></b><b>dated 13 Messidor II (1st July 1794)</b><b><i> </i>Printed for the Commission of Public Instruction.</b></div><div><b> </b></div><div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>The exact and precise details of the heroic devotion and touching death of this imitator of Bara are not yet well known.</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Although Robespierre threw the first flowers on his tomb...the flow of the orator did not allow for didactic detail.</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>The Commission, instructed on the spot, by the parents of young Viala, now hastens to spread the full account, to render justice to this martyr of liberty, to earn for him the gratitude of the nation, above all to teach young Frenchmen that love of country is a rich source of glory and virtue; that in risking death, a Republican seeks not to live through posterity but to save his country and safeguard public happiness.</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>In the course of the month of July 1793, the brigands who had escaped from Marseilles, united with all the partisans of aristocracy in the Midi. They entertained the insane plan of marching on Paris, destroying the national representation, raised the flag of civil war and rebellion. Aix, Lambesc, Arles, Tarascon had felt the efffects of their counter-revolutionary rage; already they threatened the shores of the Durance; the patriots of Avignon, faithful to the cause of the people, were at the ready. Resolved to oppose their passage, they occupied the right bank of the river.</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>The rebels were superior in numbers and in artillery; the ferry positions were in their power; to cut the cables by which they crossed the river, was the only resort which remained to the Republicans; to attempt it was certain death, for enemy fire rained down on anyone who approached. Joseph-Agricole Viala, thirteen years of age, volunteered for the mission. His courage, greater than his years, and his patriotism had already elevated him to the grade of commander general of the children's National Guard, known as <b>l'Espérance de la patrie</b>.</i></span></div></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><div>That day he had removed his epaulettes and slipped, without being noticed, into the ranks of civilians. The guards at the gates of the town, were instructed not to let women or children leave; he presented himself and was refused. Indignant at this affront, he threw himself on an axe, pulled loose from those who tried to stop him and marched quickly towards the riverbank. His axe hung from his belt; and, as he crossed the space between the stone path where the republicans were positioned and the post where the cable was attached, he took out his light musket and opened fire on the enemies.</div><div><br /></div><div>The two banks vomited fire. The balls whistled and crossed each other; Viala, still alone, arrived at the post. There he threw down his gun, seized his axe and struck with great blows at the enormous cable. During this time, he was swept by five discharges of musketry. At the sixth, a ball hit him in the chest. The axe escaped from his hands, he went forward a few paces, staggered and fell, pronouncing these sacred words: M'an pas mancat, aco es egaou; more per la libertat (They have not missed me, but it is all the same; I die for my country".) He expired. The brave Guinaud, his neighbour and young friend, had followed him from a distance; stretched out in a ravine a few steps away, he heard these last words: he wanted to rescue the body but death rained down all around him, and he was forced to leave. A priest from Saint-Remi claimed to have assassinated him, an honour disputed with a young fanatic from Noves. The rebels, when they crossed the Durance, had the cowardice to insult the remains of the young hero; as though they plunged their bayonets into his corpse as if to find some vestige of life, then threw it into the river.</div><div><br /></div><div>We will not try to describe his mother's grief: let us simply note that in her sublime simplicity, she adored her Agricol. Let mothers judge the bitterness of her regrets. After her first rending cries of nature and sentiment, it was said to her, "Citoyenne, you are a patriot, and it will sweeten your sorrow to think that he died for our country". Ah! It is true, he died for the country" and her tears dried up.</div></i></span></div><div>The report is signed by Joseph Payan du Moulin, Commissaire of the Committee of Public Instruction and elder brother of Claude Payan, the agent of the Commune.</div><div><span> </span><i>Procès-verbaux du Comité d'instruction publique,</i> vol. 4, p.732-44.</div><div><br /></div></div><div><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIGua7hJS2iTj_fndLhRYx2xZr0fqjIsiGJlZxcvJXMEaIAKH0L3lYos9zpGPD4T7XKsK1iJnMMLCX5In4ajnlE0OIlHA0armelMYSdJ46Z2QVWgmoJkCMnk1-NXnpfeYEKKKJw-Lx4tekmSZVKb1d5zlRsEFI4nEM7_PVqYuSer_-_vUDhIrkWMzI1PI3/s1878/Frieze%20Viala.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1033" data-original-width="1878" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIGua7hJS2iTj_fndLhRYx2xZr0fqjIsiGJlZxcvJXMEaIAKH0L3lYos9zpGPD4T7XKsK1iJnMMLCX5In4ajnlE0OIlHA0armelMYSdJ46Z2QVWgmoJkCMnk1-NXnpfeYEKKKJw-Lx4tekmSZVKb1d5zlRsEFI4nEM7_PVqYuSer_-_vUDhIrkWMzI1PI3/s320/Frieze%20Viala.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Other eye-witnesses</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Statement of Leclerc, a Federalist courier who had arrived from Paris,</b><b> to the provisional administration of the commune of Noves, 5th July 1793.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">[Citizen Leclerc testified that]<i> when he arrived at the banks of the Durance from Avignon, he met several detachments of troops whose language he did not understand. After he had passed them, he heard three gun shots.</i> [The ferry, which was on the Noves bank came to fetch him].<i>..On the landing the courier, his postilion and the inhabitants of Noves who were with them noticed a man on lying on the ground, wearing a uniform; when they came closer they saw that he had been killed by a gunshot wound just above the left nipple. The body appeared to be that of a youth aged 15 or 16 years, with blond hair cut round and short ...</i>.[The postilion reported] <i>that a man from the detachments had told him that one of their number, a certain Viala, had been wounded near the landing. The postilion had been asked to fetch him on his spare horse but he had refused. </i></span></div><div>From the archives of Bouches-du-Rhone. Quoted in Laval (1903), p.48-49.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>From the journal of the Avignon lawyer Chambaud.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>On the 5th July, young Viala, who was aged about 15, was on guard duty at Bonpas, opposite the Noves ferry, when he committed some act of imprudence toward the armed men on the other side of the Durance, and was shot in the head and killed outright. His father, who immediately went out there, saw several people on the opposite bank; he shouted that there were three or four thousand men and that they were the Marseillais. On his return to Avignon, he raised the alarm; general quarters were beaten and everyone assembled at the Saint-Michel Gate. When they realised their error, they all withdrew.</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>On Saturday 6th July at 9 o'clock in the morning, general quarters were beaten; at 10 o'clock, the tocsin sounded in the Cathedral and the Carmelite church. The sound of cannon could be heard; the firing was from the banks of the Durance.</i></span></div></div><div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><b>Marginal note</b>: On the 5th troops were sent to the ferry at Noves to prevent the Marseillais from crossing. On the 6th these latter set up camp on the left bank near the Noves chain ferry. Other troops, from L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, took possession of the Charterhouse of Bonpas to cover the passage of the Marseillais. This was the position when a gendarme crossed the Durance and brought the following proclamation......</i></span></div><div>MS. in the Bibl. d'Avignon, quoted Laval, p. 49-50</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Other revisions</b></div><div><br /></div><div>I came across a note in Gabriel Constant's <i>Pages vauclusiennes</i>, a book originally published in 1926. Constant lists two further sources which question the heroism of Viala - neither of which, unfortunately, seem to be available on the internet.</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Viala's death certificate, which had finally been found by Victorin Laval in the communal archives of Noves and published by him.</li><li>.A further manuscript account, which had recently discovered in the Library in Avignon: discussed in Pansier, "Note sur la mort de Viala, <i>Annales d’Avignon et du Comtat</i>, 1925, page 156).</li></ul></div><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Pages vauclusiennes</i> on the website, "Le petit saumanais":<br /><a href="http://petit.saumanais.free.fr/vaucluse/pages_vauclusiennes_historiques.pdf">http://petit.saumanais.free.fr/vaucluse/pages_vauclusiennes_historiques.pd</a></p></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-90964748920965464382023-02-08T02:37:00.001-08:002024-02-15T09:34:24.088-08:00An encounter with David's "Bara"<p><br /></p><p>An interesting perspective on David's Death of <i>Bara</i> was provided by the exhibition of the painting held in Avignon in 1989 as part of the bicentenary commemorations. Jean-Clément Martin described his reactions in an essay of 1990, updated for his 2012 book <i>La machine à fantasmes.</i></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR226zWSumn7o5n0hXkpgQP9k2UMFvD70uCWVKNfuOrIghYydmisVMm6vnLu3_O6D1q0il1dVJ9kRt7V9_yR0dlhOW7QZh_Mu9SIBGhVLUjaosCESmtGpf7luoBQhq2o2ifwL2ElkrDdZvcLh5lKN-2BYuHPa2UF7G3FnpRh9ZzaA4W05Noq8ajDWq/s1023/Bara_David.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1023" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR226zWSumn7o5n0hXkpgQP9k2UMFvD70uCWVKNfuOrIghYydmisVMm6vnLu3_O6D1q0il1dVJ9kRt7V9_yR0dlhOW7QZh_Mu9SIBGhVLUjaosCESmtGpf7luoBQhq2o2ifwL2ElkrDdZvcLh5lKN-2BYuHPa2UF7G3FnpRh9ZzaA4W05Noq8ajDWq/w640-h480/Bara_David.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bara_David.jpg"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bara_David.jpg</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">EXHIBITION: <i>La mort de Bara. De l'évenement au mythe. Autour du tableau de Jacques-Louis David.</i> At Avignon, 18th January to 15 March 1989. </span></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif8fKGNUPsbOBwnD5WF612n8BWSqrhTU2duGYoZJDn1G3Ukb2OGdJo7TtNVqZAS4FPvq064ytUjlhgSYXPDweOlXEDnL1iNtsXOxMuzm_jAUOTgH2dCQ9SXlftMmwqOH5Cf-Y2XaOl7ssVPPIpfjrtatxcXRoquPt7AsCt37SKBvmxR7L3QNnbGajp/s1067/800px-Avignon_-_Mus%C3%A9e_Lapidaire.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif8fKGNUPsbOBwnD5WF612n8BWSqrhTU2duGYoZJDn1G3Ukb2OGdJo7TtNVqZAS4FPvq064ytUjlhgSYXPDweOlXEDnL1iNtsXOxMuzm_jAUOTgH2dCQ9SXlftMmwqOH5Cf-Y2XaOl7ssVPPIpfjrtatxcXRoquPt7AsCt37SKBvmxR7L3QNnbGajp/w150-h200/800px-Avignon_-_Mus%C3%A9e_Lapidaire.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>J.-C.M. remarks that he remembered illustrations of Bara from his earliest schoolbooks and was confident and well-informed about the historical figure. The exhibition was not held in the Musée Calvet, where David's picture is normally display, but in the former Jesuit chapel in the rue de la République, now a Lapidary Museum. Despite the busy main street outside, the church, with its Baroque facade, was an effective venue; the atmosphere of a silent grandeur encouraged a mood of contemplation and reflection. (The effect was only slightly marred by the prominence of an expanse of red netting under the roof.)<p></p><p>David's painting took central stage, enthroned in the middle of the chapel, on what was once the site of the altar. Although he was very familiar with the image, Jean-Clément found himself taken by surprise:<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">The young Bara, tricolour cockade pressed to his heart, was stretched out, naked, at the top of three steps where the altar once stood, bathed in a golden light. The picture, which I had seen a thousand times in reproductions, both black-and-white and coloured, was larger than I expected, more golden, and also more empty, since the child's body occupied only the lower part. The main space was a golden brown, full of astonishing shadows. A clump of trees could be made out behind the recumbent figure, and in the bottom left corner a group of horsemen rode away with their banner flying in the wind. Thus the dying Bara is not just heroic and symbolic; the image is set in an enigmatic narrative, suggested by the horsemen and by an asymmetrical layout that is not part of the historical tradition.</span></i></span></p><p><span><span><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> In addition, the child's pose struck me as astonishing: the angle of his head, his long legs bizarrely pressed together, the genitals which are both hidden and at the same exposed. This was a far cry from the little drummer boy I had come to meet. The feminine pose of the legs was particularly disturbing; they might have come from a "déjeuner sur l'herbe". Thus Bara had a body for which the reproductions and drawings in history books had not prepared me.</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> (p.165)</span></span></span></p><p>J.-C. M. notes that, even if he had not wished to consider this sensual, quasi-erotic aspect of the painting, the exhibition itself would have forced him to do so. Many of the items on display were not related directly to Revolutionary iconography, but to the neoclassical tradition from which David drew inspiration. A series of sculptures, largely naked and recumbent figures, were arranged "in a hopscotch pattern" from the museum entrance to the foot of David's canvas -"a dead world of stone, but one charged with a surprising, even shocking, sensuality":</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjwHfoOAqTuyouZKHR5hmlpTjgAGBOjJFE9Rau0QZF3CfrPKvCVslzq1AqHe3ZH5b3i6FiLsah2fFIW3Ymjo1oLoWTRBCA4NbBcU-gEp5GU2Fgq7kuYjcm9ANZaP8c-0LyUDUt38T0rU2Wk5s_MM-GQ0G4bxaCXgRAeSaGi_7jZpMGGclCcsQQazyz/s800/800px-Abel_dying_Louvre_MN80.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="308" data-original-width="800" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjwHfoOAqTuyouZKHR5hmlpTjgAGBOjJFE9Rau0QZF3CfrPKvCVslzq1AqHe3ZH5b3i6FiLsah2fFIW3Ymjo1oLoWTRBCA4NbBcU-gEp5GU2Fgq7kuYjcm9ANZaP8c-0LyUDUt38T0rU2Wk5s_MM-GQ0G4bxaCXgRAeSaGi_7jZpMGGclCcsQQazyz/w400-h154/800px-Abel_dying_Louvre_MN80.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;">Jean-Baptiste Stouf, "Abel dying". </span></div><div><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;">Marble, reception piece for the French Royal Academy, 1785. <a href="https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010091593" target="_blank">Louvre</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO9_SJDHyAoJbvZXZ757xQgvX4M9jYYiyWYkX3TwY_rXrjuOnRLg-_LGzxFTOPOShy2ZADnfZr9YOwGsmL7_jyDn_P88PcU8Bra9zorPAZVeZorAiB_-XRL7kPnXhmQhli2zd7jhhcE_fRvCJDqQbe4QrtdeV5sUWPDIYaCq5VXy0VgiZ62H7mIVTF/s634/_D%C3%A9p%C3%B4t%20RMN_RMNO_95-010494.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="634" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO9_SJDHyAoJbvZXZ757xQgvX4M9jYYiyWYkX3TwY_rXrjuOnRLg-_LGzxFTOPOShy2ZADnfZr9YOwGsmL7_jyDn_P88PcU8Bra9zorPAZVeZorAiB_-XRL7kPnXhmQhli2zd7jhhcE_fRvCJDqQbe4QrtdeV5sUWPDIYaCq5VXy0VgiZ62H7mIVTF/w400-h190/_D%C3%A9p%C3%B4t%20RMN_RMNO_95-010494.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;">Alexandre Falguière, "St Tarcisius", 1868. <a href="https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/artworks/tarcisius-martyr-chretien-16058" target="_blank">Musée d'Orsay</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i><p></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The naked figures were orientated towards Bara in a sort of mute adoration, in an elaborate geometric pattern, their forms softening as the eye moved towards the dead adolescent on the altar. The closest to the entrance, Jean-Baptiste Souf's dying Abel, was angular, with protruding bones. Not far beyond the Christian martyr Tarcisius, was enveloped in a sheet which revealed only his head. Then came the granular plaster of David d'Angers. Finally, at the back on the left, at the height of the nave, a final recumbent figure, the most highly polished, offered to the view the roundest of buttocks. This was the famous Hellenistic sculpture, the Borghese Sleeping Hermaphroditus , or rather the copy by Milhomme...It was set off by the feline sensuality of Bosio's figure of the Wounded Hyacinthe coiled erotically around an adjacent pillar.</span></i> (p.166)</p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPdSCCDra6weSLVHFfSVYbfpMlXQThUHms-OsCwbXTCNiZ-18LD2GALIPbfjWId0pntbILnHAKIH5TMiU7gPnuziY5SsmvrVlc7iEQJ4UqlGxkV5mEStfImJnT6hMdTFcuSgN2LaOfZhb8iI6uDuK_3IXhg4vs5FYzz0rFs8e344DVildt6lSY-00M/s650/Hermaphrodite.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="213" data-original-width="650" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPdSCCDra6weSLVHFfSVYbfpMlXQThUHms-OsCwbXTCNiZ-18LD2GALIPbfjWId0pntbILnHAKIH5TMiU7gPnuziY5SsmvrVlc7iEQJ4UqlGxkV5mEStfImJnT6hMdTFcuSgN2LaOfZhb8iI6uDuK_3IXhg4vs5FYzz0rFs8e344DVildt6lSY-00M/w400-h131/Hermaphrodite.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;">François Milhomme, "Sleeping Hermaphrodite" (1808), <a href="https://pba-opacweb.lille.fr/fr/notice/sc-29-statue-hermaphrodite-couche-4bb999c4-66f1-40d7-9a14-7e5dda10a16a" target="_blank">Palais des Beaux Arts, Lille</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlOs_GhMeElDUYD3lJMuJBC4MhVUQxAGDAxmShncApy5Rms3lFX9pw5IDlItsau0OLbcmEqxt2vWpEh5KviZkISD6FHpdLfJPEuUi6Bae9yVyw1jM1QoUKNkSHztv-89Nnq5J6ijzSVWFxvS99WsYWr_2m_0sM5IHEzp3QIdrf57GlFaslEdFWpQnG/s788/hyacinthe.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="788" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlOs_GhMeElDUYD3lJMuJBC4MhVUQxAGDAxmShncApy5Rms3lFX9pw5IDlItsau0OLbcmEqxt2vWpEh5KviZkISD6FHpdLfJPEuUi6Bae9yVyw1jM1QoUKNkSHztv-89Nnq5J6ijzSVWFxvS99WsYWr_2m_0sM5IHEzp3QIdrf57GlFaslEdFWpQnG/w400-h184/hyacinthe.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;"> François-Joseph Bosio, Hyacinthe (1817). <a href="https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010091182" target="_blank">Louvre</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Jean-Clément Martin realised he must discard his martial image of the patriotic little drummer boy and recognise David's Bara as "one of these naked ephebes" </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">I had always looked at his head, but I now realised I must also take into account his legs, and recognise that Bara had buttocks. David's picture cried out to me that the infant Bara was not just an otherworldly and immortal hero, but a corporeal and sensual presence, that his indeterminate gender represented a deliberate androgyny. The alternative would be to interpret the presentation as a sort of "artistic" disregard for carnal reality.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">(p.166)</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1MsYkCOiPm5XOYT4opyfYqda3Hpce16SSYlgMzGl2snevuHPPl6ivdFjNHvFFZ07tq9r6ZkGVXChgndtvozbjOreIeqcQHqm6ukXvyyEqc04J6_eU-V04MZ3D3ccs8MrU1WXJzm9C_ThtNhCvHeDp6KrP_SO-ZG0qFIYxTafH1LqNfX7lFdFJy4Nx/s1024/Girodet_-_Sommeil_Endymion.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><img border="0" data-original-height="753" data-original-width="1024" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1MsYkCOiPm5XOYT4opyfYqda3Hpce16SSYlgMzGl2snevuHPPl6ivdFjNHvFFZ07tq9r6ZkGVXChgndtvozbjOreIeqcQHqm6ukXvyyEqc04J6_eU-V04MZ3D3ccs8MrU1WXJzm9C_ThtNhCvHeDp6KrP_SO-ZG0qFIYxTafH1LqNfX7lFdFJy4Nx/w400-h294/Girodet_-_Sommeil_Endymion.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;">Anne-Louis Girodet, "The Sleep of Endymion", 1791. <a href="https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010064831">Louvre.</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This impression, this revelation, was clearly the deliberate result of the way the exhibition had been laid out. To his right J-C. M could reassure himself with the sight of several monumental 19th-century works of realism, including the "Bara" of Weerts which had earned the artist the Legion of Honour. But to his left, in a side chapel, virile and relaxed, lay the Dying Abel. There were also 18th-century political works - the first busts of Bara and Viala, the triumph and death of Marat, David's austere image of Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau, even a depiction of the young Désilles, forgotten hero of the 1790 mutiny in Nancy. But juxtapositioned to them was Girodet's <i>Sleeping Endymion</i> - "sweetly morbid, gently sulphurous", while in a nearby chapel Amour wept over Psyche in the canvas of Meynier. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTPBbN7yBrZUFHc0OO3Ma5v_p38uq53evDmD3cUxw9ork81-2_wZXYzRaNqv8p-5PqRNfKEk6IiYdH5r2XsOXf9bzk653dUlE6swpz6vLGj38ZmGidlPSHvUh_MJmatK85wRAcUZkTmKaBXK27EbSmnoZYp7-nKSX6KLFhjkrNKiqy8CopVK-juZaF/s800/Meynier,_Charles_%E2%80%94_L'Amour_adolescent_pleurant_sur_le_portrait_de_Psych%C3%A9_qu'il_a_perdue_%E2%80%94_1792.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="800" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTPBbN7yBrZUFHc0OO3Ma5v_p38uq53evDmD3cUxw9ork81-2_wZXYzRaNqv8p-5PqRNfKEk6IiYdH5r2XsOXf9bzk653dUlE6swpz6vLGj38ZmGidlPSHvUh_MJmatK85wRAcUZkTmKaBXK27EbSmnoZYp7-nKSX6KLFhjkrNKiqy8CopVK-juZaF/w400-h288/Meynier,_Charles_%E2%80%94_L'Amour_adolescent_pleurant_sur_le_portrait_de_Psych%C3%A9_qu'il_a_perdue_%E2%80%94_1792.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;">Charles Meynier, "Adolescent Love crying on the portrait of Psyche whom he has lost", <br />1792. <a href="https://www.mbaq.fr/en/our-collections/the-french-paintings-17th-and-18th-centuries/charles-meynier-adolescent-love-crying-on-the-portrait-of-psyche-whom-he-has-lost-475.html" target="_blank">Musée des beaux-arts de Quimper</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Revolution as the satisfaction of desire</b></div><p></p><p>J.-C.M. assures us there was nothing personal about his astonishment or the time it took him to accept this reorientation. There had been many complaints about the exhibition. But he felt that the mise-en-scene was wholly legitimate:</p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The presentation was justified by the concordance of dates. All the works on display dated from the final decades of the 18th century. They could not exist without each other - they expressed a common contemporary sensibility. Only my ignorance had made me forget that David's Bara belonged rightfully to to this current, whereas I had wanted to read it only as a political paradigm. The painting responded to certain imperatives of the period. The first was a Europe-wide reflection on "beauty" and "grace" inspired by Winckelmann - a context well-known to the artists and the critics of the salons in which almost all these works were exhibited. The second was the need to participate in the political life of Revolutionary France; the First Republic encouraged artists to enter public competitions, for example for the death of Marat. These conditions encouraged collective debate among artists on essential questions concerning the invention of a new man and the elaboration of a new society - issues which had preoccupied thinkers from Montesquieu to Rousseau and Wincklemann. The nudity of Bara expressed a fundamental allegory. </span></i> (p.168-69)</p><p>This confluence was also reflected in the literature of the time, of the marquis de Sade and the "roman noir".</p><p>The essay finishes with a brief review of the rest of the exhibition , which was more conventional. Two side chapels displayed contemporary documents and popular engravings. Works of art from the Third Republic placed Bara in a robustly historical and martial context - as a determined hussar, a dead drummer-boy, an antique bust, or even (in the case of Henner) a naked corpse sprawled on his back. However, to contemplate this historical and ideological legacy, it had been necessary to "negotiate the products of dream and imagination which have held audiences for so much longer" (p.170)</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFYgsuwTgoOi2SShmsNnV_GHxj56wmBWiKS11YiF0P64Ci2KDAwuK-uCrHaTj-v9V36_4RfjvLD4btZ5VGsSLQ25POgTcxp8xFI_wzk5R_3qDGyUqzPNAlo9xCjI47i9Z7ucb9rVN7Lc6aBzW2Ow7_8Vl7XfSC8fr3t2w_ZIA6HqtB32c_wLWhBS8_/s757/IMG_5191.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="757" data-original-width="568" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFYgsuwTgoOi2SShmsNnV_GHxj56wmBWiKS11YiF0P64Ci2KDAwuK-uCrHaTj-v9V36_4RfjvLD4btZ5VGsSLQ25POgTcxp8xFI_wzk5R_3qDGyUqzPNAlo9xCjI47i9Z7ucb9rVN7Lc6aBzW2Ow7_8Vl7XfSC8fr3t2w_ZIA6HqtB32c_wLWhBS8_/w480-h640/IMG_5191.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Anonymous, "Student of the École de Mars, with sword, toga and Phrygian bonnet"<br />Musée de Vizille. (Jean-Clément Martin draws attention to this painting in a note to his essay)<br />My photo. </span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #474b4e; font-family: arial; font-size: 11.05px; font-style: italic; text-align: center;"><br /></span></p><p></p><b>References:</b><div><b><br /></b><div>Jean-Clément Martin, "Les fesses de l'enfant Bara",<i> La Machine à fantasmes</i> (2012), p 163-70. Originally published: <i>303, Arts, recherches et créations</i>, 1990. no.XXV, p.60-67.</div><p>See also: </p><div>Morris Fraser, "Bara: of death, desire and drumsticks", <i>Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia</i>, No.12 (Vol.3 No.4), pp.2-12</div><div><a href="https://geraci.home.xs4all.nl/STG:WEB/WEB:2015/WEB:DRAFTS%202015/Fraser.pdf">https://geraci.home.xs4all.nl/STG:WEB/WEB:2015/WEB:DRAFTS%202015/Fraser.pdf</a></div><p>Jean-Claude Féray, "Pederastic implication of J.-L. David's painting, The Death of Bara", <a href="https://www.greek-love.com/modern-europe/france/the-likely-pederastic-implication-of-j-l-david-s-painting-the-death-of-bara-by-jean-claude-feray"><i>Greek Love through the Age</i>s</a> [website] - English translation of a 2018 article in French.</p><span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-74465345207474625372023-02-06T02:35:00.004-08:002024-02-15T09:34:24.087-08:00Joseph Bara [cont.]<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Early representations of Bara</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The Spring of 1794 saw a veritable outpouring of prints and engravings on the subject of Bara. Among the prints from Year II are a number of ambitious narrative scenes, which recreated the specific circumstances of his death in as much detail as possible. Of necessity, they rely on the testimony of Desmarres: the feisty soldier-boy is depicted standing; he resists the bayonets of the rebel band which surrounds him. As well as his youth and virtue, the accompanying captions emphasise his martial qualities. They usually repeat the dying words furnished by Robespierre, although Desmarres's more robust version can sometimes be found. Homage is also invariably paid to his support of his mother, a conventional virtuous act by the good Republican soldier. No-one seemed quite sure how old Bara really was - some versions (as the one below) have him as young as eleven.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwzmEri4v82kerM2fgf2jgkQina5sVv5EQQVWZXuR3mbCDlwsXNgd2wHAg1p8ARPWbO_R3e4aaVrQVqedxfeEgxYlUGbAnb7X6YiwTqUJj2N6_sOtirZAT1drfh8rHyXjsXeC2ugsvwRmav_8GkuJzUfyqXT1rEL9pUhSglaeBsEqKJciBOSPJ5AQU/s590/bara.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="416" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwzmEri4v82kerM2fgf2jgkQina5sVv5EQQVWZXuR3mbCDlwsXNgd2wHAg1p8ARPWbO_R3e4aaVrQVqedxfeEgxYlUGbAnb7X6YiwTqUJj2N6_sOtirZAT1drfh8rHyXjsXeC2ugsvwRmav_8GkuJzUfyqXT1rEL9pUhSglaeBsEqKJciBOSPJ5AQU/w451-h640/bara.JPG" width="451" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">"Death of the Young Barat" - anonymous print of 1794.<br /><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8412073v" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: georgia;">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8412073v</span></a></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span><i><span style="color: #38761d;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"This young Republican was surprised by Rebels. When called upon to cry "Long live the King", he replied only "Long live the Republic!" and was stabbed multiple times by the brigands. This child of eleven, provided for his mother from his wages, and subsisted himself only on bread.</span></div></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d;">The Assembly, when it heard this reported, accorded him the honours of the Pantheon.</span><span style="color: #6aa84f;">" </span></div></span></i><div style="color: #6aa84f; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="689" data-original-width="543" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpyW6kHqa565pbpyshTv7Ic2fPRUJ0wTpb9OfkpYko9zDhI92UgMr7N_H_28LrFS2ER_teepv3N6qF6on6w4UWvBV10Cw2oHJRPOizOOWICXF8exrba7aidY7Iv7rzg1rSCBvBW4PoJqbLQZgOYNC3HskQtRJRHrM3dI6Jnaf0pGMl02095kiVfqoP/w504-h640/Bara%202.jpg" style="font-size: large; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;" width="504" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: center;">Drawn and engraved by Philibert-Louis Debucourt, Paris, year II.</div></span></div><div><span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8412072f">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8412072f</a></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><b>"Dedicated to Young Frenchmen</b></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><i>The entire army witnessed with astonishment Joseph Barra, equipped as a hussar, scarcely thirteen years of age, confront danger everyday, at the head of the cavalry; it once saw this young hero throw to the ground and take prisoner two brigands who had dared to attack him. This generous child, surrounded by rebels, preferred to perish rather than surrender, and relinquish the two horses that he was leading. </i></span></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: left;"><i>During the entire time that he had served in the armies of the Republic, he spent money only on absolute necessities, and sent to his large and indigent family all that he could save." </i></div></span></div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><a name='more'></a></span>Portraits also feature prominently, sometimes paired with Viala, or grouped with the established "Martyrs of the Republic", Marat, Lepelletier and Chalier. The military context is emphasised by Bara's hussar uniform, often with an elaborate and fanciful shako. (In the very widely distributed print by Alix after Garneray, the motto LIBERTÉ OU LA MORT runs round the rim). Bara also begins to be depicted, quite spuriously, as a drummer-boy, a stereotyped image of youth and innocence.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNhVaoQArIt_aiXX_CaclQWnwB-4pTerlkGeP1dIc64_JjwLTn8jByr0c8qGg43q_m1KsCvHFRF4iZsy6dCBfyUIgI934MmPORhckf05hDoiBg2clnyR4b6FCkOAvN8M9YZTGSxx9XjC0XxXPJtXmkn09smI2gmUJ2r-qBGxeWn1_2ZtLZz8pkZSVv/s654/Barra2.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="654" data-original-width="566" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNhVaoQArIt_aiXX_CaclQWnwB-4pTerlkGeP1dIc64_JjwLTn8jByr0c8qGg43q_m1KsCvHFRF4iZsy6dCBfyUIgI934MmPORhckf05hDoiBg2clnyR4b6FCkOAvN8M9YZTGSxx9XjC0XxXPJtXmkn09smI2gmUJ2r-qBGxeWn1_2ZtLZz8pkZSVv/w346-h400/Barra2.jpg" width="346" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> Engraving after Garneray, 1794 - detail <br /><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53234319n" target="_blank">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53234319n </a></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">The Bara of David</span></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div>After the conventional realism of the popular prints, David's Bara seems to belong to a different world. The work still puzzles its viewers and art historians disagree in their interpretations. By what weird creative process was Desmarres's soldier-boy metamorphosised to this awkwardly posed naked and androgynous youth? </div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ14qOFh2C90AJk67uCsLrDfFdmNj5qZN8jdroZXdJDfuNa5P5ksctrbM7I0VNbSnfKnHgqFZN5tgKFtsIA0l1RDtMoeZS_DtlRsHuILGXGkws3_hySX4HAV4qW0ljzY0XmSC6OBdxOS68BahwlfuEMR-JnHabcPO-1fpkeg-z3m0ihlTGEdkO6J3V/s1023/Bara_David.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1023" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ14qOFh2C90AJk67uCsLrDfFdmNj5qZN8jdroZXdJDfuNa5P5ksctrbM7I0VNbSnfKnHgqFZN5tgKFtsIA0l1RDtMoeZS_DtlRsHuILGXGkws3_hySX4HAV4qW0ljzY0XmSC6OBdxOS68BahwlfuEMR-JnHabcPO-1fpkeg-z3m0ihlTGEdkO6J3V/w400-h300/Bara_David.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><div>Notice for David's Bara, Musée Calvet, Avignon. </div><div><a href="https://www.musee-calvet.org/beaux-arts-archeologie/fr/oeuvre/la-mort-de-joseph-bara">https://www.musee-calvet.org/beaux-arts-archeologie/fr/oeuvre/la-mort-de-joseph-bara</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div></div><div><b>HISTORICAL CONTEXT</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The cancellation of the festival of 10 Thermidor wrenched the painting from its intended setting, so there are comparatively few contemporary references to guide us:</div><div><ul><li> It was in the session of the Convention of 28th December that David was charged with organising the ceremony to accompany the transfer of Bara's remains to the Pantheon. Barrère proposed that Bara's image should be<span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #5f6368; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;"> </span>"traced by the brushes of the famous David" and engraved for distribution to the primary schools of France. This does not help much - did David really think that a naked figure was suitable to edify schoolchildren?</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>According to Jules David, David sketched the work out on canvas immediately after he left the session of 28th December. (J-L. David, <i>Souvenirs et documents inédits</i>, 1880, p.208). This suggests that the basic composition came to him easily. </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>In his report of 11 Messidor on the upcoming festival, David describes the moment of Bara's death: "the heroic child, replies <i>Vive la République</i> to the Vendean brigands and falls mortally wounded, pierced by blows, pressing against his heart the tricolour cockade" . As Jean-Clément Martin notes, this does not really correspond to the scene painted, in which a naked youth takes centre stage. The elements of the historical narrative are still present but in residual form. The dying Bara clutches to his breast a cockade and a piece of paper (his orders, a letter to his mother?). His attackers can also just be seen riding off with their flag at the far left margin of the canvas. (Jean-Clément Martin observes that this important detail is/was largely hidden by the frame in the musée Calvet). </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>For the festival on 10 Thermidor the painting was probably intended to hang as a banner in the public space in front of the Pantheon. This would have dictated the large size canvas (119cm x 156 cm), and the need for a well-defined image. [See Weston, p.243 citing the research of the art historian Régis Michel]. </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>On 9 and 10 Thermidor David pleaded illness and took to his bed to avoid the political crisis; we therefore cannot know if he intended further last-minute work on his painting before the festival.</li></ul><div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>After Thermidor, the painting disappeared from view and seems to have been largely forgotten. It remained in David's possession, until 1805 in his studio in the Louvre. During David's imprisonment in October 1796 Étienne Delécluze recalled seeing a forlorn group of canvasses abandoned in the studio, including "a charming sketch of a nude boy, dying with the tricolour pressed to his breast..." Delécluze, with telling vagueness, identified the subject as Viala. [Étienne-Jean Delécluze, <i>Louis David, son école et son temps: souvenirs</i> (1855), p.17-18; <a href="https://archive.org/details/louisdavidsonco00delgoog/page/n34/mode/2up?view=theater&q=tricolore">on Internet Archive</a>] (Following David's death in 1825, the picture entered the collection first of the comte de Pourtalès, and subsequently that of Horace Vernet, who in 1846 donated it to the Fondation Calvet in Avignon. Today it is on display in the Musée Calvet.)</li></ul><p></p><p></p></div></div><div><div><div><ul><li><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirvUI050OQuf9PJpNydBlAYqXNZy3__rvpbGJqnL12VTUiXIzUosHBFyyFTpXuK6igoXSObWQvIBU52w351fRsnmVrs3mOyuIf9IC482vWweHM9yZPWgXdVxGQxPxAMigZrQkTV_PLgGPPoP6tXb-LUBo9pYypUm8NBICVUuOzcdu4UfNm4EzIEUgx/s1280/Mort_de_Barra_IMG_2266.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="947" data-original-width="1280" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirvUI050OQuf9PJpNydBlAYqXNZy3__rvpbGJqnL12VTUiXIzUosHBFyyFTpXuK6igoXSObWQvIBU52w351fRsnmVrs3mOyuIf9IC482vWweHM9yZPWgXdVxGQxPxAMigZrQkTV_PLgGPPoP6tXb-LUBo9pYypUm8NBICVUuOzcdu4UfNm4EzIEUgx/w200-h148/Mort_de_Barra_IMG_2266.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>. An anonymous studio copy, bequeathed by Jules David to the musée des Beaux Arts in Lille in 1885, is now on view at Vizille. The canvas is more finished than David's original. </li></ul><b>Catalogue entries</b>:</div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> David assiduously compiled catalogues of his works, but he never included the Bara, possibly because he considered it unfinished.</li><li><div>The entry for the Bara in the catalogue for the auction of David's estate on 17th April 1826 emphasises the "painterly" aspects of the composition:</div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Lot 11: The death of the young Barra, sketch. This study of a nude conveys an admirable form, the head full of expression; it arouses the interest inspired by the grace and charms of youth at their last moments. The rest of the picture is only a rough finish.</span></i></div></li><li><div>In contrast, the catalogue published by Jules David in 1880, concentrates entirely on the supposed <i>mise-en-scene</i>; it is even suggested that the naked Bara has been striped by his assailants, a common 19th-century rationalisation. </div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">At the foot of a mound covered in brushwood, Barra, a drummer boy in the Republican army, lies dying. The brigands who have assassinated him and stolen his clothes disappear in the distance. He lifts his dying head and presses against his heart a tricolour cockade and the orders with which he has been entrusted...</span></i></div><div>J. L.David,<i> Le peintre Louis David, 1748-1825 (</i>1880), p.640. [<a href="https://archive.org/details/gri_33125007941194/page/640/mode/2up?view=theater">On Internet Archive</a>]</div></li></ul></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Is the painting finished? </b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>This question was debated in the catalogue which accompanied an exhibition of the work in Avignon in 1989. Régis Michel argued that it was indeed finished - after all, David had had over seven months to work on it; others of his paintings, notably the Marat, have very simple backgrounds. Antoine Schnapper disagreed: the impressionistic, stippled effect is not a final state and would have made the painting difficult to copy. Taking into account contemporary descriptions and comparing the copy at Vizille, an unfinished condition seems most likely. However, the figure of Bara is substantially complete. </div><div><br /></div><div>In his essay in the same collection, Jean-Clément Martin notes that David had already abandoned other political commissions where his subject had been overtaken by events - the Tennis Court Oath; also the lesser known, "Allegory of the Revolution in Nantes" begun in 1990. See: <a href="http://loire-atlantique.foxoo.com/video,nouvelle-acquisition-lallegorie-revolution-nantes,1790,nx12050310393720455.html">Nouvelle acquisition : L'Allégorie de la Révolution à Nantes, 1790 - Loire-Atlantique / Foxoo</a> </div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>DAVID THE ARTIST</b></div><div><br /></div><div>David's image is perhaps most readily understood by reference to contemporary aesthetic theory. Art historians note that David was highly constrained by Robespierre's conception of Bara as a perfect embodiment of Republican virtue:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> It is a truism of Classical art theory that the outward sign of virtue is physical beauty. In this context it was "almost a given" that Bara should be depicted nude. Winckelmann had expanded on the supreme grace and serenity of the "ephebe", who is neither child nor yet man, neither truly male nor female. Such a figure had recently been depicted in Girodet's <i>Sleep of Endymion</i> of 1791, a painting which David greatly admired. </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The attempt to situate Bara in an eternal history accounts for the lack of circumstantial detail in the painting. Jean-Clément Martin suggests David may left it unfinished because he found it too difficult to reconcile the demands of narrative propaganda with his painterly vision. </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>As with the Bara of Robespierre, David's Bara is wholly passive. Thomas Crow sees this tendency as the corollary of Robespierre's desire to replace anarchic revolutionary violence with state-sponsored conformity to an ideal: <span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">"A simple rule would seem to apply in understand the development of David's art under the Revolution: the more coercive and conformist the political moment, the more abstractly beatific the image had to be." Already in David's Marat, there was no sign of the real life Marat's infatuation with violence; in the Bara, "the disparity between a pacific image and a violent reality reached its maximum extent" (Crow, p.183).</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>A certain parallel with Christian iconography is almost inescapable. Bara is not yet dead, but "at his last breath". He is free from almost all earthly attachments. Agonised but resigned, his expression suggests the Martyr's happiness even in suffering and death.</li></ul></div><div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>To modern eyes, there are ambiguities in the sexual message of David's picture. There seems little doubt that David himself intended to convey sexual innocence - hence the awkwardly concealed genitals. However, the twisted body readily lends itself to erotic and homoerotic readings. The figure of Bara also has a certain femininity - prominent hip, pouting mouth and long hair (at a time when recruits to the new Jacobin<i> École Militaire</i> were compelled to have their locks shorn). The image reflects the sensibilities of the closed, masculine world of David's studio.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> David d'Angers in his sculpture of 1838 already gives the maestro's image a more realistic, less erotically charged, interpretation. Bara lies naked, but modestly draped with the remnants of his stolen clothing. </li></ul><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXflXRXzjvnOTJFOBOVxlMvmlc0UWjQW0sSauVn3uo9x47-Oel9qTKBA6eVUKpDNCUQ4FQCXTvlNSWSP8Ak-1z9_sCocL9Y3d0qAxJ4ARBrkq1idzJzVebKRO0bEe7NH0puZQPOhoFd1R84qq1G51dSfpe3qU7NKjAmsn_knQcxoH7H0c9tdo8Kq-P/s492/Capture.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="237" data-original-width="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXflXRXzjvnOTJFOBOVxlMvmlc0UWjQW0sSauVn3uo9x47-Oel9qTKBA6eVUKpDNCUQ4FQCXTvlNSWSP8Ak-1z9_sCocL9Y3d0qAxJ4ARBrkq1idzJzVebKRO0bEe7NH0puZQPOhoFd1R84qq1G51dSfpe3qU7NKjAmsn_knQcxoH7H0c9tdo8Kq-P/s16000/Capture.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">"</span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Barra", 1838. <a href="https://art.rmngp.fr/fr/library/artworks/d-angers-david_statue-joseph-barra-sic_platre_1838" target="_blank">Galerie David d'Angers</a></span><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div><div><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><b>19th-century images</b></span><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLhCSc4QtN8N_ejbhn_ZD8iLkWmXLMYqzWTJEBKQ6A2RM7lWVm_T9VlevsZCp8oKmBY7eziTDBYPhhLVXAleb_cuqs5aQrKiZ96IIqPge-ofVD-yqPAOHN-Ue4VE-E2pQJBJrNbUFTKdwI7DHVG2lYokODmkunYPKq_FF2Pn6l45lFUYIDR9UyIxkM/s1608/Mort_de_Bara_-_Jean-Joseph_Weerts2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1044" data-original-width="1608" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLhCSc4QtN8N_ejbhn_ZD8iLkWmXLMYqzWTJEBKQ6A2RM7lWVm_T9VlevsZCp8oKmBY7eziTDBYPhhLVXAleb_cuqs5aQrKiZ96IIqPge-ofVD-yqPAOHN-Ue4VE-E2pQJBJrNbUFTKdwI7DHVG2lYokODmkunYPKq_FF2Pn6l45lFUYIDR9UyIxkM/w640-h416/Mort_de_Bara_-_Jean-Joseph_Weerts2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Bara by Jean-Joseph Weerts</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>Under the Third Republic, the death of Bara gained new prominence, in part to counterbalance Royalist accusations of Revolutionary atrocities in the Vendée. Bara was part of the project of Jules Ferry who advocated a pedagogy that "went straight to the heart" and rejected all that "is base and vile". The little drummer boy became a role model for children mobilised in school battalions; freed from the rivalries of the Terror, Bara was the hero par excellence of Republican youth.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpYnT8cvff2T8Nkwqhi7zWWGBboNTBeZ6XBja5UNhiuFR8XKfgBT9uHgrEY3x2fEp0NcuV30lDhYoifgouuRw6-V9oRecJJfPWtLRK3G837dmL9z_RvnDC4sh6qyLgQ6vCBpk5b49qRPHWiyyDSkdwFer6Vj7KPjg01GgJmy3-I3NPyCepBzJjXVeV/s681/01-01-paris_bara_monument_2_dsc_1889.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="681" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpYnT8cvff2T8Nkwqhi7zWWGBboNTBeZ6XBja5UNhiuFR8XKfgBT9uHgrEY3x2fEp0NcuV30lDhYoifgouuRw6-V9oRecJJfPWtLRK3G837dmL9z_RvnDC4sh6qyLgQ6vCBpk5b49qRPHWiyyDSkdwFer6Vj7KPjg01GgJmy3-I3NPyCepBzJjXVeV/w118-h200/01-01-paris_bara_monument_2_dsc_1889.jpg" width="118" /></a></div>This didactic and martial emphasis heralded a return to straightforward representational art. The massive, officially commissioned, canvas of Jean-Joseph Weerts was directly inspired by the 1794 print by Philibert-Louis Debucourt (above) which shows Bara battling his assailants. In this, and in Weerts's complementary three-quarter length portrait, the soldier boy sports an implausibly splendid dress uniform and has an air of precocious masculinity. The closest analogy is found in sculpture, in the monument to Bara by Louis-Étienne Albert-Lefeuvre, dedicated in 1881 in Bara's hometown, Palaiseau. </div><div><br /></div><div>Other prominent portraits are those by Charles Moreau-Vauthier, purchased by the state from the Salon of 1880, and Jean-Jacques Henner (Salon of 1882; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans) In Henner's picture, although Bara is depicted naked, he is clearly simply a corpse, stripped of his uniform and abandoned beside a hedge or a wood by his murderers. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="757" data-original-width="1280" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHvhbbkIWvHIB8g0XhJcMKzZ22CzKrrWAYKuEJfF0NXwMuKTpxra1Qw59bP1WHnnd0B9EeDjSZF5ADVWnVLKQn23iF1sn10-Borec3abWemk3fRczAbfAi62TyhKqaFkzVltEZoSZPc_8jWsX0tdPrqa8hNd3-Abf-DgNI3ZEiTjKML3XHgtAK5PSE/s320/Jean-Jacques_Henner_-_Bara_-_PPP182_-_Mus%C3%A9e_des_Beaux-Arts_de_la_ville_de_Paris%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small; text-decoration-line: underline;">Wikimedia Commons</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>It is the realism of the portrait by Moreau-Vauthier in the <i>Historial de la Vendée, </i>which is perhaps the most moving. Despite the beautiful uniform, the image is emptied of heroism: Bara ...is a little boy, sprawled out pathetically, alone, helpless and....so very dead.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw5Ph6aplASROBHODXnLJkWxxlgZtlMGBv4Cj8qcxPke3NdcwmJpRRNLFvNxIISYLmSx6ajtA8k48dQfolWQMslwAqDRqPuib0tZPxxDs8fsb-ormKmMO8aAWit5NkIEs1lBu43yyazCvXXPnfgxQuYSKQxP6-IWZ-SYUmzH6iXSHwERWNb-ubdpr6/s934/Bara%20close-up.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="934" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw5Ph6aplASROBHODXnLJkWxxlgZtlMGBv4Cj8qcxPke3NdcwmJpRRNLFvNxIISYLmSx6ajtA8k48dQfolWQMslwAqDRqPuib0tZPxxDs8fsb-ormKmMO8aAWit5NkIEs1lBu43yyazCvXXPnfgxQuYSKQxP6-IWZ-SYUmzH6iXSHwERWNb-ubdpr6/w640-h480/Bara%20close-up.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>References</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Pascal Dupuy "La mort de Bara", <i>Histoire par l'image</i></div><div><a href="https://histoire-image.org/etudes/mort-bara">La mort de Bara - Histoire analysée en images et œuvres d’art | https://histoire-image.org/</a></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Helen Weston,“Jacques-Louis David’s ‘La Mort de Joseph Bara’: A Tale of Revolutionary Myths and Modern Fantasies",<i> Paragraph</i> 19, no. 3 (1996): 234–50. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/43263499">[On JStor]</a></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Thomas Crow,<i> Emulation: Making Artists for Revolutionary France</i> (Yales U.P, 1995) p.174-88.</div><div>[<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Emulation/tM76jORspU8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA174&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">On Google Books</a>]</div><div><br /></div></div></div><div>The catalogue for the 1989 exhibition in Avignon is long out of print. Jean-Clément Martin's article is reedited as "Bara, de l'imaginaire révolutionnaire à la mémoire nationale". In : <i>Révolution et Contre-Révolution en France de 1789 à 1989 </i>(1996) <a href="https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pur.17398" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">https://books.openedition.org/pur/17398</span>.</a></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-24615078848388096372023-02-01T02:34:00.004-08:002024-02-15T09:34:24.086-08:00Joseph Bara - Republican hero<p> </p><span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSUmAm85kWZs6jXeEZA8urJyudv0NU7th691vUOfVieBn7Ogk5lrq0Fm_eQlApHZwwb5MOC2A4FZf5rPPnTaapPrpPu5n5BUjl4LypmFIZl-fmKcAYQaKUfPQ7KnlNLLFcxI-j7Ck3UclQAd_PBWLWdipmfwyMCvkG40XZ4kfXNKjAC1YHCKTD46BH/s640/97971001.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="524" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSUmAm85kWZs6jXeEZA8urJyudv0NU7th691vUOfVieBn7Ogk5lrq0Fm_eQlApHZwwb5MOC2A4FZf5rPPnTaapPrpPu5n5BUjl4LypmFIZl-fmKcAYQaKUfPQ7KnlNLLFcxI-j7Ck3UclQAd_PBWLWdipmfwyMCvkG40XZ4kfXNKjAC1YHCKTD46BH/w525-h640/97971001.jpg" width="525" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Aquatint by Angélique Briceau, c.1794 <br /><a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1925-0615-202" target="_blank">British Museum collections</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The heroic death of the soldier-boy Joseph Bara has long been a familiar part of French Revolutionary tradition. His story was particularly promoted during the Third Republic, when his image featured in the <i>salles d'honneurs</i> of regiments, and he was the subject of numerous official statues, poems, plays and paintings. Jean-Joseph Weerts's huge canvas, <i>La Mort de Bara</i>, commissioned by the state in 1880, adorned a salon in the Élysée Palace during the Universal Exposition of 1889. In schoolbooks "Bara's drum" was part of Republican collective memory for many decades, right down to the 1960s and '70s. </div><div><div><br /></div><div>Even today, Bara is still celebrated, at least in his native town of Palaiseau where in 1979 his name was given to the local school. As recently as September 2008, the <i>Souvenir Chouan de Bretagne </i>was moved to send a letter of protest to Palaiseau on the occasion of an exhibition of comic-book images: [<a href="https://www.yumpu.com/fr/document/view/27708345/20-pages-pdf-ville-de-palaiseau"><i>Il était une fois Joseph Bara en BD</i></a>]</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">The life and death of Joseph Bara</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div><div>The legend of Bara is untrammelled by much in the way of biographical details. The archives record only two events from his short life. The first is his birth, in Palaiseau on 30th July 1779, the third son of François Bara, a gamekeeper on the local estate, and his wife Marie Anne Leroy (Bara was the ninth of their ten children; his younger brother is described as an invalid). The boy is recorded as having been born at the ch<span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #5f6368; font-size: 14px;">ât</span>eau. The second is his death, recounted in a letter to the National Convention dated 8th December 1793, from General Demarres, his commanding officer in the Vendée. Between these two dates almost nothing is known. </div><div><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>Bara's situation becomes clearer once it is understood that General Desmarres - more properly Jean-Baptiste-Marie Desmarres d'Estimauville - was heir to the estate at Palaiseau where Bara's father worked. Demarres was one of a number of career soldiers of noble origin who successfully rose to positions of command in the Vendée. Born in 1760, he had served in the Indies from 1778 to 1785, where he reached the rank of major. In 1790 he retired to Palaiseau, but in August 1792 he once again volunteered for active service and subsequently became Adjutant-General in Army of the Coasts of Brest, then commander of the division of Bressuire. </div><div><br /></div><div>As Jean-Clément Martin emphasises, Bara's entry into the army would have been a natural step. His family were bound by ties of service to the Desmarres d'Estimauville family and his two elder brothers were already fighting on the frontiers. The death of Bara's father October 1784 when he was five, placed the family in difficult financial circumstances. In a newly discovered local register from 1792 Bara is listed as already away from home, serving an apprenticeship in Paris. It must have been some time after this that he entered the army.</div><div><br /></div><div>At thirteen Bara would have been too young to enlist formally, but there were numerous children with the army at this time. Like David d'Angers, they often accompanied their parents. They might participate in the conflict if required. Bara's specific duties are not known; he acted as a personal servant perhaps, almost certainly as a messenger of some sort for the general and his staff. It is unlikely he would really have been provided with a uniform as later images suggest. It is even more unlikely that he really charged the Vendeans at the head of several men, as Desmarres claimed in his letter.</div><div><br /></div><div>The exact circumstances of Bara's death are also not known for certain. Jean-Clément Martin notes that it took place on the margins of a difficult conflict. In December 1793 Demarres's troops had occupied Jallais. Their situation was vulnerable as the surrounding area harboured armed bands of Counter-Revolutionaries who were difficult to counter. On 7th December Desmarres had to battle for three hours to repel an attack; the inhabitants of Cholet even thought that he had been killed in the confusion. Bara did not die in this exchange, but on the following day, the 8th, when - so the story goes - he was surrounded by a group of "brigands" and killed.</div></div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcHsSa2a4lOQpBwYojYJ9QLjlfCdz5Q4keQrUz0oNbY57MMQWhGdCxQEhOv-BPnP15bjd_zT3zBkCmkVubbgBdbSvEweYhEnyTbzsBj1NUwgn9kXErbPeamd7D8Jjccoifh48sH0Q-wjtjXohDQeYMd0YxdKXqBViSLTlBvR3fGCtbT3pt4KwWkr1t/s2050/Joseph_Barra____Assassin%C3%A9_par_%5B...%5DAlix_Pierre-Michel_btv1b53234319n_1%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1249" data-original-width="2050" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcHsSa2a4lOQpBwYojYJ9QLjlfCdz5Q4keQrUz0oNbY57MMQWhGdCxQEhOv-BPnP15bjd_zT3zBkCmkVubbgBdbSvEweYhEnyTbzsBj1NUwgn9kXErbPeamd7D8Jjccoifh48sH0Q-wjtjXohDQeYMd0YxdKXqBViSLTlBvR3fGCtbT3pt4KwWkr1t/w640-h390/Joseph_Barra____Assassin%C3%A9_par_%5B...%5DAlix_Pierre-Michel_btv1b53234319n_1%20(1).jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span>Engraving after Garneray, 1794 - detail <br /></span><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53234319n " target="_blank">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53234319n </a></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><br /></div><div>Supporters of the Revolution said that he died protecting horses belonging to the army; adversaries claimed that Bara himself was the thief: according to the comtesse de La Bouëre he was "un petit pillard" who tried to steal his master's horses. </div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">The website <i>Tombes sépultures </i><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">suggests a possible scenario based on the research of </span> local historian Michel Crepellière. Bara probably left the safety of the camp to water some horses in the Ruisseau de Montatais, a stream which runs just to the south-west of Jallais. The ambush would have taken place beneath the trees in an area next to the Château de la Brinière known at the time as "le Revers". </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bara was almost certainly buried in a communal grave at the cemetery of Jallais which at this period was only 200 metres away. He may have been taken there by the refractory priest Mathurin Abafour, who made it his particular mission to give the dead of Jallais a Christian burial - it was said that the abbé Abafour sometimes carried bodies on his back for several kilometres.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">A new cemetery has since built in Jallais but not all the remains were ever transferred; bones are still often found on the old site.</span> Bara's body was never located or exhumed; the "ashes" which were to feature in commemorative ceremonies must have been purely symbolic.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg41fb902zFzIIkP7PqKhWWGBonWDT-QfWoK54pvWJtYPAfGz0Liry2sP0_2rlbWtT9ZAu-m9XuWEfPVbweJRcegJRsLJL5-i0J__yGkSahS6dMQbskfvXGzlnofeZwIKiSa0VprQPZzHdkXZ05vXv2n3zr_hFfSNWfVP8O19gRLvZ7u7Awn5LEpkSa/s1280/MortdeJosephBara2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="1280" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg41fb902zFzIIkP7PqKhWWGBonWDT-QfWoK54pvWJtYPAfGz0Liry2sP0_2rlbWtT9ZAu-m9XuWEfPVbweJRcegJRsLJL5-i0J__yGkSahS6dMQbskfvXGzlnofeZwIKiSa0VprQPZzHdkXZ05vXv2n3zr_hFfSNWfVP8O19gRLvZ7u7Awn5LEpkSa/w400-h221/MortdeJosephBara2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Charles Moreau-Vauthier "Barra" (1880).</span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">The making of a myth - an aristocratic general</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>The first person to manipulate the boy's memory was Desmarres. In a letter read to the Convention by Barère on 15th December, he described Bara's heroic death and requested a pension for the child's mother, which was enthusiastically awarded. In Desmarres's version, Bara was a feisty young soldier boy who died defying the enemy:</div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Too young to enrol in the forces of the Republic, but burning to serve, this child had accompanied me throughout the last year mounted and equipped as a hussar: the whole army has been astonished to see him confront every danger, always charging at the head of the cavalry....The courageous child, when yesterday surrounded by brigands, chose to die rather than surrender and hand over the two horses he was leading. As virtuous as he was brave, he gave to his mother all his earnings, save what he needed to keep himself clothed and fed; he leaves her with several daughters and his younger invalid brother, and she has no other means of support. <br /></span></i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Letter dated 18 Frimaire II, 8th December 1793. Read to the Convention on 15th January<br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <a href="https://books.google.fr/books?id=MQY7AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA678#v=onepage&q&f=false" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.8); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Réimpression de l’ancien Moniteur</em>, t. XVIII, Paris, Plon, 1860, p. 678</a></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A month later, a second letter from Desmarres was read out. Desmarres had since learned that Bara was to be awarded the honours of the Pantheon. Bara is now "my young pupil, my faithful companion in arms". Desmarres offers to exhume the body and to sketch a likeness for David to copy. Bara should be depicted standing surrounded by rebels, his hands gripping the bridles of the horses; his last words were: "You blasted bandit, you think you can take our horses, do you? Just try it..." </div><div style="text-align: left;">Letter of Desmarres (undated), read to the Convention on 21 Nivôse II, 10th January 1794<br /><a href="https://books.google.fr/books?id=RqsNAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA177#v=onepage&q&f=false">Réimpression de l'ancien Moniteur, t. XIX, Paris, Plon, 1861, p.177</a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div>Desmarres clearly wanted to bolster his own Revolutionary credentials. As a former noble, his position was vulnerable, especially since his commander, Turreau, was close to the radical sans-culottes and <i>Hébertistes</i>. Desmarres soon found himself in conflict with the sans-culotte general Rossignol. By the time his second letter was read, he had already been relieved of his command and imprisoned. He was condemned by the military commission in Angers and executed on 30th January 1794. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Robespierre and Bara</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>What was unanticipated in the Bara affair, was the rapturous welcome given by the Convention to Demarres's letter. Barère, then Robespierre, literally seized on the opportunity to extol Bara's heroism. On 8 NivôseYear II (28th December 1793), in one of his most lyric speeches, Robespierre demanded that Bara's remains be translated to the Pantheon and a festival, orchestrated by David, held in his honour. </div><div><br /></div><div> Robespierre had often emphasised the "butchery" suffered by patriot troops in the Vendée,and in June 1793 he had supported the cause of the adolescent Derudder, whose father had been killed in the war (see Decriem, 2021). But, this was an initiative of a different order: <span style="font-family: inherit;">"To help a destitute mother whose son has been killed in the Vendée is one thing, to cite this child as an example, is only to give recognition to patriotism and civic virtue. To award him the honours of the Pantheon, is to elevate him to the level of the martyrs of Liberty...to make him the object of a civic cult."</span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"> </span>(Monnier (1980), p.324)</div><div><br /></div><div>As Jean-Clément Martin emphasises, there can be little doubt that Robespierre's sponsorship of Bara was part of his strategic move against dechristianisation and the anarchic populism of the Hébertists. This was now to be replaced by ordered civic ceremonies and a programme of patriotic education. Bara represented an alternative to the tainted "Martyrs of Liberty" - Marat, Le Peletier and Chalier. </div><div><br /></div><div>Bara's youth and evident virtue also made him a ready-made exemplar for schoolchildren. Desmarres had previously emphasised Bara's dutiful devotion his family, but Robespierre raised this to a saint-like level of disinterest: Bara's only loves were his mother and his country: </div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Among many fine actions in the Vendée, which have honoured the war of Liberty against Tyranny, the entire nation must distinguish those of a young man whose mother has already been drawn to the attention of the Convention. I speak of Barra. This young man of thirteen has performed prodigies of valour in the Vendée. Surrounded by brigands who threatened his life and demanded that he shout "Vive le roi!" he died shouting "Vive la République!</i>" <i> This young child succoured his mother with his wages; he divided his concerns between filial love and love for his country. It would not be possible to chose a better example, a more perfect model, to inspire in young hearts love of glory, of the fatherland and of virtue, and to pave the way for the prodiges who will operate in the coming generation. In awarded honours to the young Barra, you will reward every virtue - heroism, courage, filial love, love of country.</i></span></div><div><br /></div><div>In Robespierre's vision, perhaps inadvertently, the aggression is drained out of Bara's character. Verbal defiance takes the place of physical violence. His last words become a sort of confession of faith; where Desmarres has him shouting invective against his attackers, in Robespierre's version he affirms his abstract loyalty to the Revolution: "Long live the Republic!". </div><div> </div><div>Rather absurdly - and with a element of wishful thinking - Robespierre goes on to claim that only the Republican liberty of France can produce heroes of thirteen years old.</div><div><br /></div><div>It was left to Barère to specify that the model was to be "traced by the brushes of the famous David" and distributed in reproduction to every primary school in the country - a proposition to which David assented enthusiastically. According to Barère, in contrast to the pride and ambition of generals, legislators, and philosophers, who had betrayed the Republic's ideals, Bara embodied "absolute virtue, simple and modest, as it is delivered from the hands of Nature".</div><div><a href="https://books.google.fr/books?id=RqsNAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA81#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><i>Réimpression de l’ancien Moniteur</i>, t. XIX, Paris, Plon, 1861, p. 81</span></a></div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Robespierre returned to Bara in his famous speech of </b> <b>18 Floréal (7th May) which announced the official cult of the "Supreme Being" and a programme of civic festivals. </b>The cult of virtue would expunge examples of egoism and self-seeking in the next generation; humanity stood to be transformed: "..Listen to the immortal Bara who calls you to glory from the heart of the Pantheon; come throw flowers on his sacred tomb!". At this a prearranged shout of "Long live the Republic" went up from a group of children from the Section La Fontaine-Grenelle who had opportunely been admitted to the chamber..<br /><a href="https://archive.org/details/oeuvrescomplte10robe/page/460/mode/2up?view=theater">Oeuvres complètes : Robespierre, Maximilien, 1758-1794</a></div></div><div><p><br /></p></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The making of a national hero</span></b></div></div><div><br /></div><div>The entry of Bara into popular consciousness was almost instantaneous. Barère read Demarres letter at the tribune on 15th December 1793; the <i>Moniteur</i> gave an account on the 17th, and by the 18th Bara's bravery was being cited in the <i>Annales du Civisme et de la Vertu</i>, a publication intended for children. Between December 1793 and Thermidor, he featured in numerous poems, prints and theatrical productions. In February he was joined by another "child martyr", Viala, who was promoted by his uncle as having been killed by Federalists in Avignon in June 1793.</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In the first half of 1794 Revolutionary groups also followed the lead given by the Convention through ceremonies and celebrations to honour the new hero. As Raymonde Monnier has emphasised, children often played an important role in these early, relatively spontaneous <i>fêtes</i>; they had their own organisations - the "jeunes sans-culottes" of the Sections and, in the provinces, the children's battalions or "Enfans de la Patrie"(Monnier, 1980)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoa0zceYXwVbjvLlfNETn3zEFkJW-xt_WB7mwGmlZbdd58c7UCk-Q0ZdNvde_ZAbbib81J2XulcT7eDUnoNpFTtfIV9pA2Ng6KhTOvwWV-pGKtBfxqp_6NFQyDUeujSEVxbSURm6NxObdYcpoigcu7tgMzhF813viLmOGXO1m9JgK5YQ90J_3YE81K/s367/Untitled.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="367" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoa0zceYXwVbjvLlfNETn3zEFkJW-xt_WB7mwGmlZbdd58c7UCk-Q0ZdNvde_ZAbbib81J2XulcT7eDUnoNpFTtfIV9pA2Ng6KhTOvwWV-pGKtBfxqp_6NFQyDUeujSEVxbSURm6NxObdYcpoigcu7tgMzhF813viLmOGXO1m9JgK5YQ90J_3YE81K/w200-h199/Untitled.png" width="200" /></a></div>The first celebrations, in January and February 1794, took place within the broad context of popular Revolution and dechristianisation. A bust of Bara was often inaugurated to stand alongside those of the existing "Martyrs of Liberty". This initial phase came to an end when the Commune suppressed the "jeunes sans-culottes" as an independent organisation at the end of January.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the Spring, there succeeded a series of more ambitious civic festivals organised by the communes - around Paris, in Fréjus, in the Yonne, or in Ganat in the Allier. </div><div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Palloy, the famous entrepreneur of the Bastille - who fancied himself a rival to David as an impressario of civic celebrations - organised a particularly ambitious event on 10 Floréal (29th April 1794) in Palaiseau, which fell within the jurisdiction of the Commune of Sceaux. Bara's widowed mother was in attendance. Representatives from the Commune then accompanied her to Paris, where she was presented to the Convention on 10 Prairial (29th May 1794) and to the Jacobins the next day. On her return Palloy donated to the Commune a plan of the Bastille.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Étienne Charavay, "La fête de Bara et de Viala",<i> La Révolution française, revue historique</i> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> (1881) p.420-28. [<a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k116238r/f425.item.r=Bara">Gallica (bnf.fr)</a>]</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><div><div><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;"><b>A Festival <i>manqué</i></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>On 18 Floréal (7th May), following Robespierre's impassioned speech, the Convention formally decreed a national festival for the "ashes" of Bara and Viala to be conveyed to the Pantheon. David was charged with the choreography. The ceremony was never to take place. Fatefully, in order to allow time for the Festival of the Supreme Being, it was delayed and was finally rescheduled for 10 Thermidor - as it transpired, the day after the fall of Robespierre. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Convention wished the event to have a strong military character and decreed that the place of honour should be given to soldiers wounded in the service of their country. The Sections were invited to provide suitable candidates.</div><div><br /></div><div>A prominent part was also to be played by pupils from the newly founded École de Mars where effigies of Bara and Viala were already on display in the large hall. A substantial contingent of cadets were to enjoy a place of honour, marching behind the deputies of the Convention.</div><div><br /></div><div> On 23 Messidor (11th July), David presented to the Convention his report on the planned "heroic" festival. He declared his intention to show "the character of Republican simplicity and the august imprint of Virtue"</div><div><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/R%C3%A9impression_de_L_ancien_moniteur_seule/RL5gQ8B21HYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Barra&pg=PA277&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank"><i>Réimpression de l’ancien Moniteur</i>, t. XXI, Paris, Plon, 1861, p. 281</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div>David envisaged a huge multi-media spectacular, incorporating a great deal of public participation. Thousands of people were to be mobilised. </div><div><br /></div><div>The ceremony itself would comprise two contrasting phases. In the first, urns containing the ashes of Bara and Viala would be carried in solemn procession from outside the hall of the Convention in the Tuilleries to the Pantheon, accompanied by singing, dancing and "lugubrious" music. According to surviving records, the two columns were be headed up by banners, painted by David's two assistants Gérard and Serangeli and draped in red serge. David himself was to create the centre image displayed outside the Pantheon. </div><div><br /></div><div>The second part of the festival heralded a change of mood. When the doors of the Pantheon opened, the atmosphere would be uplifted, with songs of glory to underline the moral meaning of the celebration. All sorts of representatives of the arts took part in the ceremony: the National Institute of Music, the ballet of the Opera, numerous poets and musicians. Several works were composed specially for the occasion. A hymn to music by Étienne Méhul - composer of the famous <i>Chant du départ -</i> was to by sung by the crowd in unison; almost four thousand copies were printed and distributed.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsIgEdWOi7vHba5YiOq0LjmcxNbtA2P_t1dcQF_ktYrCEZtTGyTqmKdwB6F5Mm4RQ-o9YTO7394TMsLUConVZykL5BxR3wcrg5ZHuF1fHRfgjQTE7SLU_v5l8TXDuAv7MSyEwZ9QyTI0jFVLxeumS5Bo-TnYUtY6b5VlYjOZk76ZAeZdTWM8dCMMhW/s2056/Hymne_chant%C3%A9_par_le_peuple_%5B...%5DM%C3%A9hul_%C3%89tienne-Nicolas_btv1b90575848%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1480" data-original-width="2056" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsIgEdWOi7vHba5YiOq0LjmcxNbtA2P_t1dcQF_ktYrCEZtTGyTqmKdwB6F5Mm4RQ-o9YTO7394TMsLUConVZykL5BxR3wcrg5ZHuF1fHRfgjQTE7SLU_v5l8TXDuAv7MSyEwZ9QyTI0jFVLxeumS5Bo-TnYUtY6b5VlYjOZk76ZAeZdTWM8dCMMhW/w400-h288/Hymne_chant%C3%A9_par_le_peuple_%5B...%5DM%C3%A9hul_%C3%89tienne-Nicolas_btv1b90575848%202.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div><div><div>In the event,of course, the arrest and execution of Robespierre, were to overtake an thought of a patriotic festival, though in the provinces, from Avignon to Besançon, and from Bapaume to L’Aigle, the planned ceremonies went ahead, with participants still unaware of the political play in the capital.</div></div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>In his book the <i>Fall of Robespierre</i>, Colin Jones traces the final preparations which were still going forward in Paris on the morning of 9 Thermidor. He notes that there had been much anticipation of the event - theatres staged performances, poetry had been composed composed, newspapers announced the details and engravers prepared to provide images of the festivities to come.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, there were problems with the planning. Participants disagreed about the timing and about responsibility for the different parts of the day. The burden of organisation fell largely on the Sections. The previous day, the Mayor, Fleuriot-Lescot, had ordered general assemblies to be convoked in order for the deputations from the Sections to rehearse their parts. Musicians and choristers from the National Institute of Music were busy practising and the composer François-Joseph Gossec personally rehearsed his patriotic hymn. </div><div><br /></div><div>The political leaders meanwhile had already moved on to more pressing matters. A leading role in the festival was to be played by the President of the Convention, who on this occasion was Collot d'Herbois, now a prime political player. Robespierre too had lost interest. Even David himself was absent - after his outburst in support of Robespierre at the Jacobin Club, he had retired to his sickbed for two days in order to ride out the crisis. (Jones, p.135-36)</div><div><br /></div></div><div>[to be continued]</div></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>References</b></div><div><br /></div><div><b>General:</b></div><div><div><br /></div><div> "Le mythe Joseph Bara" - <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181105054533/http://www.europe1.fr/emissions/au-coeur-de-l-histoire/acdh-lintegrale-le-mythe-joseph-bara-13062017-3359990">Au coeur de l'histoire du 13/06/2017 par Franck FERRAND - Replay - Europe 1 (archive.org)</a></div><div><br /></div><div><div><div>Jean-Clément Martin, "Bara, de l'imaginaire révolutionnaire à la mémoire nationale". In : <i>Révolution et Contre-Révolution en France de 1789 à 1989 </i>(1996)</div><div><a href="https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pur.17398" target="_blank"> <span style="color: black;">https://books.openedition.org/pur/17398</span>.</a></div></div><div>_____, "Bara, du héros de papier à l’enfant exemplaire", <i>Inflexions</i> 2018/1 N° 37: p.159-163<br /><a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-inflexions-2018-1-page-159.htm">https://www.cairn.info/revue-inflexions-2018-1-page-159.htm</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Biography of Bara:</b></div><div><div> </div></div><div><div>"Glane concernant Joseph Bara", <i>Des Écrits et de l'Histoire</i>, post of 10.05.2022 </div><div><a href="https://www.desecritsetdelhistoire.fr/post/glanes-concernant-joseph-bara">https://www.desecritsetdelhistoire.fr/post/glanes-concernant-joseph-bara</a></div><div>This site contains images of the key documents relating to Bara's life.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><div>Entry for Bara and Viala on the website, <i>Tombes sépultures</i>, ed. Marie-Christine Pénin.</div><div><a href="https://www.tombes-sepultures.com/crbst_82.html">https://www.tombes-sepultures.com/crbst_82.html</a></div></div></div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>The Festival of 10 Thermidor:</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div>Bruno Decriem, "La Vendée dans les discours de Robespierre", <i>L'ARBR,</i> 19.09.2021.</div><div><a href="https://www.amis-robespierre.org/La-Vendee-dans-les-discours-de">https://www.amis-robespierre.org/La-Vendee-dans-les-discours-de</a></div></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Raymonde Monnier, "Le culte de Bara en l'an II", <i>Annales historiques de la Révolution française</i>, No. 241, 1980: Pour le centième anniversaire de la naissance de Joseph Bara. pp. 321-344.</div><div><a href="https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1980_num_241_1_4369">https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1980_num_241_1_4369</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Colin Jones, T<i>he Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Revolutionary France, </i>O.U.P. (2021), p.135-42.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>"Fête de Bara et Viala" on the website <i>9-Thermidor</i></div><div><a href="https://9-thermidor.com/contexte/fetes-revolutionnaires/fete-de-bara-viala/">https://9-thermidor.com/contexte/fetes-revolutionnaires/fete-de-bara-viala/</a></div></div></div></div></div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-53788991586763443352022-10-30T08:58:00.009-07:002023-03-30T13:11:17.003-07:00Videos from the Vendée<p><br /></p><p>The <i>Institut national de l'audiovisuel </i>(INA) has an archive of short videos, "Regard sur la Vendée", which includes a collection on historical themes, introduced by Jean-Clément Martin. The clips on the Wars in the Vendée, some of which date from the 1970s, cast an illuminating light on the development of historiography and commemoration in the region over the last decades.</p><p><a href="https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/parcours/0001/histoire-de-la-vendee.html#anchor4" target="_blank">Olonne-sur-mer : regard sur la Vendée - Histoire de la Vendée (ina.fr)</a></p><p><br /></p><p><b style="color: #800180;"><span style="font-size: large;">ASPECTS OF LOCAL MEMORY</span></b></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;">The Vendée militaire</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="367" data-original-width="539" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7-_S2Zde2ULBFb6I30nIK7fULZl5WT1hm5VEaYl_xTMLlXKfcbKNu-qGExievIINeLAxW6a1rl36q3fMGEQvV5fGjuI1Eje-TkDJAxypiI6qVpKN3zJeRjfUsVdPfSYlHOSPYjS93-Khm3UIsHyZEV-pbrUtZTeXtnD-dQ0_eBpNkuflkWQvOJvtR/w320-h218/La%20Vend%C3%A9e%20militaire.jpg" width="320" /></p></div><p><b>Video of 6th November 1974</b></p><p>The local historian, Valentin Roussière, outlines the contours of the Vendée militaire on a map and movingly evokes the landscape of his native region.</p><p>Regard sur la Vendée (INA video collection): Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne<br /><span style="color: #0000ee;"><u><a href="https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/fiche-media/Olonne00123/les-lucs-sur-boulogne.html" target="_blank">https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/fiche-media/Olonne00123/les-lucs-sur-boulogne.html</a></u></span></p>
<summary><u>Introduction by Jean-Clément Martin</u>: <span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1974 French television broadcast a series on "The Great Battles of the Past", produced by Daniel Costelle and Henri de Turenne... </span> One of the episodes featured the Battle of Cholet, which took place on 16th December 1793....The film included both reconstructions of the conflict and interviews with historians. Valentin Roussière (1910-1983), who features in this clip, was a native of Les Herbiers. He was a photographer and journalist with the newspaper<i> Le Phare de la Loire</i>. Between 1935 and 1939 he took thousands of photographs of the Vendée, which constitute an important documentary record. He was a friend of the Martel brothers [well-known sculptors from the Vendée] and published several books on the contemporary evolution of the region, notably <i>Haut-Pays: les logis de la Vendée</i> and <i>Dieu meurt-il en Vendée? </i></summary><br />
<summary><u>Translation</u>: <i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Valentine Roussière</b>: This landscape has long been a place of mysteries, as you appreciate when you enter the bocage, with its hedges everywhere. They give the impression of palisades, as though you are in a Roman camp. The countryside itself seems rebellious; it seems to watch you, almost to absorbs the people within. There are oak trees with strange shapes, like gnomes it is said. The story is told of a bishop who was almost blind. and came across them at nightfall. He mistook them for his parishioners and, from the door of his carriage, blessed them with grand gestures. Until a few years ago, if they cut back these trees, which are often hollow, they would find skeletons; skeletons with weapons, and sometimes even with the trace of a sacré-coeur on their coats. It was clearly here that the great national drama of our province had occurred, of the Vendée, what they call the Vendée militaire. What was the Vendée Militaire? The historical province covered four areas south of the Loire and stretching west to the ocean. It included the southern part of the departments of Loire-Atlantique and Maine-et-Loire, the northern part of Deux-Sèvres and the department of the Vendée. That represents a frontier of 100 kilometres; and a population as large as 600,000 inhabitants.</span></i></summary>
<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>The whole of the documentary on the Battle of Cholet is available on the internet: </div><div><a href="https://madelen.ina.fr/collection/les-grandes-batailles-du-passe">https://madelen.ina.fr/collection/les-grandes-batailles-du-passe</a></div><div><br /></div><span></span><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #800180;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">An exhibition of stained glass depicting the War in the Vendée</span></b> </span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhomYfAXCsTggEtx6chTwtRMGf2Z8wuvGvkZuQ7Aa8W4lGUFfZUrtwU4N8q6V_N6CU53AHZX-xxAsjfaCW5_HfayXnfw-xBVBlDwU8d9qmC7f_2RAsQ3Bcjec0X3PABxtLl5gUtlz0OAnTeUpI7GsQz-Q9tVTN88WOzydL8V5TYA0KZA12zTwwXvNR5/s403/Stained%20glass.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="304" data-original-width="403" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhomYfAXCsTggEtx6chTwtRMGf2Z8wuvGvkZuQ7Aa8W4lGUFfZUrtwU4N8q6V_N6CU53AHZX-xxAsjfaCW5_HfayXnfw-xBVBlDwU8d9qmC7f_2RAsQ3Bcjec0X3PABxtLl5gUtlz0OAnTeUpI7GsQz-Q9tVTN88WOzydL8V5TYA0KZA12zTwwXvNR5/w320-h242/Stained%20glass.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><b><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div>Video of 25th January 1994. </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This video gives a short preview of an exhibition on memorial stained glass windows, <i>Mémoire de lumière: Vitrail et Guerre de Vendée, </i>which took place at the Logis de la Chabotterie in 1994.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Regard sur la Vendée (INA video collection): Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne<br /><span style="color: #0000ee;"><u><a href="https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/fiche-media/Olonne00123/les-lucs-sur-boulogne.html">https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/fiche-media/Olonne00123/les-lucs-sur-boulogne.html</a></u></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>
<summary><u>Introduction by Jean-Clément Martin</u>: From the 1870s onwards, the war in the Vendée was commemorated by stained glass windows in churches throughout the region, not just in the Vendée but also in neighbouring departments, above all in Maine-et-Loire. In the Vendée itself, the windows were generally late in date, from 1914 up to the 1950s; the most important examples, like those in the church of Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne, date from the Second World War. However, it was as early as 1874 that the chapel at La Tullévrière was decorated with windows illustrating the life of the abbé Ténèbre, who lived through those terrible years.</summary><div><br /></div><div>With the exception of Joan of Arc, warriors are not sanctified. However, the windows made it possible to present as edifying examples those who fought and suffered for their faith during the Revolution; this has created a form of commemoration which is quite unique in France....The message was both spiritual and political, but it also had a considerable commemorative dimension. depicted Local episodes were often depicted in order to allow the collective memory to take root. In terms of aesthetics, the style of the windows evolved considerably: as the exhibition shows, figurative representation gave way to a form of expression influenced by modern art.</div><div><br /></div>
<summary><u>Summary</u>: <b>Thierry Heckman, </b>later director of archives for the Vendée, explains how the themes depicted differed over time. The earlier windows, in Maine-et-Loire, celebrated the Christian virtues of the Vendean chieftains; history was the history of leaders. In the 20th century, when the war came to be seen as an affair of entire communities, highly localised events were preferred, often difficult to interpret for those from outside the immediate area. </summary><div><br /></div><div>The exhibition featured six authentic windows which were dismantled and temporarily reinstalled at La Chabotterie: </div><div><br /></div><div>Thierry Heckmann presents examples:</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div>Main illustration: The parishioners of Saint-Mars-la-Réorthe are taken to Noirmoutier to be shot. Their expressions are serene; they have hope despite the approaching execution. </div><div>See: <a href="http://www.vendeensetchouans.com/archives/2011/04/22/20954689.html"><i>Vendéens & Chouans</i>, post of 22.04.2011</a> </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqkISDrQfOLzy0-cSVwOg0PXH6Z_b34BFTtmSmNWOelbSV2oAkIEsDQcqM3AiIVSbLzHK_6QoCNZ3nadyAj6cOZDX8QSl7bJ2Q1uivIZzYigGf8a4Qc3Z-CIeE9rDeROyGiotDzp2KoLLf6_k-gyqfBBdISsT7jE7iUeBhzZZPxpwIQVHR5l4bS5_q/s360/Windows2.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="283" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqkISDrQfOLzy0-cSVwOg0PXH6Z_b34BFTtmSmNWOelbSV2oAkIEsDQcqM3AiIVSbLzHK_6QoCNZ3nadyAj6cOZDX8QSl7bJ2Q1uivIZzYigGf8a4Qc3Z-CIeE9rDeROyGiotDzp2KoLLf6_k-gyqfBBdISsT7jE7iUeBhzZZPxpwIQVHR5l4bS5_q/w158-h200/Windows2.JPG" width="158" /></a></div>Window from the chapelle du Boistissandeau at Ardelay near Les Herbiers: In 1794 the the Hillerin family, who owned the local château, was massacred in its entirety. In this window, the death of Madame de Hillerin, an old lady of eighty, is depicted. </div><div>See: <a href="http://www.vendeensetchouans.com/archives/2019/01/15/37018746.html" target="_blank"><i>Vendéens & Chouans</i>, post of 15.01.2019</a></div><div><br /></div><div>For the windows at La Tullévrière mentioned by J.-C.M, see <a href="http://chemins-secrets.eklablog.com/la-tullevriere-a96974919" target="_blank"><i>Chemins secrets</i> [blog], post of 21.08.2013.</a> In February 1794 Alexandre Ténèbre, curé at Croix-de-Vie, took refuge from Republican soldiers at La Tullévrière, not far from Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne. Twenty-two villagers who had hidden in the nearby woods were massacred, but those who stayed with the abbé Ténèbre were miraculously spared.</div><div><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="color: #800180;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="color: #800180;"><span style="font-size: large;">Remembering Charette</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm8ErtSQGHmDS5uJfI_-JV2OEpq7bDa--z8z2wHfFBLC_kZCSilw_ZfnX-nOKDFVm5oSwEX_SUZ2advpEMvsvabohYHL0BkLL_9n5cesfvzNCaCZsMUqGJQmj_osip22rf_zcA67KFxWTEQdLdTTiU32mFSEfUxqnq1sINbxgQbd5aPNoaQb-e4c-X/s200/Charette%20(1).JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="148" data-original-width="200" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm8ErtSQGHmDS5uJfI_-JV2OEpq7bDa--z8z2wHfFBLC_kZCSilw_ZfnX-nOKDFVm5oSwEX_SUZ2advpEMvsvabohYHL0BkLL_9n5cesfvzNCaCZsMUqGJQmj_osip22rf_zcA67KFxWTEQdLdTTiU32mFSEfUxqnq1sINbxgQbd5aPNoaQb-e4c-X/w320-h237/Charette%20(1).JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Video of 27th June 1989</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">A character sketch of Charette broadcast in 1989 for the bicentenary of the Revolution. Presented by Jean-Joël Brégeon.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Regard sur la Vendée (INA video collection): Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne</div><div style="text-align: left;"><u style="color: #0000ee;"><a href="https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/fiche-media/Olonne00106/charette.html">https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/fiche-media/Olonne00106/charette.htm</a>l</u><br /></div><p></p>
<summary><u>Introduction by Jean-Clement Martin</u>: François Athanase Charette de la Contrie (1763-1796) was one of the most famous leaders of the war in the Vendée. After some years of service in the French Royal navy, this petty nobleman had retired to his manor in the north of the Vendée when he was called upon, against his will, to take up a command in the insurrection. He was a bold and independent general who did not integrate well into the group of leaders. After the great defeats of Autumn 1793, he showed his worth, by brilliantly defying the Republican armies in the south of the Loire-Atlantique and in the department of the Vendée. His resistance was so effective that at first he defied all repression: in February 1795 the Republic was obliged to sign a peace treaty with him at the château de La Jaunaie, not far from Nantes. However, when war recommenced six months later rapidly, the situation began to work against Charette, who was isolated from his troops, captured, and shot on 29th March 1796. This history is retraced through emblematic locations, which are still honoured and recognised in both Vendean and national history. The portrait presented here emphasises the character trait most commonly identified with Charette: refusal of authority and independence, whether with regard to the Revolutionary state or the other Vendéan leaders. This characteristic also identifies the region of the Vendée itself.</summary><p><b style="color: #800180;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></p><p><b style="color: #800180;"><span style="font-size: large;">Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne</span></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-fJKa7uYgxIT58V8llRtqUgse0GwViaEmZ_Zy8G0ZBXVFPl82zkMe_gu_R0gbK5ucBdbZleV8oAaj1zcHRBeifjDBCXi8OTvFJxBQpCLK3jo1-QBTP3JkaQREEw64GnCGW0e0EQBgd0XttABofA5aXhEm81aPuV2XF7Ffiq0B6_H_8fpA4E6Op5mU/s521/Pere%20huchet.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="521" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-fJKa7uYgxIT58V8llRtqUgse0GwViaEmZ_Zy8G0ZBXVFPl82zkMe_gu_R0gbK5ucBdbZleV8oAaj1zcHRBeifjDBCXi8OTvFJxBQpCLK3jo1-QBTP3JkaQREEw64GnCGW0e0EQBgd0XttABofA5aXhEm81aPuV2XF7Ffiq0B6_H_8fpA4E6Op5mU/s320/Pere%20huchet.png" width="320" /></a></div><div><span style="color: #800180;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #800180;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><p style="color: black;"><b>Video of 6th November 1974</b><span style="color: #202122;"><br /></span></p><p style="color: black;"><span style="color: #202122;">This video is a second clip from the 1974 documentary on the Battle of Cholet. </span><span style="color: #202122;">The late Father Marie-Auguste Huchet, former Capuchin monk and historian of the Vendée, sings a</span><i style="color: #202122;"> </i><span style="color: #202122;">locally composed</span><i style="color: #202122;"> </i><span style="color: #202122;">lament for the dead of Les Lucs. In the introduction, J.-C. M. admires Father Huchet's careful scholarship. </span></p><div>Regard sur la Vendée (INA video collection): Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne<br /><span style="color: #0000ee;"><u><a href="https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/fiche-media/Olonne00123/les-lucs-sur-boulogne.html">https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/fiche-media/Olonne00123/les-lucs-sur-boulogne.html</a></u></span><span style="color: #202122;"><br /></span><div style="color: black;"><span style="color: #202122;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: black;"><span style="color: #202122;">"La complainte des Lucs" was composed by Brother Gabriel-Marie Gauvrit in 1944.</span></div><div style="color: black;"><br /></div><div style="color: black;"><span><summary><u>Introduction by Jean-Clement Martin</u>: <span style="font-family: inherit;">Father Marie-Auguste Huchet exemplifies the type of local scholarship which is renewing the history of the Vendée. He is a native of Les Lucs-de-Boulogne, custodian of its collective memory and one of its historians. As a Capuchin he was a missionary in Africa for many years before joining the Cisterians at the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Sept Fons in the department of Allier. As a child he performed in the commemorative plays put on in his local parish. He would even take the part of the curé Voyneau, who had been killed by the Infernal Columns in February 1794.</span></summary><p>The events at Les Lucs have been been known since the end of the 19th century, but were given new prominence after the Second World War by the publication of Gaëtan Bernoville's book <i>Un Oradour révolutionnaire.</i> This work has since given rise to bitter debate. In a more classic spirit of scholarship, Father Huchet has devoted himself to establishing precise facts and transmitting their memory. After several articles, in 1983 he published a work which listed all those killed in Les Lucs and presented the archival <span style="font-family: inherit;">sources in their full complexity. But as the video shows, he was could also be moved to sing the lament which is still transmitted in the parish.</span></p></span></div></div><div style="color: black;"><span><summary><u>Transcript</u>: <span style="font-family: inherit;">The narrator tells us that Turreau gave the Infernal Columns the mission of searching out and burning forests, villages, towns and farms. All the inhabitants were considered to be rebels; orders were carried out to the letter. On 26th February 1794, the column of General Cordelier was attacked by Charette's men, near the little town of Les Lucs. Two days later, in reprisals, a quarter of the population was massacred.</span></summary><p>Father Huchet remarks that the massacre at Les Lucs was only one among 100 or more actions carried out by the Infernal Columns. There were many victims in all the neighbouring parishes - Legé, Saint-Sulpice, Mormaison, Saint-Colomban, La Limouziniere. Touvois, to say nothing of parishes further afield.</p></span></div></span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #800180;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #800180;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>HISTORY REMADE - GENOCIDE IN THE VENDÉE</b></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Several videos concern aspects the commemorations in the Vendée which took place during the bicentenary of the Revolution. Jean-Clément Martin's careful introductions criticise the Right-wing view of events in the Vendée and appeal for a more nuanced interpretation. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><span><p><b style="color: #800180;"><span style="font-size: large;">A proposal for the legal recognition of the "genocide" in the Vendée</span></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMzlyIUXCsubiOo-tqkMIXKlApsVDQgs6snKCl22J5sGs-oJTvi5VH-5LLtDSUY_KS7HPMP-O7pZ45UwVXFZTrNQeu1okr6oc4qXPSjzItuUe2ANficuFs99YU-eHG8v_wtquU9raj3h_HxjOvF_c1HZuJENQjaTJuSnuNg1WgN5MI3xSPLCmtdZ5d/s508/genociide.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="508" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMzlyIUXCsubiOo-tqkMIXKlApsVDQgs6snKCl22J5sGs-oJTvi5VH-5LLtDSUY_KS7HPMP-O7pZ45UwVXFZTrNQeu1okr6oc4qXPSjzItuUe2ANficuFs99YU-eHG8v_wtquU9raj3h_HxjOvF_c1HZuJENQjaTJuSnuNg1WgN5MI3xSPLCmtdZ5d/s320/genociide.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b style="color: #800180;"><b style="color: black;">Video of 14th January 2008</b></b><p></p><p>In 2008 nine French deputies, among them Hervé de Charette, asked the National Assembly to acknowledge formally the genocide in the Vendée. The clip shows an interview with Reynald Sécher, the chief proponent of the genocide thesis.</p><p>Regard sur la Vendée (INA video collection): Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne<br /><span style="color: #0000ee;"><u>https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/fiche-media/Olonne00123/les-lucs-sur-boulogne.html</u></span></p><p><u>Introduction by Jean-Clement Martin</u>: In 1985 Reynald Secher, in his <i>thèse d’Etat</i>, maintained that the Vendée was the victim of a genocide ordered by the Revolutionary state. At the time of the bicentenary this idea struck a chord, and provoked a controversy that, thirty years down the line, had lost little of its immediacy - as this televised debate from 2008 shows. At this time a group of deputies proposed a law which would oblige France to recognise the genocide.</p><p>Reynald Secher's opponent in the debate is Alain Gérard, then director of the<i> Centre vendéen de Recherches historiques</i>. Supported by archival sources, Gérard argues that there may have been war crimes, even crimes against humanity, committed in 1794, but the term "genocide", coined after the Second World War, was not appropriate.</p><p>The issue at stake since the 1980s is whether the Revolutionary government ordered the extermination of the "Vendeans" or whether the massacres were committed by the armies on the ground, with the collusion of generals like Turreau, and of certain Representatives on Mission, such as Carrier. The complexity of the situation is compounded by the fact that the law of 1st August 1793 expressly demanded that women, children, and old men should be protected, and that refugees from the Vendée were given support for a number of years. Other "brigands" were also threatened with destruction, throughout the west, but also in Lyon, Toulon, Marseilles, to say nothing of the Basques, several thousand of whom were deported as suspects in 1793-1794.</p><p><br /></p><p><b style="color: #800180;"><span style="font-size: large;">A Polish Cardinal visits the Vendée (1989)</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjQZpWiPZrxLMfD_ceIGqQPBTiLBpRPAH6tFh-zB9lLJ-ODxHt3fM-63I2pojuA2qcF-qh2wGMk8T8HqEFku9RdAyOAMm1435JO19Bwwp5Ut7Kem0F4Nr5-FnnldpSj5jwqJhFWVt0rZ756xFc9YNFYlZQSmxdcHo6dE5L3-VqogBX2xjCcz1MKtP4/s400/solidarity.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjQZpWiPZrxLMfD_ceIGqQPBTiLBpRPAH6tFh-zB9lLJ-ODxHt3fM-63I2pojuA2qcF-qh2wGMk8T8HqEFku9RdAyOAMm1435JO19Bwwp5Ut7Kem0F4Nr5-FnnldpSj5jwqJhFWVt0rZ756xFc9YNFYlZQSmxdcHo6dE5L3-VqogBX2xjCcz1MKtP4/s320/solidarity.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Video of 10th July 1789</b></p><p style="text-align: left;">In 1789 a party from Poland visited Les Espesses in the Vendée and attended a commemoration at the Puy-du-Fou amusement park. </p><div style="text-align: left;">Regard sur la Vendée (INA video collection): Monseigneur Glemp au Puy-du-Fou<br /><a href="https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/fiche-media/Olonne00107/monseigneur-glemp-au-puy-du-fou.html">https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/fiche-media/Olonne00107/monseigneur-glemp-au-puy-du-fou.html</a></div><p><u>Introduction by Jean-Clement Martin</u>: In 1989 Cardinal Glemp, the primate of Poland, was invited by the General Council of the Vendée to an imposing ceremony at the Puy-du-Fou. As France celebrated the bicentenary of the Revolution, this venue consecrated the Vendée as the seat of Christian resistance.</p><p>The event assimilated the Vendée's opposition to the Revolution of 1789 to Polish resistance to the Revolution of 1917 - both were in defence of the people and religion. This vision was expressed by Monseigneur Glemp against the background of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the legalisation of Solidarity. In 1984 Jean-Paul II, himself a Pole, had beatified 100 martyrs from the Vendée and in 1996 had paid a brief visit to the Vendée at the invitation of the religious authorities.</p><p>History and memory in the Vendee thus chimed with wider national and international politics. The signature at this time of cultural conventions between urban and regional communities in France and Poland reinforced the image of the Vendée as a symbol of resistance to the Revolutionary state.</p><p><br /></p><div><span style="color: #800180;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Le Mémorial des Lucs-sur-Boulogne</b></span>. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPCBZq350RWgb6avwlnDIFMPLN7ss5139_x-k-F3XbgaPc2zEnW7wu2SvRkJxA9kEW0bxH1invaMlullfnARrj3x40Dl9p1K2TVKAzkNWNuMDvhN7ruI75lpCHoY65NhaPLbFPNSbbpmB6Icw6XZuOokG8jFfr65zJFCLAhXdpKr1SANR72O28bi1n/s511/Memorial.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="511" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPCBZq350RWgb6avwlnDIFMPLN7ss5139_x-k-F3XbgaPc2zEnW7wu2SvRkJxA9kEW0bxH1invaMlullfnARrj3x40Dl9p1K2TVKAzkNWNuMDvhN7ruI75lpCHoY65NhaPLbFPNSbbpmB6Icw6XZuOokG8jFfr65zJFCLAhXdpKr1SANR72O28bi1n/w320-h238/Memorial.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><b><div><b><br /></b></div>Video of 22nd September 1993.</b><br /><br /></div><div><div>The video shows the final preparations for the inauguration of the <i>Mémorial </i>by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, which took place before 40,000 invited guests in September 1993.</div><div><br /></div><div>Regard sur la Vendée (INA video collection): Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne<br /><span style="color: #0000ee;"><u>https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/fiche-media/Olonne00123/les-lucs-sur-boulogne.html</u></span></div><div><br /></div><div><summary><u>Introduction by Jean-Clément Martin</u>: If the commune of La Gaubretière was the "Pantheon of the Vendée" in the 19th century, it is the commune of Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne which became the Vendée's symbolic town of martyrdom a century later. The massacre of February 1794 committed by the infernal columns, was rediscovered during the Second Empire and commemorated by a chapel built on the banks of the Boulogne. The names of the victims, as listed by the curé Barbedette, were recorded in the chapel, whilst stain glass windows in the town church evoked the slaughter. In 1993 the memory was reinforced by a walkway with commemorative steles at the entrance to the town, and above all by the <i>Mémorial</i> built at the foot of the chapel, on the opposite side of the river. The Mémorial recalls the aesthetic of the monumental memorials of Berlin. The conceptual aim is to take the visitor on a journey which underlines the universal and spiritual dimensions of the war in the Vendée. It makes sober use of regional elements, such as the archives of the time, to offer a stylised evocation of the massacres. At the same time the specificity and complexity of the war are recalled by the scythes and felt hats of the Vendean peasantry; also by the Declaration of 1st October 1793 which called for the destruction of the "rebels of the Vendée". The lesson, of universal relevance, presented by the memorial is amplified by the rooms devoted to the events of 1793 to 1796 in the neighbouring <i>Historial.</i></summary></div></div><summary><br /></summary><p>The video features some clear footage of the interior of the memorial, plus comments by Dominique Souchet, from the department of the Vendée, and by the designer of the monument, Philippe Noir. They explain that the <i>Mémorial</i> is a place of commemoration rather than a museum. Contemporary works of art and original music express a historical and a spiritual reality. Philippe Noir in particular emphasises the religious aspects of the wars, which addressed the problem of faith and the right to practice religion. The architecture is intended to reflect this spirituality. </p><div><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"></span></i></p>.<div><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;"><b>Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in the Vendée (1993)</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig5HK-wXewk3IHyxmO2hWfZvTn3HYPeh5kdCyeMxS_nr2pKIabTq3O4y1Xfv3JOUmw5OnoT2qHGJuWLyel5j2Z-RMmyOcnju1IcWFcbv908xxH8_-j4PNaJA_eXN-LKqwWoEUWOyZ9re2Tl0eZ9Lvc2HcpVgHuWA3gORR7n5NK3dBvpyF69CWXLy5K/s505/Solz.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="505" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig5HK-wXewk3IHyxmO2hWfZvTn3HYPeh5kdCyeMxS_nr2pKIabTq3O4y1Xfv3JOUmw5OnoT2qHGJuWLyel5j2Z-RMmyOcnju1IcWFcbv908xxH8_-j4PNaJA_eXN-LKqwWoEUWOyZ9re2Tl0eZ9Lvc2HcpVgHuWA3gORR7n5NK3dBvpyF69CWXLy5K/w320-h243/Solz.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><b>Video of 26th September 1993 </b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> A clip from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's inauguration speech at Les Lucs in September 1993.</span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Regard sur la Vendée (INA video collection): Alexandre Soljenitsyne en Vendée </span></div><div><a href="https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/fiche-media/Olonne00110/alexandre-soljenitsyne-en-vendee.html">https://fresques.ina.fr/olonne/fiche-media/Olonne00110/alexandre-soljenitsyne-en-vendee.html</a></div></div><div><br /></div><summary><u>Introduction by Jean-Clément Martin</u>: The presence of Solzhenitsyn enlarged the idea of resistance to the French Revolution into a principled refusal of the idea of Revolution as a whole.</summary><p>The Russian writer, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, was the author of an important body of work in which he denounced the Soviet system. In his speech at Les Lucs he reaffirmed his anti-Revolutionary convictions. The French Revolutionary principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity were impossible to attain and represented a contradiction in terms.</p><p></p><p></p></div><p>Here is a copy of<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4649878822600110074/4386821046860251434#" target="_blank"> Solzhenitsyn's speech in English</a></p><p></p></span></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-14214058953475836922022-10-28T02:13:00.002-07:002023-12-01T02:14:22.614-08:00The skull of Stofflet<p><b><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;">... An unpleasant relic of the War in the Vendée</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTMoWI3X3Er9IDsr71T663ZXR1o06WH-iMnHA7Hu3SEHrNaL19PvcZGkb6_wxXNUEocctxPghDarXfbRuM74Ujs5Gj9Eijo1x35zPaGileev-Uk2rhNGTpFI5G5DoqNSblKluAgTG3128eCkEKg3Ydi7iR5_C5wQpmYFiEcFNoWX5NShTUz_HUJcVg/s1134/130141722_o.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="645" data-original-width="1134" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTMoWI3X3Er9IDsr71T663ZXR1o06WH-iMnHA7Hu3SEHrNaL19PvcZGkb6_wxXNUEocctxPghDarXfbRuM74Ujs5Gj9Eijo1x35zPaGileev-Uk2rhNGTpFI5G5DoqNSblKluAgTG3128eCkEKg3Ydi7iR5_C5wQpmYFiEcFNoWX5NShTUz_HUJcVg/w400-h228/130141722_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_7RRcPZMq4Ca2ydasY0gYUa1yjHJPHNFPcfGug3OSiHp9sC79dtg13dZogn-tZyvaOBHBOlWxvVI3yV_-ZqG_GLrxwH85x3xZODGApZP22twE2DDWf7WW5dVkHy-6xEaO-nlXsKE0nZ--N6IhxhHdabPGBXO2Drs1ZCE9DQArpq27CHB0YaiyT5cX/s465/Skull1.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="377" data-original-width="465" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_7RRcPZMq4Ca2ydasY0gYUa1yjHJPHNFPcfGug3OSiHp9sC79dtg13dZogn-tZyvaOBHBOlWxvVI3yV_-ZqG_GLrxwH85x3xZODGApZP22twE2DDWf7WW5dVkHy-6xEaO-nlXsKE0nZ--N6IhxhHdabPGBXO2Drs1ZCE9DQArpq27CHB0YaiyT5cX/w200-h162/Skull1.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>When I came across this macabre image by chance, I was rather shocked to learn that the skull on display is that of the much-respected Vendean general Jean-Nicolas Stofflet. This is not some downmarket Ripley's; it is the flagship<i> Musée d’Art et d’Histoire</i> in Cholet. With all the dialogue around history and memory in the Vendée, it seems strange to find so disrespectful an exhibit. (I suspect part of the explanation is that the skull is on loan to the museum - the family who owns it are said to take an active interest in its display and study.)<p></p><p><br /></p><p>Unsurprisingly, there have been protests. In <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">2015, during a visit by the organisation <i>Souvenir Vendéen</i> to Barthélémont, in Lorraine, the birthplace of Stofflet, the mayor </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Serge Husson,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> who is himself a distant descendant of the general, declared his desire to see an end to this "indecent situation". He wanted to see the skull buried or deposited, either in Barthélémont itself or in the memorial chapel near </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Maulévrier.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #800180; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b>Facial reconstruction</b></span></p><p>In October 2021 <i>Souvenir Vendéen </i>launched the project "Stofflet révélé!". The aim was to create a virtual facial reconstruction based on the skull. As well as revealing the visage of the general, the initiative was intended to pave the way for the removal of the relic from public display. Donations were invited via Dartagnans, a firm which specialises in cultural fundraising. The initial appeal, for 5,000 €, covered the reconstruction itself, which was entrusted to Philippe Froesch's VisualForensic. A further 10,000€ would allow the production of an educational video. The third phase would involve the creation of three 3D replicas of the skull for display, so as to free up the original for burial. However, the 15,000€ required for this final stage were said to be beyond the scope of the association's fundraising efforts.</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYIIKWF_A2OI9B_gUutl-jsq9lCxXbhaPvjzDQYLsYtZqthj3de8ui5jUaR1ZmX2YY2dNHhaYt_YU7gw57DO_XV30ELt9q4icr9390Kr3_SsLsDRiFLnxFbleo9nINk1rqHjf3O8aU2OOu_JHcBKG9cmjhcwxWUh0cglSh3jXoA9AFwKT_KqHS3Fl1/s800/20211130140717_3736_imggd.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="800" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYIIKWF_A2OI9B_gUutl-jsq9lCxXbhaPvjzDQYLsYtZqthj3de8ui5jUaR1ZmX2YY2dNHhaYt_YU7gw57DO_XV30ELt9q4icr9390Kr3_SsLsDRiFLnxFbleo9nINk1rqHjf3O8aU2OOu_JHcBKG9cmjhcwxWUh0cglSh3jXoA9AFwKT_KqHS3Fl1/w200-h100/20211130140717_3736_imggd.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The initial plan was to have the reconstruction ready for display in mid January 2022. The fundraising went well. On 26th October 2021 <span style="font-family: inherit;">initial photogrammetry was undertaken by archaeologists from the </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Association Insertion Patrimoine </i>based at the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><span><span style="color: #202122;">European Centre for Prehistoric Research (CERP)</span> in</span> Tautavel, who more usually</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> model prehistoric remains. 234 different views were taken. This sophisticated technique meant that handling was kept to a minimum. </span><p></p><div>On 9th January 2022 the<i> Courier de l'Ouest</i> published a report with a photograph of the work in progress. Philippe Froesch confirmed that he would be finished by "the end of February at the latest". Since then, however, the project seems to have stalled. The Visualforensic website now says the Stofflet is to "on display in 2023". I am not sure what the problem is, but for the moment, we just have to be patient.</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXJX8EdrysEFTieS9F6zVOvJxdQk5ctsWzFiXdeBIRa6pPQMdOg99sp5n4MtPzpk-xEftL-jl6mWuTeehMYdBgtkwDyI4yY88DanR-eWT5I4S5vbsi-VwMGT5I-byeTKUmCSEnLesMZqfFmxpVe7z-rDAHD8pqmMuxj2SwIukjDErGeG0HTH3g0a2f/s940/MjAyMjAxNzUyN2RhNWNjNzAyMWJhZDE1NzAyOTczMWM3MWUxMmE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="940" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXJX8EdrysEFTieS9F6zVOvJxdQk5ctsWzFiXdeBIRa6pPQMdOg99sp5n4MtPzpk-xEftL-jl6mWuTeehMYdBgtkwDyI4yY88DanR-eWT5I4S5vbsi-VwMGT5I-byeTKUmCSEnLesMZqfFmxpVe7z-rDAHD8pqmMuxj2SwIukjDErGeG0HTH3g0a2f/w400-h219/MjAyMjAxNzUyN2RhNWNjNzAyMWJhZDE1NzAyOTczMWM3MWUxMmE.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><p></p><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;">How did the museum come by the skull?</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>Stofflet was executed by firing squad together with four of his companions in arms, in the Place des Armes in Angers, <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">on 25th February 1796. </span><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">After the execution the bodies were transported to the cemetery at Le Clon, where Stofflet's head and right hand were cut off for public display. This was not an official initiative but a piece of private enterprise by a certain "citizen Gaultier" - though the fact his action was tolerated does little credit to the Revolutionary authorities. </span></div><div><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><div style="color: black;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span>The historian Dominique Lambert de </span>La Douasnerie</span><span style="color: #333333;"> supplies the available details:</span></div><div style="color: black;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: black;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The decapitation and amputation are not in any doubt. On 12th March 1796, seventeen days after the execution, a official in Angers called Naurays, wrote to the commissioner of the Directory:</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">"Our colleague Le Peudry has informed me of your concern regarding the conduct of citizen Gauthier, who has been exhibiting the head of the brigand Stofflet to public view. This citizen imagines that, by exciting public curiosity, he will earn some means of subsistence. He has presented himself to several of my colleagues who, like myself, have no problem allowing him to proceed...I cannot hide my opinion that this publicity is of benefit to assure the public of the brigand's destruction. If you think otherwise, please let me know and we will concert to take appropriate action."</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The patriotic exploitation of the remains of Stofflet went ahead, although some municipalities resisted. According to a letter of 25th March, the authorities in Saumur prohibited exhibition of "the head and right hand" of Stofflet, and, shortly afterwards, suppressed a theatrical production entitled "The Death of Stofflet".</span></i></div><div><br /></div><div>Dominique Lambert, <i>Paroisse et soldats de l'Armée Vendénne</i>, November 1997. <span style="color: #333333;"> Reproduced on </span><span style="color: #333333;"><i>La Maraîchine Normande (canalblog.com)</i> post of </span><span style="color: #333333;"><a href="http://shenandoahdavis.canalblog.com/archives/2012/10/02/25233866.html">02.12.2012</a></span> </div></span></div></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiibTUSQZCTqsEqQ3uPJFbbd29QdO65v_nxR1ff5t4APhPXGHp0d3naZeBooINILWXeqgHt2pdn-VkpR6K6zU5q62easls1km2nMmgxABHkF3XWr1iDzuvwMXLHPCfGYwturnlm6dTzt0arzb4yMLrHFAOfg0gd2f4c6xjwTGxE4ROoNZDaUGMRd49Y/s517/img-13-small517.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="517" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiibTUSQZCTqsEqQ3uPJFbbd29QdO65v_nxR1ff5t4APhPXGHp0d3naZeBooINILWXeqgHt2pdn-VkpR6K6zU5q62easls1km2nMmgxABHkF3XWr1iDzuvwMXLHPCfGYwturnlm6dTzt0arzb4yMLrHFAOfg0gd2f4c6xjwTGxE4ROoNZDaUGMRd49Y/w200-h154/img-13-small517.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">For some time after the Revolution, the head disappeared from view. There were various rumours. </span><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It was thought to have been at one time in the collections of the hospital, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">the Hôtel-Dieu, in Angers. Some said it had been </span><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">initially preserved in esprit-de-vin by a prominent lawyer, Duboys d'Angers but this idea was later considered unlikely.</span></div><div><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">In June 1838 the skull suddenly resurfaced when a surgeon called Nepveu from Brain-sur-l'Authion, a commune just outside Angers, wrote to inform the Stofflet family that it was in his possession. He claimed to have owned it for more than forty years and now wished to sell it. I</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">nitially the whole head been preserved with the flesh intact, but in 1811 or 1813 it had been reduced to a skull. Its authenticity had been verified by many people, including Duboys and the curé Barbedette, the former chaplain to the Vendean army. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">[Letter reproduced in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><i>L'intermédiaire des chercheurs et curieux</i> for 1892].</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Edmond Stofflet, the general's nephew and biographer, remained doubtful and declined to part with the five or six thousand francs Nepveu asked for the skull. His various inquiries came to nothing. Currently for sale on ebay is one of Edmond Stofflet's MS letters; he asks after a book on victims of the Revolution in Anjou, and admits that all the information on the skull he has found so far is </span><span style="color: #333333;">"vague and absolutely contradictory".</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUIqD3jjRIphVeJ8HSydDxZiWQ_gwb9mt2sX7XPzh0BH9Ua79fMT8_YUgVnxGsgjfMDMMKKGixF3fkDRHQug8oKHSsULRZwt3ACqf8dK2QkYu6i7BcXEXzh5ktHT8q74WHazynhg-MPKVxgyt6Z6xsAj9zj9-yv31MeOsMscxF9UwOAvKLaCCMrLKc/s2116/Letter%20of%20Stofflet.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="2116" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUIqD3jjRIphVeJ8HSydDxZiWQ_gwb9mt2sX7XPzh0BH9Ua79fMT8_YUgVnxGsgjfMDMMKKGixF3fkDRHQug8oKHSsULRZwt3ACqf8dK2QkYu6i7BcXEXzh5ktHT8q74WHazynhg-MPKVxgyt6Z6xsAj9zj9-yv31MeOsMscxF9UwOAvKLaCCMrLKc/s320/Letter%20of%20Stofflet.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Letter of Edmond Stofflet (1887) - 180€ on ebay</span>.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: #6aa84f;">.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The relic remained for several generations in the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Nepveu-Brunetière family. It was finally deposited with the museum in Cholet in 1995</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. The skull has never been subject to DNA testing, but it was carefully examined and is said to bear the mark of the sabre wound that Stofflet suffered during his arrest.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" height="314" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=314&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F100064457391456%2Fvideos%2F163581635973521%2F&show_text=false&width=560&t=0" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">In December 2021, the current owner, Docteur Hervé Brunetière, appeared in a video posted on Facebook in support of the <i>Souvenir Vendéen</i> appeal. He doesn't add very much circumstantial detail, apart from identifying the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">original owner as his ancestor Doctor Auguste Nepveu. Dr. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Brunetière says that Nepveu owned the head from 1798, but this is possibly just an extrapolation from the "forty years" mentioned in his letter to Edmond Stofflet. (According to the Cholet museum notes, Nepveu possibly took the specimen out of the Angers hospital in 1803. He is described elsewhere as a "phrenologist".) </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">After Nepveu's death, the skull passed to his son-in-law </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Charles Brunetière, who was the grandfather of the present owner. Dr Brunetière mentions the sabre wound and notes that the relic has remained continuously in the family. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> There is therefore a strong presumption in favour of its authenticity.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #800180; font-size: large;"><b>Is there a face of Stofflet?</b></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16px;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjz3YlL2WhyNv1UDl9r87C7LUYB2xYJEk8RhCdwk23gh7fefsTcXmFuWfvwFEYqmZERTYx8phBenNqS19KPtm9FEcGOkV-8eoStYZUQS52eCd8inaXyU7ahSHg1Nsyz2vhRabcQbSGdnH__W-ab-yXNNnjEHnciuAI4crLKI4EU_NMshj-kLQagXg/s393/Stofflet2.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="291" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjz3YlL2WhyNv1UDl9r87C7LUYB2xYJEk8RhCdwk23gh7fefsTcXmFuWfvwFEYqmZERTYx8phBenNqS19KPtm9FEcGOkV-8eoStYZUQS52eCd8inaXyU7ahSHg1Nsyz2vhRabcQbSGdnH__W-ab-yXNNnjEHnciuAI4crLKI4EU_NMshj-kLQagXg/w237-h320/Stofflet2.JPG" width="237" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.parismuseescollections.paris.fr/en/node/750222#infos-principales" style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Stofflet. | Paris Musées</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div>Naturally, one of the main attractions of the reconstruction exercise is to compare the results with existing portraits of Stofflet. As with the other Vendean generals, Charette excepted, there is no known contemporary likeness of Stofflet Nor is there a known "official portrait" among those commissioned by Louis XVIII. The iconic image of Stofflet is the lithograph by Zéphirin Belliard, which was one of a set of Vendean leaders, published between 1824 and 1829.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDf_SZBjeJ0jR4J2-uYjggUwJIDF1X6XgSGvXj9AvhoHPg9rQ109-r7UxoCSXH7-MUF8GYT92zsrOuagGi1UGp9zkmO0yhqb5SBTtE6ivv61c1fvQozbGZybDUKi-o47g0PofaBGps2VCa-0-V17EkuRITe77lFUC8IpSF034ssW7618QVf4Shla9z/s940/portrait-inedit-de-jean-nicolas-stofflet.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="940" data-original-width="940" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDf_SZBjeJ0jR4J2-uYjggUwJIDF1X6XgSGvXj9AvhoHPg9rQ109-r7UxoCSXH7-MUF8GYT92zsrOuagGi1UGp9zkmO0yhqb5SBTtE6ivv61c1fvQozbGZybDUKi-o47g0PofaBGps2VCa-0-V17EkuRITe77lFUC8IpSF034ssW7618QVf4Shla9z/w200-h200/portrait-inedit-de-jean-nicolas-stofflet.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://art-courtage.com/fr/accueil/75-portrait-inedit-de-jean-nicolas-stofflet-guerres-de-vendee-pierre-brost.html" style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Portrait de Stofflet (art-courtage.com)</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div>In 2019 the commercial gallery Pierre Brost offered for sale this beautiful <span style="background-color: transparent;">sketch of Stofflet by Robert Lefèvre, the painter responsible for the official portrait of Lescure. The work is signed and dated 1826. It is speculated that this might be the original for Belliard's lithograph, or even a preliminary study for a full-scale painting by Lefèvre. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: transparent;"> I note that <span style="color: black;">Philippe Froesch </span>was working from this image in the January 2022 photo of the reconstruction in progress.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>The individual depicted certainly has very definite features - large intense eyes, prominent noise and small mouth. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipnN386BmK0axBztkjTrJJvG4O6W7yP31kX-R6g33AbBztGzrJs5mFPFJEcLAR002Nz7DIjFzYUHyW-3Ad-VRRQlzh0CMLIakGr_Fix4t0YKY1PraHOeuKhm-jw1vF2h3I5UMcqABpVwvT-OqDA8ebhOdZoRpIcAnc9am6LNkHWfUtjT-FglCrD0q5/s1031/Stofflet3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1003" data-original-width="1031" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipnN386BmK0axBztkjTrJJvG4O6W7yP31kX-R6g33AbBztGzrJs5mFPFJEcLAR002Nz7DIjFzYUHyW-3Ad-VRRQlzh0CMLIakGr_Fix4t0YKY1PraHOeuKhm-jw1vF2h3I5UMcqABpVwvT-OqDA8ebhOdZoRpIcAnc9am6LNkHWfUtjT-FglCrD0q5/s320/Stofflet3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><br /><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGgRGeY9dfRuraTCUTncN8Lun-YneNIMd_YBsHERVFuXxIaEiONvNcQtKfFNLS9V1TsS-MkIZIYMjwv02S-AzK2EqrBId0SYO_M8lMrjcSLzbCBclIY255Ya9Wz6vXzVAKk2QKotrrGX98zfRK1GvF_hz2xVF_UXEUDzQ7IKT8tpSHPRF1gg_tUrEl/s1095/77772599_o.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="821" data-original-width="1095" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGgRGeY9dfRuraTCUTncN8Lun-YneNIMd_YBsHERVFuXxIaEiONvNcQtKfFNLS9V1TsS-MkIZIYMjwv02S-AzK2EqrBId0SYO_M8lMrjcSLzbCBclIY255Ya9Wz6vXzVAKk2QKotrrGX98zfRK1GvF_hz2xVF_UXEUDzQ7IKT8tpSHPRF1gg_tUrEl/w200-h150/77772599_o.png" width="200" /></a></div></div><div>Another early likeness of Stofflet, is the statue which now stands, with that of Cathelineau, on the front of the chapel in the Cimetière des Martyrs at Yzernay near Maulévrier. The statues date from the 1820s and were installed in the park of the Château Colbert before being transferred to the chapel in 1863. Massin Le Goff, former <i>conservateur du patrimoine </i>and<i> </i>joint-author of a guidebook to the château, identifies the sculptor as Léon Chapeau. The local historian Michel Lefort has more recently suggested Jacques-Edme Dumont (1761-1844). [<a href="https://www.ouest-france.fr/pays-de-la-loire/cholet-49300/pres-de-cholet-guerres-de-vendee-et-si-le-vrai-visage-de-stofflet-etait-deja-a-yzernay-d56a8a90-51fb-11ec-8e47-dc859594d424" target="_blank"><i>L'Écho d'Ancenis </i>12.12.2021</a>] </div><div><br /></div><div>However, the source of this image is no great mystery. The label at the <i>Historial de Vendée, </i>which possesses a reduced copy of the statue, informs us, that the model was the general's nephew, the brother of Edmond Stofflet, who was known for his resemblance to his uncle. </div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16px;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16px;"><b>References</b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><div style="color: black;">Geoffroy Berthaud "Le visage de Stofflet, ancien général des guerres de Vendée, bientôt dévoilé" <a href="https://actu.fr/pays-de-la-loire/cholet_49099/le-visage-de-stofflet-ancien-general-des-guerres-de-vendee-bientot-devoile_46407513.html" target="_blank"><i>L'Écho d'Ancenis</i> article of 12.11.2021.</a></div><div style="color: black;"><br /></div><div style="color: black;">Most of the relevant details can be found in online newspaper articles and in the series of posts by "Nicolas Stofflet" on the blog <i>Vendéens & Chouans: </i></div><div style="color: black;">"Le crâne de Stofflet va-t-il disparaître?", post of <a href="http://www.vendeensetchouans.com/archives/2015/05/17/32069903.html">17.05.2015</a></div><div style="color: black;">"Stofflet, general vendéen, va révéler son vrai visage", post of <a href="http://www.vendeensetchouans.com/archives/2021/11/03/39204550.html"> 03.11.2021</a></div><div style="color: black;">"Autour de Stofflet : la marche au supplice" post of <a href="http://www.vendeensetchouans.com/archives/2021/11/24/39233409.html">24.11.2021</a></div><div style="color: black;">"Autour de Stofflet : le cimetière du Clon", post of <a href="http://www.vendeensetchouans.com/archives/2021/12/13/39260668.html">13.12.2021</a></div><div style="color: black;"><div><br /></div></div><div style="color: black;"><div>Appeal for the facial reconstruction on the fundraising platform Dartagnans.</div><div><a href="https://dartagnans.fr/en/projects/stofflet-revele/campaign">https://dartagnans.fr/en/projects/stofflet-revele/campaign</a></div></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><div><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">For details of the skull and all sorts of other personal relics from the Vendée in French collections:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">Éric Morin, "Pratiques de transmission de la mémoire vendéenne: l’exemple des objets familiaux confiés aux musées" in </span><span style="color: #333333;"><i>Des guerres civiles du xvie siècle à nos jours - Presses universitaires de Rennes</i> ed. </span>Anne Rolland-Boulestreau, Bernard Michon<span style="color: #333333;"> [Open access ebook]</span></span></div><div style="color: black;"><a href="https://books.openedition.org/pur/185399"><span style="font-family: inherit;">https://books.openedition.org/pur/185399</span></a></div><div style="color: black;"><br /></div><div style="color: black;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="color: black;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Note of 01.04.2023</span></b></div><div style="color: black;"><br /></div><div style="color: black;">Last night (31st March) the <i>Souvenir Vendéen </i>finally unveiled the completed image at a soirée in Maulévrier. Pretty impressive, don't you think?</div><div style="color: black;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEMZbLhupc5loYduuJUJNHxrvOLzgzlG4c_beKmI6_hMJr7Kg718_P5HbpmbFToRDoE4eNLyYAJItasFP0275sNAYvyOHabXgaiMk_np7U2yUonc-g1ukApbx4IcjtRYO4tacg8UvI9NHRLaV1Ac7DqKF2CtRc82N-bEeA5J8scUOagTpE6io6bhzLbrhY/s800/132918884.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="529" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEMZbLhupc5loYduuJUJNHxrvOLzgzlG4c_beKmI6_hMJr7Kg718_P5HbpmbFToRDoE4eNLyYAJItasFP0275sNAYvyOHabXgaiMk_np7U2yUonc-g1ukApbx4IcjtRYO4tacg8UvI9NHRLaV1Ac7DqKF2CtRc82N-bEeA5J8scUOagTpE6io6bhzLbrhY/w265-h400/132918884.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><div style="color: black;"><br /></div></span></div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-83097515088541492512022-10-25T03:46:00.001-07:002023-03-04T03:53:24.998-08:00David d'Angers's veterans<p> </p><p>During his stay in Saint-Florent for the inauguration of the monument to Bonchamps in 1825, David d'Angers made a series of sketches of veterans of the Grande-Armée d'Anjou who had gathered for the occasion. His original album of 1825, <i>Portraits de Vendéens par David d'Angers, </i>is preserved in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Angers. The <i>Archives de la Vendée </i>website tells us he planned to create a series of bas-relief, but, if so, the project was never begun. Each of the 62 drawings is carefully annotated with biographical details, either by David himself, or in a second hand, probably that of his former drawing master Jean-Jacques Delusse (1758-1833). The result is a rare visual record of a passing generation. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><div style="text-align: left;"><div><br /></div><div><div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGNSCtJryuIFUdLzyqyu58X71DuGGscgMtX3B_YvVDZe3AGvQ7uynSmgwU8oMy2BdX8OQwylI2g4qjxmUOWFpZQ6S957s2nUzo74MHNkAjy-mfHXuxipQhUbumnbA21y64B39dwvcCE0yC6yBTFKzEg4l2GtZLI1fRjUOJ95Sj_VfLiL25IuKY7mK6/s4608/IMG_3382.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="4608" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGNSCtJryuIFUdLzyqyu58X71DuGGscgMtX3B_YvVDZe3AGvQ7uynSmgwU8oMy2BdX8OQwylI2g4qjxmUOWFpZQ6S957s2nUzo74MHNkAjy-mfHXuxipQhUbumnbA21y64B39dwvcCE0yC6yBTFKzEg4l2GtZLI1fRjUOJ95Sj_VfLiL25IuKY7mK6/w640-h480/IMG_3382.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">On view in the church at Saint-Florent</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div>David, it seems, had no political agenda. He was moved by the emotion of the occasion and by his empathy for these tough proud old men. His interest in the fashionable science of physiognomy underlay his desire to record their features. According to Victor Pavie, the men responded readily, crowding to his door, eager to share their reminiscences. Years later, Pavie tried to explain how David, a man of convinced Republican views, had come to feel drawn to the veterans:</div><div><br /></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The Vendean peasants who gathered around the tomb in Saint-Florent in 1825 constituted a people. David understood this. As a child from a different school, almost a soldier from another camp, he could not embrace the Vendée in all its radiant unity - the sanctity of the cause, the martyred devotion. But he recognised generous and worthy opponents of Kléber and Marceau. The era of the War in the Vendée was coloured for him with the same Homeric prestige that Gros's brush had lent to the battles of the Empire, but with the resonance of religion and home. He preferred to call his native province by the name "Vendée". Two days at Saint-Florent, under a sun which lit up the wide vistas and splendid serenity of his homeland, sufficed to bring him in intimate contact with the survivors of the Grand Army. These brave men posed and chatted to him with a frankness which was both noble and familiar. Not one aspect escaped him. To see him so keen to record with the same crayon, their stories and their features, they would easily have mistaken him </span></i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">for a partisan - he was indeed an unreserved admirer of their pride in combat and simplicity in glory.</span></i></div></div><div><i>Oration of M. Victor Pavie, for the inauguration of the bust of David</i>, Angers, 12th March 1863</div><div><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Revue_de_l_Anjou/UU5NAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=A+le+voir+recueillir+si+avidement,+du+m%C3%AAme+crayon,+et+leurs+r%C3%A9cits+et+leurs+figures&pg=PA124&printsec=frontcover"><i>Revue de l'Anjou</i> - Google Books</a></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div></div></div></span></div><div><div><div><b>References</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p> A complete set of photographs was published by his biographer, Henry Jouin, as long ago as 1902:<br /><i>Cent portraits dessinés par David d'Angers</i>, text by Henri Jouin (1905) - "Les Vendéens"<br /><a href="https://archive.org/details/gri_33125006413096/page/n95/mode/2up">https://archive.org/details/gri_33125006413096/page/n95/mode/2up</a></p></div></div><div><div>The the <i>Archives de la Vendée </i>holds a set of 25 photographs of the album. The catalogue includes high quality images. </div><div><a href="http://recherche-archives.vendee.fr/ark:/22574/vta31fcb26e0d65a68f">http://recherche-archives.vendee.fr/ark:/22574/vta31fcb26e0d65a68f</a></div><div><br /></div></div><div><div> In 2006, for the bicentenary of David's death, Pierre Leroy, of the <i>Souvenir Vendéen</i> revisited the original album and new photographs were taken by the author of the blog "Clemenceau du Petit Moulin". The results are available on the website of<i> Les cousins de la Marquise, </i>a society for genealogical research centred on the region between Nantes and Angers</div><div><br /></div></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkRJerVqtSn4g9twcLoZOsAN2OlG_DNusjHEswWim3CSjSvKmF_GVyK4hKh4b025hq6GmAvJyVPQCBM3swJFNguibnSWIkRz4WyKd-w-hzfCu2yvrcYhulZeUQ6HaHG7q7tO50k_Srqw8Luw139HKgm4g8ebKpEGNj0NWReWoZkryk26LM8D8WAZQ6/s999/Veterans.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="999" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkRJerVqtSn4g9twcLoZOsAN2OlG_DNusjHEswWim3CSjSvKmF_GVyK4hKh4b025hq6GmAvJyVPQCBM3swJFNguibnSWIkRz4WyKd-w-hzfCu2yvrcYhulZeUQ6HaHG7q7tO50k_Srqw8Luw139HKgm4g8ebKpEGNj0NWReWoZkryk26LM8D8WAZQ6/w320-h170/Veterans.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div>"Les véterans des guerres de Vendée: 62 portraits dessinés par David d'Angers", <i>Les cousins de la Marquise </i>[genealogical website], 2005</div><div><a href="http://marquisien.free.fr/include/david/david.php" target="_blank">LES VETERANS DES GUERRES DE VENDEE présenté par LES COUSINS DE LA MARQUISE (free.fr)</a>#</div><div><br /></div><div>See also: "David d'Angers et les Vendéens d'Anjou, 1825", <i>Clemenceau du Petit Moulin</i> [blog] post of 16.12.2010 </div><div><a href="http://clemenceaudupetitmoulin.centerblog.net/rub-david-angersvendeens-anjou-.html">http://clemenceaudupetitmoulin.centerblog.net/rub-david-angersvendeens-anjou-.html</a></div></div><p style="text-align: left;">Local History Group of La Chapelle St Florent, <i>Les Vendéens de la Chapelle St Florent dessinés par David d'Angers<br /></i><a href="https://docplayer.fr/84380857-Les-vendeens-de-la-chapelle-st-florent-dessines-par-david-d-angers.html">https://docplayer.fr/84380857-Les-vendeens-de-la-chapelle-st-florent-dessines-par-david-d-angers.html</a><br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Here is a small selection of David's images:</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUBFnOm7r5NmBU7nYt_1MGyP9HrX8Dhfs0aFE_PJ0n9Wnykh1hAq7HBiOrBy6pqnZ3PVMN8GBxFKqr2c95rUTNHcPNkbrUO5Y0RjhYdSI-mbgxOinDP4w9H9BEes0wca_da_SpooGuOT_1fpq6ahsIokTiPYrGy6dlorzHQ9R_gHnKS0NgOTM7Utlr/s959/Michel2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="959" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUBFnOm7r5NmBU7nYt_1MGyP9HrX8Dhfs0aFE_PJ0n9Wnykh1hAq7HBiOrBy6pqnZ3PVMN8GBxFKqr2c95rUTNHcPNkbrUO5Y0RjhYdSI-mbgxOinDP4w9H9BEes0wca_da_SpooGuOT_1fpq6ahsIokTiPYrGy6dlorzHQ9R_gHnKS0NgOTM7Utlr/w640-h206/Michel2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div>These three men were some of the earliest insurgents, identified by David among those who "sought out" Bonchamps in March 1793: Left: <b>René-Guillaume Michel</b>, aged 55, from Saint-Florent, iron smith and former lieutenant. Centre: <b>Julien Suzineau</b>, native of Saint-Herblon. Right:<b> Paul-Jacques Thareau,</b> aged 75, from Saint-Quentin-en-Mauges, first sergeant of M. de Bonchamps. </div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBBGoELSvJYEQ2v7dqVKJSSAXD65OEFR9GN4gRIN4sUQRUgR0PsSetCNV_TOrwvNSXauzVgsRG6vtVhA6W5gIcEusPEjzxL61wJABYsUS_1q2u-2ZLLpZw3p43vWyxn_x89CwZqh3UOV_22WIjmPFl_DOZ5-Alq6SCIYaQaeaGmmt2WFMMkocYTo-8/s455/Pohu%20(1).JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="455" data-original-width="363" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBBGoELSvJYEQ2v7dqVKJSSAXD65OEFR9GN4gRIN4sUQRUgR0PsSetCNV_TOrwvNSXauzVgsRG6vtVhA6W5gIcEusPEjzxL61wJABYsUS_1q2u-2ZLLpZw3p43vWyxn_x89CwZqh3UOV_22WIjmPFl_DOZ5-Alq6SCIYaQaeaGmmt2WFMMkocYTo-8/w255-h320/Pohu%20(1).JPG" width="255" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Pierre Pohu, farm worker, native of Saint-Florent. Cavalryman; made captain in 1815. </div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihp4Y8o3sxuizzvV5AUqDKCitomGAFRl-TyORba3-PtmHVlmNqhlzZ8JipyXFu-hyzS8Nr2Xv_6t0CmklR1W8KVBkbdyVg5AsvqpEkIQsqCUFyVo24LfdswxoKxUkrbRHPDDuAVMhFYyOZWksQEYtY-DSM-SrkDRNqm7GlUk7tOyMekpIXqw_WMiCd/s648/Tisserand.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="363" data-original-width="648" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihp4Y8o3sxuizzvV5AUqDKCitomGAFRl-TyORba3-PtmHVlmNqhlzZ8JipyXFu-hyzS8Nr2Xv_6t0CmklR1W8KVBkbdyVg5AsvqpEkIQsqCUFyVo24LfdswxoKxUkrbRHPDDuAVMhFYyOZWksQEYtY-DSM-SrkDRNqm7GlUk7tOyMekpIXqw_WMiCd/w400-h224/Tisserand.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Etienne-Mathurin Péneau, </b>aged 64, nicknamed "La Ruine", a weaver, from Cholet. Former Drum-Major in the Vendean Army. Péneau had been a regular soldier before the Revolution: a grenadier in the Regiment of Poitou, then sergeant in the Regiment of Armagnac. I am not sure whether this military pedigree accounts for his magnificent pigtails!</div><div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU1hDm04SXlB92LyZPRzTUtCDuQh6jTri0sufDLPXTkGee6Hj3sF0E_CyBUogeqDh3Tj8TGku0UvrDB06ZDdxAKwVzGf6Pfjwx8WBWQmYPIuoMgwjr5pcK7XwEb3Z43ih_2QIDlzeofBvh9_TuqqlyMj4xNGLIriR6FYiV8qMpgAiAIfe6kjf9p2lX/s711/Cosneau2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="321" data-original-width="711" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU1hDm04SXlB92LyZPRzTUtCDuQh6jTri0sufDLPXTkGee6Hj3sF0E_CyBUogeqDh3Tj8TGku0UvrDB06ZDdxAKwVzGf6Pfjwx8WBWQmYPIuoMgwjr5pcK7XwEb3Z43ih_2QIDlzeofBvh9_TuqqlyMj4xNGLIriR6FYiV8qMpgAiAIfe6kjf9p2lX/w400-h180/Cosneau2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">.</span></div><div>Two weather-beaten fishermen from Varades who served in the Breton companies of Bonchamps's army: Left:<b> Mathurin Cosneau</b>, aged 68, nicknamed "Trompe-la-Mort", from the many times he had escaped peril</div><div>Right: <b>René Perraud</b>, aged 56, a former gunner. See: <a href="http://www.vendeensetchouans.com/archives/2010/09/05/18985950.html">Les Compagnies bretonnes de Bonchamps - Vendéens & Chouans (vendeensetchouans.com)</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRb-JR9RSEUPw1XyOyTJDMFWvbKJz7AF8yf8cXYHoBYuBHD5v3vnIteDbaC2QX6eFP-kz6UCMYr0uFVhtxh5zN19KlQyzo-f0yMXDpzJEGm9xCZo8bjqKV-7i5-GkliU6vlQw-wQF61Q3jvJ7m1DeNf9cZv2rAOJdu1ASM2-BFF7LzT3wOhxKuuITc/s788/Three%20portrait.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="788" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRb-JR9RSEUPw1XyOyTJDMFWvbKJz7AF8yf8cXYHoBYuBHD5v3vnIteDbaC2QX6eFP-kz6UCMYr0uFVhtxh5zN19KlQyzo-f0yMXDpzJEGm9xCZo8bjqKV-7i5-GkliU6vlQw-wQF61Q3jvJ7m1DeNf9cZv2rAOJdu1ASM2-BFF7LzT3wOhxKuuITc/w640-h222/Three%20portrait.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div>Some of the combattants had been very young men. Left: <b>René Guinehut, </b>wool spinner, aged 49, from the commune of Drain, to the west of Saint-Florent, standard-bearer in the Army of Anjou. Guinehut was born in August 1777 and therefore turned 16 in 1793. Centre: <b>Pierre Deniau</b>, a tailor, aged only 43. Deniau participated in later stages of the war and was a lieutenant during the Hundred-Days</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Right: <b>Louis Chateignier, </b><span>farm labourer, aged 44. </span></div><div>The annotation on David's portrait reads:</div><div> <i>Of the army of Bonchamp. On the retreat from Le Mans, he was taken prisoner with his brother and both were shot. His brother was killed outright but he received a ball through the cheek and was able to feign death; he remaining completely still for several hours, then made his escape into the undergrowth.</i> </div><div>Henry Jouin thought David must have been mistaken, since this man was surely too young to have participated in the conflict at Le Mans. <span>However, subsequent research has confirmed his identity.</span></div><div><div>.</div></div><div><div>Louis Chateignier [or Chataignier] was born at La Chapelle-Saint-Florent on 5th November 1780. He would therefore have been just 12 years and 4 months old when hostilities began. Two Chateignier brothers, Julien and Louis, are recorded as taking part in the <i>Virée de galerne</i>. Julien, the elder, would have been 19 and therefore liable for conscription. The abbé Félix Deniau in his <i>Histoire de la Vendée</i> confirms that farmers in the Le Mans region sheltered Louis after his brush with death. A request for a pension in 1824, states that he had "an enormous scar on his cheek from a gun wound" as well as a crushed hand and bayonet wounds. Chateignier signed the document with a cross. </div></div><div><a href="http://clemenceaudupetitmoulin.centerblog.net/6573336-Louis-Chataignier--soldat-vendeen-I">Louis Chataignier, soldat vendéen (I) (centerblog.net)</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Here are some of the final witnesses to the death of Bonchamps:</div><div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheDqcA30ejq-HT1sl5BsNy1pbhj8Ge8TLialXPGmsoBmtUApj-yXvfI29VeWT1gje5ZjmjUrALzZOPohnRTJKmyx7D2HdfjuNAs48eg14g4YtXxxI0s92-5GAcGgm62f7uDyaUCO2O2O8hJtGzhtjFOVLYvgI9HjbdSUh8uAKxlvV9OXKdqm97oCti/s700/Ren%C3%A9%20Bellion.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="700" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheDqcA30ejq-HT1sl5BsNy1pbhj8Ge8TLialXPGmsoBmtUApj-yXvfI29VeWT1gje5ZjmjUrALzZOPohnRTJKmyx7D2HdfjuNAs48eg14g4YtXxxI0s92-5GAcGgm62f7uDyaUCO2O2O8hJtGzhtjFOVLYvgI9HjbdSUh8uAKxlvV9OXKdqm97oCti/w400-h209/Ren%C3%A9%20Bellion.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><b>René Bellion,</b> aged 58 and his brother <b>Jean Bellion</b>, aged 55. From fishermen from Varades and former soldiers in the Breton companies.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Bellion brothers owned the cottage at La Meilleraie where Bonchamps died. David writes of René that he "crossed the Loire with general Bonchamps, who was mortally wounded, and carried him personally to his tomb". Of his brother Jean: "It was at his house that general Bonchamp died, and he carried him to the cemetery". </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1GxaLnaMXuAovQth39-Gx2RzII68jIYAR3LV_2gRqbw7i68THufxahuLB2XKglc8-NhW7Xs6ishf2wcp6JxbdTuOZm3Ge_xIqbotQf-MRbkFrueRFqYIvY3e37FeAvFwc-BdHvGTOf5gzrJdLThARZGRFUowRTwDJjE0jLNKaZK8GPgD7BU6wrz5Y/s361/Michel%20Chataigner.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="325" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1GxaLnaMXuAovQth39-Gx2RzII68jIYAR3LV_2gRqbw7i68THufxahuLB2XKglc8-NhW7Xs6ishf2wcp6JxbdTuOZm3Ge_xIqbotQf-MRbkFrueRFqYIvY3e37FeAvFwc-BdHvGTOf5gzrJdLThARZGRFUowRTwDJjE0jLNKaZK8GPgD7BU6wrz5Y/w137-h152/Michel%20Chataigner.JPG" width="137" /></a></div><br /><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Michel Chataigner</b>, aged 68, <i>charcutier</i>, born in Saint-Florent and former sergeant in the Army of Anjou. "He was present at the last moments of the general. It was in his arms that he took his last breath". </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">David includes the two priests who ministered to the dying Bonchamps:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWLVMNGlJ6d7MUYG9QQG7IxuaxkEn9GQ5wIgkMg8tQtC7wUq7cMYY4DG35rM1GJImFC3uC_pKICvLnRY9NZQ4vYOCKNW328O-hZ8Hn-JfFoCUjFYKeiL8jPQrZj3Z_iCzLRtFviqd48oYoOZl2fKbwl-pBopJz8xs-tV_wsoXA5_nLGSGVr8f_S4ST/s619/the%20abb%C3%A9s.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="619" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWLVMNGlJ6d7MUYG9QQG7IxuaxkEn9GQ5wIgkMg8tQtC7wUq7cMYY4DG35rM1GJImFC3uC_pKICvLnRY9NZQ4vYOCKNW328O-hZ8Hn-JfFoCUjFYKeiL8jPQrZj3Z_iCzLRtFviqd48oYoOZl2fKbwl-pBopJz8xs-tV_wsoXA5_nLGSGVr8f_S4ST/w400-h205/the%20abb%C3%A9s.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Left: <b>Mathurin Joseph Martin</b>, curé of Montrevault, former intendant in the Army of Bonchamps. a he abbé S<b>imon-René-Aubin Courgeon de la Pannière</b>, curé of La Chapelle-Saint-Florent. The abbé Courgeon "ministered to general Bonchamps at his last moments, in the village of La Meilleriae en Brittany, 18th October 1793"</div><p>Louis Pavie records that the comte de Bouillé, David and their party dined with the abbé Courgeon on 26th or 27th June. It was probably on this occasion that David sketched his likeness, together with that of Mme de Bouillé . Courgeon related how he had heard Bonchamps's confession and administered the last rites, but in fact been too overcome to remain at his deathbed to the end. <br />Louis Pavie, <i>Voyage à Saint-Florent et La Chapelle, le vingt-cinq juin 1825<br /></i><a href="https://commulysse.angers.fr/ark:/54380/a011506952106xfj18Z/4a8f5a1e01">https://commulysse.angers.fr/ark:/54380/a011506952106xfj18Z/4a8f5a1e01</a></p></div><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3sOEk1zb2oK6UUsmq4moN_otPmLC82smTRQDjIdIFShva3icq6hOZD3QMBPPR5HL-rxtSmMaxMKALJWlC2iSAN3XeHro28L6UTY067cext3lRv87KpL77grbVpFd2JS1bLO4mIz3E7Df9k5iprOWI6pnRExxhVJirG5QanhtmOa1UyaHX8prkmgSv/s359/Rabjean.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="326" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3sOEk1zb2oK6UUsmq4moN_otPmLC82smTRQDjIdIFShva3icq6hOZD3QMBPPR5HL-rxtSmMaxMKALJWlC2iSAN3XeHro28L6UTY067cext3lRv87KpL77grbVpFd2JS1bLO4mIz3E7Df9k5iprOWI6pnRExxhVJirG5QanhtmOa1UyaHX8prkmgSv/w182-h200/Rabjean.JPG" width="182" /></a><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Louis Rabjeau</b>, aged 67, stone mason, from Saint-Florent. Former sergeant with the <i>Chasseurs </i>in the division of Beaupréau. During the Hundred Days, he volunteered with his four sons for service in the Royalist cause.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>It was Rabjeau who in 1825 formally sealed Bonchamps remains inside the commemorative monument.</div></div><div><a href="http://clemenceaudupetitmoulin.centerblog.net/2610783-A-la-decouverte-du-vieux-St-Florent-25-">A la découverte du vieux St-Florent (25). (centerblog.net)</a></div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPog1Oj6wv_LN6iGDyHC0XgAT64rRNd8qVEVyxjzPcpRBR12cN9UAAzvEmYpEjD6El_fWesuB430UyL2Vx4bAIIy5ixSDh5NiwBy0jcer3r-VLrDL9iInR1wKnjEaGw0fBLDh6r-kMjwfMR9GsyvZaRaca9DFMcCcdwCXtZEXZkpu7KdmOWFEMBqtr/s400/Burgevin.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="324" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPog1Oj6wv_LN6iGDyHC0XgAT64rRNd8qVEVyxjzPcpRBR12cN9UAAzvEmYpEjD6El_fWesuB430UyL2Vx4bAIIy5ixSDh5NiwBy0jcer3r-VLrDL9iInR1wKnjEaGw0fBLDh6r-kMjwfMR9GsyvZaRaca9DFMcCcdwCXtZEXZkpu7KdmOWFEMBqtr/w162-h200/Burgevin.JPG" width="162" /></a></div><div> <b>Jean Burgevin</b>. aged 58, former soldier of the Vendée.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not all Vendean soldiers were paragons of honour. In his article in<i> L’Almanach du peuple </i>for 1851, David wrote:</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>I saw at Saint-Florent a man whom his comrades approached only with horror, since they recalled that this wretch had dragged out the wives and children of patriots to massacre them at their doors. He had often struck down defenceless women on the thresholds of their homes and amused himself afterwards by slashing them with his sabre. It was with profound repulsion that I drew the portrait of this immoderate brute, whose cowardice and fanaticism were to be read in his features. I recorded him as a phrenological and physiognomic study. </i></span><a href="https://blogs.mediapart.fr/jean-clement-martin/blog/100719/david-et-la-vendee-de-la-difficulte-des-reconciliations-nationales">(mediapart.fr)</a></div><div><br /></div><div>This man is tentatively identified as Burgevin:</div><div><a href="http://clemenceaudupetitmoulin.centerblog.net/3293267-Jean-Burgevin--une-brute-immonde-">Jean Burgevin, une brute immonde ? (centerblog.net)</a></div><p></p>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-77279089761241015882022-10-03T07:21:00.007-07:002023-03-04T03:52:34.661-08:00The monument to Bonchamps at Saint-Florent<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>My father was one of the five thousand prisonners in the church at Saint-Florent, for whom Bonchamps commanded pardon on the point of dying. In executing this monument I wanted to repay, as far as I could, my father's debt of gratitude.</i></span></div><div>Note of David d'Angers on an engraving (quoted Jouin, <i>David d'Angers</i>, p.150-151)</div><span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMSKCCa8iv6TYNli9VmmVOEUj7i5VKcNw8vLjgz7UQemxnLoMSvGpEYSWHPTOd6DV4r1BannvNfkp3jx_2UE7hlOitwRfw3zEd8dd9m_7ukR21lrSGsgoK0kzyix8sgTKVGggxGzelZTinR1IHgVKlZkOANekrZ7G00c2QwL3kdVLQPQkU7-jWSp6s/s4608/image2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4608" data-original-width="3456" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMSKCCa8iv6TYNli9VmmVOEUj7i5VKcNw8vLjgz7UQemxnLoMSvGpEYSWHPTOd6DV4r1BannvNfkp3jx_2UE7hlOitwRfw3zEd8dd9m_7ukR21lrSGsgoK0kzyix8sgTKVGggxGzelZTinR1IHgVKlZkOANekrZ7G00c2QwL3kdVLQPQkU7-jWSp6s/w480-h640/image2.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>Here are a few additional notes on David d'Angers's famous monument to Bonchamps in the Abbey church at Saint-Florent.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS_eT6_q34-uFhgzeXkt9lZw9r4Dn9RfKJj4EUm9RQfRXCryy_zJUwpDGBG4Zi_jQx3y0qXUu9qLNTUQhNc7nbK8pEzWA-3ZKwM8keTGFmndgjwJSdxJ1Vv4XsGoWWgqrJXv2YIZ-xThhVZ7WSF-kthxB9D0eTCMmQCuj_RWNaE1yPgOgMVvcapQEv/s4608/IMG_3245.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="4608" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS_eT6_q34-uFhgzeXkt9lZw9r4Dn9RfKJj4EUm9RQfRXCryy_zJUwpDGBG4Zi_jQx3y0qXUu9qLNTUQhNc7nbK8pEzWA-3ZKwM8keTGFmndgjwJSdxJ1Vv4XsGoWWgqrJXv2YIZ-xThhVZ7WSF-kthxB9D0eTCMmQCuj_RWNaE1yPgOgMVvcapQEv/s320/IMG_3245.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div><div><b>The Father</b></div><div><br /></div><div>David d'Angers always maintained that he executed the monument in recognition of Bonchamps's humanity, as personally experienced by his father. Pierre-Louis David (1756-1821) had been a successful decorative sculptor in Angers. He was an enthusiastic patriot and volunteered in the Republican army in 1793. In a notice written in 1838, David recalled that his father was a daring soldier, who was often entrusted with dangerous missions. Having been wounded and captured at the Battle of Torfou (19th September 1793), he found himself among the prisoners liberated at Saint-Florent on the orders of Bonchamps. He subsequently retired from active service to a post in army administration, but remained a lifelong ardent supporter of the Revolution, an allegiance which he handed on to his son.</div><div><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div>It comes as some surprise to learn that David's father had taken the five-year old Pierre-Jean, the youngest of his four children, on campaign with him. After the Battle of Saumur, the boy became separated from his father, and actually travelled for some time in the baggage of the Royalist army. He was reunited with his father by chance at Saint-Florent.</div><div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyVcgDwmpYr5XpAvbRvP5LwT-uqAxQGwtbU5dy7xpB6J9W48wR_HscW8LLbL8DWt4utWURY7tkmSK8IWRLJEsP8RVSNbDnb1Oa8W2CVlmzT0AezGyrbMV6QGQZDsbufy2lTHR40H0o970CJ01ekP73YE32baHQv0ermrCTlD6lmfKvhZ_xxD9fN5vs/s189/Untitled.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="51" data-original-width="189" height="51" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyVcgDwmpYr5XpAvbRvP5LwT-uqAxQGwtbU5dy7xpB6J9W48wR_HscW8LLbL8DWt4utWURY7tkmSK8IWRLJEsP8RVSNbDnb1Oa8W2CVlmzT0AezGyrbMV6QGQZDsbufy2lTHR40H0o970CJ01ekP73YE32baHQv0ermrCTlD6lmfKvhZ_xxD9fN5vs/s1600/Untitled.jpg" width="189" /></a></div><div></div><div><br /></div><div><b>The sculpture</b></div><div><div><br /></div><div>On 20th July 1817 Louis XVIII gave permission for the erection of a monument to Bonchamps financed by public subscription. In line with the Restoration policy of national reconciliation, the King laid down certain conditions; the monument was to be set up inside church rather than on the public square, and was to be engraved with Bonchamps dying words, "Grâce aux prisonniers!"</div><div><br /></div><div>In preparation, on 18th October 1817, the anniversary of his death, Bonchamps remains were exhumed from the cemetery at Varades and taken with great ceremony across the Loire to a temporary resting place in the family church at La-Chapelle-Saint-Florent. It was to be another eight years before they were finally brought to Saint-Florent.</div><div><br /></div><div> In August 1818 David obtained the commission for the statue from Bonchamps's son-in-law, the comte de Bouillé, A committee, headed by the duc de Brissac, oversaw the work. The subscription, to which the Court contributed, raised 29,000 francs, of which the government supplied half. As David later wrote to his friend, the writer Louis Pavie, he did not profit from the work; indeed, he scarcely covered his costs [Jouin, <i>David d'Angers, </i>p.152-3].</div><div><br /></div><div>David submitted various projects, of which several preliminary sketches remain.</div><div><div><div>See: "Les dessins préparatoires au monument du général Bonchamps" (Resource for 2017 Exhibition at Cholet] <a href="https://www.oliprat.com/mba/veronique/">https://www.oliprat.com/mba/veronique/</a></div></div><div><br /></div></div><div> Some versions featured an elaborate military "triumph" rather than an effigy. The committee finally approved the classsical semi-recumbent (and semi-nude) figure of the general that we see today. A proposed bas-relief was replaced by two allegorical figures of Religion and France. The design was agreed in June 1819, but the work was not finally completed until 1824. In preparation, David made a bust of Bonchamps's daughter, whom everyone agreed bore a striking likeness to her father. Those knew him, later recognised his features in those of the statue.</div><div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXorO3l_L4LPq4hN7sqUK5IuBymJYk-buHQmXSYsEDYw7NFuZRajhtFUa5uU2eHMg1cnu9vk9szDOe3CwfAt7SgVjYwQOBwGJZsoS1YfrTJ7HBnHoHrEb_Gs1KoOHubXDUylOMYwiDk-m2MDq9KjjMBs_L9OUXjWld0nDkQe2A4mr9Ti3K1UT5uihO/s559/Frieze3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="146" data-original-width="559" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXorO3l_L4LPq4hN7sqUK5IuBymJYk-buHQmXSYsEDYw7NFuZRajhtFUa5uU2eHMg1cnu9vk9szDOe3CwfAt7SgVjYwQOBwGJZsoS1YfrTJ7HBnHoHrEb_Gs1KoOHubXDUylOMYwiDk-m2MDq9KjjMBs_L9OUXjWld0nDkQe2A4mr9Ti3K1UT5uihO/s16000/Frieze3.jpg" /></a></div><div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">The bas-relief which featured in David's initial projects, shows the scene of the pardon. A column in the centre of the composition, represents the door of the church of Saint-Florent. To the right the doomed Republican prisoners say their last farewells: an old soldier, sits with his head in his hands, whilst the young man at his knees shields his eyes. On the left, outside the door, the Vendean army is eager for vengeance. A cannon is already trained on the door. In the foreground Bonchamps, supported by the chevalier d'Andigné, raises his hand to command clemency. </span></div></div><div><br /></div><div>The architect associated with the project, David's friend Achille Leclerc, supervised the construction of the tomb and its placement in the Abbey church. He planned extensive work to improve the elevation and lighting, though it is not known to what extent this was carried out. The statue was originally situated at the back of the sanctuary, where the main altar now stands, whilst the altar itself occupied a typically 18th-century position in middle of the choir. The monument was transferred to its present location in the north transept in 1890; there is a photo in the church which shows it just before it was moved. The tomb was extensively renovated in the 1960s: See: <a href="https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/search/list?mainSearch=%22Tombeau%20du%20g%C3%A9n%C3%A9ral%20Bonchamp%22">Recherche - POP (culture.gouv.fr)</a></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicBpZBebkMixocxDuaNc0IPbJHnvOmsvssxoxNZyK6c_3sOT09bAxGzhuisYl664uuJQY8ttIHctoLADlKuvqL9tDo6E8OIqf3lgztWM8fMu9K859wI8kRsh1jCg3Ibcy2y8jcfekoi4PkaZ3C5LmpHXi8HmdPRIKOWwp4hA_2K92QQEkSxjaYnDJj/s3019/img05.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1834" data-original-width="3019" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicBpZBebkMixocxDuaNc0IPbJHnvOmsvssxoxNZyK6c_3sOT09bAxGzhuisYl664uuJQY8ttIHctoLADlKuvqL9tDo6E8OIqf3lgztWM8fMu9K859wI8kRsh1jCg3Ibcy2y8jcfekoi4PkaZ3C5LmpHXi8HmdPRIKOWwp4hA_2K92QQEkSxjaYnDJj/w640-h388/img05.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Engraving showing the original position of the monument in the Choir </span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b>At Saint-Florent in 1825</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>The formal inauguration of the monument took place on 11th July 1825. </div><div><br /></div><div>In preparation, on the morning of 18th June 1825, Bonchamps's remains were transported to Saint-Florent-le-Vieil and formally sealed inside the base of the monument to await the arrival of the marble statue.</div><div><br /></div><div>Despite his Republican sympathies, David himself was an honoured guest at the event. He first made the journey from Paris to Angers where he was given a warm welcome; on his arrival and departure he was offered a serenade, which moved him greatly. He stayed several days and was reunited with old friends. With his former drawing master Jean-Jacques Delusse, he made a sentimental pilgrimage to the tomb of his father (See Jouin, p. 153)</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0VSrrfhXrLK-FnclqyNHcaZE921VxTEg-ApDDAlmex4A45y-B34oAuvUDn3tdUKoVs10M83KF1Halq_Y35Qu_XqwsE6fVghtzRoFG4obDlKOEmgY0HgAaIKJrwm3h9asMI5yA7cYZrtuQPdc9HqtFH4A10F60b8bU9iij4f4DHjJwsPETA89jqMVS/s4608/Image6.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4608" data-original-width="3456" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0VSrrfhXrLK-FnclqyNHcaZE921VxTEg-ApDDAlmex4A45y-B34oAuvUDn3tdUKoVs10M83KF1Halq_Y35Qu_XqwsE6fVghtzRoFG4obDlKOEmgY0HgAaIKJrwm3h9asMI5yA7cYZrtuQPdc9HqtFH4A10F60b8bU9iij4f4DHjJwsPETA89jqMVS/w150-h200/Image6.jpg" width="150" /></a>The completed statue left Port Ayrault in Angers on 25th July, and was transported by sailing boat along the Maine and Loire to Saint-Florent under the care of David's assistant Le Goupil. David himself, Louis Pavie and their party followed in order to supervise the unloading and installation.<i> </i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>The weather was fine and peaceful. In his later account, Louis Pavie describes how the belltower of the Abbey church came into view. On the opposite bank the friends were moved to catch a glimpse of the village of La Meilleraie where Bonchamps had died. The party was welcomed by the comte de Bouillé and several of the general's close friends, and stayed with them as their guests. <i> </i>David made excursions to the cottage in La Meilleraie, where he arranged to have a plaque erected, and to Bonchamps's <span style="background-color: white;">château at </span>La Baronnière. </div><div> </div><div> It must have been during this time too that David met with manyveterans and sketched their portraits.</div><div><br /></div><div>The ceremony which took place on 11th was a carefully orchestrated and heavily emotional affair. The walls of the church were draped in black cloth and a tribune was erected. The abbé Joseph Gourdon, the curé of La Chapelle-du-Genet, and himself the son of a veteran, pronounced the funeral oration. Besides the family, various dignitories attended - the prefect of Maine et Loire, the Bishop of Angers, high ranking members of the local nobility. But the occasion was dominated by the aging survivors of the Army of the Vendée, who stood "ranged in order of battle", with their sons lined up on the steps of the monument.</div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyVcgDwmpYr5XpAvbRvP5LwT-uqAxQGwtbU5dy7xpB6J9W48wR_HscW8LLbL8DWt4utWURY7tkmSK8IWRLJEsP8RVSNbDnb1Oa8W2CVlmzT0AezGyrbMV6QGQZDsbufy2lTHR40H0o970CJ01ekP73YE32baHQv0ermrCTlD6lmfKvhZ_xxD9fN5vs/s189/Untitled.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="51" data-original-width="189" height="51" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyVcgDwmpYr5XpAvbRvP5LwT-uqAxQGwtbU5dy7xpB6J9W48wR_HscW8LLbL8DWt4utWURY7tkmSK8IWRLJEsP8RVSNbDnb1Oa8W2CVlmzT0AezGyrbMV6QGQZDsbufy2lTHR40H0o970CJ01ekP73YE32baHQv0ermrCTlD6lmfKvhZ_xxD9fN5vs/s1600/Untitled.jpg" width="189" /></a></div><div></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Postscript: David d'Anger in 1851 and 1855</b></div><div><br /></div><div>In 2019 Jean-Clément Martin published an article by David on the war in the Vendée, which had appeared twenty-five years after the inauguration, in the <i>Almanach du peuple </i>for 1851. The piece serves as a corrective to the idea that David intended the monument to Bonchamps as a symbol of national reconciliation. David himself had always made it clear that, whilst he admired Bonchamps personally and felt sentimentally attached to the Vendée, his debt of gratitude was a purely personal one. In the years after 1825, as the political situation in France polarised, David continued to be true to his Revolutionary convictions: in 1848 he was elected as a deputy for Maine-et-Loire to the Constituent Assembly, where he sat with the Republicans of the "Mountain", then in 1851 he was forced into exile for his opposition to Napoleon III. In his essay he follows the conclusions of writers like Michelet and Jaurès who insisted on the violence of the rebels in the Vendée, on the treachery of the local nobility and the duplicity of Counter-Revolutionary priests. According to David, "the finest pages of this sombre history belong to the Republicans" - whereas the Vendeans fought behind hedges, in their own country, the Revolutionaries had only their "indomitable courage" to fall back on. </div><div><br /></div><div>Jean-Clément Martin [blog], "David et la Vendée. De la difficulté des réconciliations nationales", post of 10.07.2019. <a href="https://blogs.mediapart.fr/jean-clement-martin/blog/100719/david-et-la-vendee-de-la-difficulte-des-reconciliations-nationales"> (mediapart.fr)</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>In 1855, the year before he died, David made a final journey along the Loire to see his statue for the last time. It was a deeply sentimental moment of reflection. Standing before the effigy of Bonchamps in the church at Saint-Florent, he pronounced himself content with the work: "After attempting to pay my debt, I wished to say my farewells before I died." [<i>Journal de Maine-et-Loire</i>, 9th January 1856)</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>References</b></div><div><div><div><br /></div><div>Henry Jouin, <i>David d'Angers: sa vie, son oeuvre, ses écrits et ses contemporains </i>· Vol.1 (1878)</div><div>[<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/David_d_Angers/VSbkiF8ctyAC?hl=en&gbpv=1">On Google Books</a>]</div></div><div><div><i>_______, </i>ed. <i>David d'Angers et ses relations littéraires: correspondence </i> (1890) [<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/David_d_Angers_et_ses_relations_litt%C3%A9ra/BHY5AAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1" target="_blank">On Google Books</a>]</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p>Victor Pierre, "La Révolution francaise, son histoire dans les monuments" <i>Revue des questions historiques, </i>Vol.53 (1893), p.91-135; p.120. [<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Revue_des_questions_historiques/95wjAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA120&printsec=frontcover">On Google Books</a>]</p></div><div>Clemenceau du Petit Moulin [blog]: "David d'Angers et J-J Delusse à Saint-Florent en 1825", post of 23.07.2011 <a href="http://clemenceaudupetitmoulin.centerblog.net/6573543-david-angers-et-j-j-delusse-a-saint-florent-en-1825"> (centerblog.net)</a></div><div><br /></div></div><div>Jean-Clément Martin [blog], "David et la Vendée. De la difficulté des réconciliations nationales", post of 10.07.2019. <a href="https://blogs.mediapart.fr/jean-clement-martin/blog/100719/david-et-la-vendee-de-la-difficulte-des-reconciliations-nationales"> (mediapart.fr)</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><div>As usual I have managed to just miss a major exhibition:</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b> "Grâce aux prisonniers!" Bonchamps et David d’Angers, Lumières sur un chef d’œuvre.</b></div><div><div><div><br /></div><div>The event was jointly organised by the Université Catholique de l'Ouest, and<i> Les Anneaux de la Mémoire </i>, an association based in Nantes which aims to promote historical understanding and "reconciliation" (initially with respect to the slave trade but now for the wars in the Vendée). The exhibition opened at the Abbey in Saint-Florent in 2017, then moved on to Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire in 2018, Cholet in 2019 and finally in Angers (Dec 2020-March 2021). Among associated initiatives were lectures by Anne Rolland-Boulestreau, the chief curator of the exhibition, and by Jean-Clément Martin.</div><div><br /></div><div>Press-release for the exhibition, by Anne Rolland-Boulestreau: </div><div><div><a href="https://www.patrimoine.paysdelaloire.fr/uploads/tx_news/dossier_de_presentation_expobd_01.pdf" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0d44ba; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">https://www.patrimoine.paysdelaloire.fr/uploads/tx_news/dossier_de_presentation_expobd_01.pdf</a></div><div>Photographs from the designers of the exhibition, Deveau Graphisme.</div><div><span style="color: #0d44ba;">https://www.deveaugraphisme.com/galerie/identite-visuelle/exposition-grace-aux-prisonniers/</span></div></div></div><div><span style="color: #0d44ba;"><br /></span></div><div><div>At Cholet and Angers also David's preliminary sketches for the monument were also exhibited:</div><div>"Les dessins préparatoires au monument du général Bonchamps" </div><div><a href="https://www.oliprat.com/mba/veronique/">https://www.oliprat.com/mba/veronique/</a></div></div></div></div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;">Readings</span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>David d'Angers on the life of his father</b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>....There began the bitter conflict in the Vendée, that great episode in the Revolutionary drama. The artist, who had now became a soldier, took part in almost all the battles; his energetic courage always drew him into the thick of the danger.</i></span></div><div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">One day of battle, he was placed on guard over the church at Gonnord which was filled with Vendean prisoners. Seeing that he was alone, they attempted to escape, but he fell on them with such force that his bayonet broke in the door as they hurriedly reclosed it. They supposed him disarmed and tried to break out again; but, as he himself often recounted, when they saw him brandishing two pistols, his face enflamed with anger, animated with the determination of a man ready for anything, they withdrew, overcome by the fascination true courage always inspires.</span></i></div><div> </div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Louis David was one of the five thousand prisoners, confined in the church at Saint-Florent, who owed their life to the political virtue and humanity expressed by the dying Bonchamps!</span></i></div><div><div><br /></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Kléber, who had seen my father's courage on more than one occasion, wanted to take him with him to the Army of the Rhine; but his sentiments as a family man spoke louder than his desire for military glory. He had been wounded at Torfou and when he recovered he obtained a position in ordnance and recruitment. ..After the pacification of the Vendée, the sculptor returned to his workshop, poorer than when he had left, but without complaint, pleased to have participated, in so far as as he was able, in the great drama of the Revolution. </span></i></div></div><div><div>Pierre-Jean David<i>, Notice sur Pierre-Louis David, </i>dated 5th September 1839, p.294.</div><div><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Bulletin/gy01AAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA292&printsec=frontcover">Bulletin - Google Books</a><i>. </i></div><div>[This episode in Gonnord is difficult to place - Gonnord was the site of a notorious massacre by Republican troops in January 1794.] </div></div></div><div><div>" Pierre-Louis David, père du sculpteur David d'Angers (1756-1821)", <i>La Maraîchine Normande </i>[blog],post of 18.12.2018.</div><div><a href="http://shenandoahdavis.canalblog.com/archives/2018/12/13/36939547.html">http://shenandoahdavis.canalblog.com/archives/2018/12/13/36939547.html</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>When I accompanied my father on the battlefields of the Vendée, I was always in delicate health. I was often ill. One night, near the Haie-des-Hommes, Coron (19th September) the commander of my father's corps unwisely allowed his men to be caught in crossfire, which caused disorder in the ranks. A carpenter was shot in the heel. My father, who had the strength of Ajax, carried the wounded man on his back and, still firing, beat a retreat. I was later entrusted to this friend of my father's, who abandoned me in a cowardly fashion on the road from Varrains, after the Battle of Saumur. I was found, near the bridge, by some Vendean women, who took pity on me...I was carried around the Vendée in the baggage train of General de La Rochejacquelein. Perhaps I passed near Bara! It was only at Saint-Florent that my father, one of the prisoners liberated by Bonchamps, rediscovered me by chance in the middle of the baggage. </i></span></div><div>MS autograph notes, quoted in Jouin, <i>David d'Angers</i> (1878) p.7-8.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Louis Pavie's account of David's journey to Saint-Florent:</b></span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The Monument to Bonchamps was completed. There remained only to take it to its final destination. The boat embarked and I shared with my friend M. David the honour of watching over the precious cargo. How happy we were to accompany the statue of this great man, who awoke the memory of so many virtues!</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The beauty of the sky, the richness of the countryside, the majesty of the river, all elevated our thoughts, inviting an analogy with the pure and noble life of the Angevin Hero. What a contrast! This pleasant countryside, which was once filled with cries of anger and the noise of war, was now peaceful, echoing only to the sounds of our oars. The wind picked up as we approached the end of our journey, and we soon sighted the bell-tower of Saint-Florent....</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">We arrived before La Meilleraie; like some ghostly revenant, the statue of Bonchamps journeyed along the same river that the ill-fated general had crossed thirty-two years previously. He had then been at the end of his glorious career; today he began his era of immortality.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">As soon as they saw us, the people of Saint-Florent came to the riverbank, led by M. le Comte Arthur de Bouillé, who gave orders for the Monument's transport. The crowd often hindered our progress, but we could not push aside these good Vendeans, who cried out fervently, "Let us see our friend!"</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">To satisfy our great impatience, M. de Bouillé took us to the church. He showed us the long galleries of the monastery where the five thousand prisoners had been crowded.....From the heights of the terrace, where the eye could follow the distant course of the Loire, M. de Bouillé pointed out a cottage with a little garden shaded by a few trees...It was there that Bonchamps had died! We were eagar to visit it. </span></i></div></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">What thoughts came to mind when we saw this shabby little house where the leader of so many brave men had died, almost alone... My friend seized his pencils, so as to take away with him the image of this place of memory. He wanted more: an inscription, on white marble, over the door, to commemorate the mournful event:</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">BONCHAMPS DIED HERE</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">18TH OCTOBER 1793</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Soon the house was full of Vendeans who had been present at the fatal moment. Exclamations escaped their lips at intervals: "It was there that he lay"; "We stood around him thus"; "I promised him to keep my faith, and I have done so"; "I gave him my belt to stop his wound from bleeding"; "It was in my arms that he died".... They could not say more; great tears flowed down their rugged cheeks. M. de Bouillé shared their emotion. My friend and I were so moved that we felt we too were Vendeans.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">M. de Bouillé got up and we followed him in silence. As we passed the cemetery in Saint-Florent, he said: "Cathelineau is buried here, M. David; I hope that one day his tomb may be sought out and found."</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">We arrived at Chapelle-Saint-Florent where we met the venerable M. Courgeon, the worthy priest of this parish. </span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">I admit that when I was seated at the same table as the widow, daughter, son-in-law, grandchildren and confessor of the Vendean General, I felt saddened.... After the meal, which displayed all the charms of Vendean hospitality, a walk was proposed. "Let us go to La Baronnière", said M. de Bouillé, and the curé seconded him. Turning to M. David and me, he explained that this was M. de Bonchamps's estate which his widow had been forced to sell in order to pay off their debts.</span></i></div></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">We missed nothing on this interesting excursion. While our artist sketched the pavilion, which was all that remained of the château, </span></i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i> M. le curé told us about M. de Bonchamps - his unfailing courage, his profound military knowledge and above all his consistent humanity.</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>"Was it you", I asked him, "who closed his eyes?" "No", he replied, profoundly moved: "he called me in his last moments; I heard his confession and administered the last rites. He drew me to his heart and asked me to recite the prayers for the dying....But soon I did not have the strength to continue. I asked the priest who was with me me to continue, and went out. M. Bonchamps died shortly afterwards..."</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>On our return to Saint-Florent, the bells announced the arrival of the Monument in the sanctuary. The vault was filled with the noise of workmen and their tools. M. de Bouillé rushed everywhere, overseeing and directing the operation. Finally the statue was in place. The crowd rushed to view it, eager to see once more those beloved features. The former companions-in-arms of Bonchamps stopped short, amazed. They believed they could still hear him cry:</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Grâce aux prisonniers; </span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">grâce! </span><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> Bonchamps l'ordonne!</i></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Everywhere in this place of God, love for the hero, and admiration for the genius who had created his likeness, inspired in the onlookers a sort of reverence. Only M. David himself remained calm; one thought preoccupied him -the fear that he had not done justice to his subject.</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>They threw a cloth over the Monument, to await the solemn ceremony of consecration.</i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: inherit;"><div style="color: black;">Louis Pavie, <i>Voyage à Saint-Florent et La Chapelle, le vingt-cinq juin 1825</i></div><div style="color: black;"><a href="https://commulysse.angers.fr/ark:/54380/a011506952106xfj18Z/4a8f5a1e01">https://commulysse.angers.fr/ark:/54380/a011506952106xfj18Z/4a8f5a1e01</a></div></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>The ceremony</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div>The young Victor Pavie,<i> </i>the son of David's friend, was also present at the inauguration ceremony.</div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>The statue of Bonchamps was solemnly inaugurated in the Abbey church in the presence of his widow, his daughter, son-in-law and grandson, to the sound of arms from Fontenay and Torfou, to the drum roll that had beaten in the amnesty. The impression was immense. I have never forgotten the sight of those veterans, ruined by time and war, lined up in order of battle and passed in review by the ghost of their leader; their sons were lined up on the steps of the monument. Above, the statue, in its whiteness, cast a protective wing over young and old, living and dead.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div>Victor Pavie,<i> Bonchamps et sa statue </i>(1846), p.12<i> </i>[On <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Bonchamps_et_sa_statue/-nJVAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA12&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">Google Books</a>]</div></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b style="font-size: large;">David in Saint-Florent, 1855.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><span><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;"><b>Saint-Florent, on the banks of the Loire, 14th August 1855:</b></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">I have just visited the monument to Bonchamps. I came to pay him my final farewell. I relived my feelings on the day of the inauguration, when I saw, on the steps of the monument, those little children; and in two ranks, inside the church, their fathers, armed with ancient rusting guns. And then I thought of my father, one of the prisoners who had been saved by Bonchamps.</div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">From the notebooks of David [<i><a href="https://commulysse.angers.fr/ark:/54380/a011506952105pxjrmR/354fdf7063" target="_blank">Carnets</a></i>, vol. 2, p.448]</span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-style: italic;"><br /></div></span></div><div><span><div style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">In October [?] 1855, David had wanted to see again Saint-Florent and the chef-d'oeuvre that he had left in 1825 and not revisited since. Saint-Florent, he said, always reminded him of the abbé Gourdon as he pronounced from the heights of the most beautiful place in Anjou, the eulogy of the best of the Vendeans. It was the very greatest piece of eloquence. I am not discontent with my work, he add with a smile, I believe that I have succeeded not at all badly in my statue; but that is not really surprising: my model was the sort of hero I love, as generous as he was brave. I was young and, as you know, my father was among the prisoners saved by Bonchamps. After attempting to pay my debt, I wanted to say farewell to him before I died</div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Unsigned article from the <i>Journal de Maine-et-Loire,</i> 9th January 1856</span><span>, cited Jouin, <i>David d'Anger,</i> p.151.</span></span></div></span></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-46770639048071933702022-10-02T09:44:00.004-07:002023-11-12T04:04:10.201-08:00Bonchamps spares the Republican prisoners<p> </p><div style="text-align: left;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgguQRN43mGB-pQoBABalMFPGd39Erc6dM8RDxL91ZblK7z3i4sv8cLep51SqNsfzPNYLnWt1N4eSnUlaXDyTiq12vOKTHuCeTS5Qv3pJ7ugmhoxGDcEsJfafc_pjTc8dtIfX00hg1oHklbBALd2e_fxCpG_raOOG2tP__r8EGM7qsRwTfP4M601tlH" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="428" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgguQRN43mGB-pQoBABalMFPGd39Erc6dM8RDxL91ZblK7z3i4sv8cLep51SqNsfzPNYLnWt1N4eSnUlaXDyTiq12vOKTHuCeTS5Qv3pJ7ugmhoxGDcEsJfafc_pjTc8dtIfX00hg1oHklbBALd2e_fxCpG_raOOG2tP__r8EGM7qsRwTfP4M601tlH=w251-h320" width="251" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Bonchamps "from a contemporary portrait",<br />reproduced in Baguenier-Desormeaux, <br />B<i style="text-align: left;">onchamps et le passage de la Loire </i><span style="text-align: left;">(1896)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">We must not deceive ourselves; - we must not aim at worldly rewards - they would be below the purity of our motives and the sanctity of our cause. We must not even aspire to human glory; civil wars give not that.<br /></i>Words of Bonchamps, reported in the<i> Memoirs of his wife </i>p.7-8.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">The Retreat to Saint-Florent</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div>On 17th October 1793 the Grande Armée Catholique et Royale attacked Republican troops at Cholet. After a terrible battle that lasted thirty-six hours, the Republicans were left masters of the field.</div><div><br /></div><div>The two Vendean generals, D'Elbée and Bonchamps, had both been seriously wounded. They were evacuated from the battlefield in full view of their demoralised troops. D'Elbée, despite sixteen wounds, was carried away by his brother-in-law Duhoux d'Hauterie on horseback. The faithful soldiers of Bonchamps took turns to bear the stretcher of their beloved chief, who had been hit by grapeshot in the belly. One of their number Louis Onillon, carried beside them the flag of the division of the<i> Bords de la Loire </i>(See Deniau, p. 57<i>) </i>According to the eye-witness account of Poirier de Beauvais, Bonchamps spent the night at Beaupréau, in the house of a Madame de Bonnet, arriving about nine o'clock in the evening. D'Elbee, who had preceded him there, was taken by ox-cart to a neighbouring farm and subsequently evacuated to Noirmoutier.<i> </i>Bonchamps too stayed only a short time in Beaupréau since by early morning on the 18th October he was in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, at the house of Mme Duval in the lower town. <i> </i> </div><div><br /></div><div>In the meantime, the defeated Vendean forces began to gather in Saint-Florent, where it had been Bonchamps intention to cross the Loire. In the absence of the senior commanders, the marquis de Donnissan<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">, president of the Supreme Council, </span> took charge of operations and, seconded by the Chevalier des Essarts, sent orders to surrounding parishes to asse</span>mble. Estimates have it as many as sixty thousand ragged soldiers gathered in the town, with perhaps twenty thousand women and children. With them arrived several thousand Republican prisoners under the guard of Cesbron d'Argonne, a fierce veteran of almost 60, until recently the royalist governor of Cholet. The prisoners were shut up in the Abbey buildings or assembled in the surrounding town. They clearly posed an acute dilemma, since they could neither be taken across the river, nor simply left behind to rejoin the enemy forces. The third alternative was clearly to kill them.</div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">Debates in the Council</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>On the morning of 18th October the marquis de Donnissan, who had arrived from Beaupréau the previous night, convened a general meeting to determine the prisonners' fate. It is not certain exactly who took part, but the officers Bernard de Marigny, de Fleuriot and de Rorthais are documented. The abbé Bernier was also present and the wounded Lescure who lay on a mattress, tended by his wife. At first the majority resolved to slaughter the prisoners. Lescure protested weakly but was not heard, and a deputation of alarmed townspeople was angrily dismissed. However, according to Mme de La Rochejaquelein, despite the angry resolution, no one had the stomach actually to give the order. </div><div><br /></div><div><div>In the town the situation remained ugly. According to eye-witnesses, the soldiers were maddened by defeat and angered by the wounding of their general. Demands for the death of the prisoners echoed from all parts and Cesbron d'Argonne had brought up eleven cannons loaded with grapeshot which were trained intimidatingly on the doors of the church . Behind them the men who had escorted the prisoners to Saint-Florent were drawn up in two ranks, with orders to shoot down those who escaped the fire of the guns. These troops belonged to the Division of Bonchamps, many of whom were Prusssian and Austrian deserters from the Republican Germanic Legion , men with a particular reputation for ruthlessness - "les plus cruels ennemis, les plus inexorables bourreaux" (Mocquereau La Barrie)</div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxe3XFi-Clsdw9EnzlkxJk9fFg-i0LGJ3ziUcGJpSVWWewY-4EiRzpXoazjcn_-JfUYkBPZA3tfEK-JsUp9s8QEjM6Qmwg5dMkPMJ__7i2559HcMbKqZCvuygO6BiScvdg9B__hU42Rv36aGeExI8Cl2aO4HAoTCyp_TOLVNaRyArCG0ajJRcSZnJ1/s946/death%20of%20bonchamps.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="946" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxe3XFi-Clsdw9EnzlkxJk9fFg-i0LGJ3ziUcGJpSVWWewY-4EiRzpXoazjcn_-JfUYkBPZA3tfEK-JsUp9s8QEjM6Qmwg5dMkPMJ__7i2559HcMbKqZCvuygO6BiScvdg9B__hU42Rv36aGeExI8Cl2aO4HAoTCyp_TOLVNaRyArCG0ajJRcSZnJ1/w640-h494/death%20of%20bonchamps.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.parismuseescollections.paris.fr/fr/musee-carnavalet/oeuvres/grace-aux-prisonniers-bonchamps-l-ordonne#infos-principales">Grace aux prisonniers, Bonchamps l'ordonne !... | Paris Musées</a> <br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In this engraving made for a work of 1816 - therefore much earlier than Degorge's iconic <i>Death of Bonchamps </i>- the artist imagines the general delivering his order in the open air; behind him is the church of Saint-Florent with the troops lined up ready to fire.</div></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><div><br /></div>The consensus is that the situation was defused only by the decisive intervention of Bonchamps himself. At the house of Mme Duval, with his officers gathered round him, Bonchamps had heard the verdict of the surgeon and knew that his situation was beyond hope. However, when informed that Cesbron d'Argonne was about to use men of his own division to execute the prisoners, he protested violently and ordered that they were to be spared. Charles d'Auticamp, his cousin and aide-de-camp, rode out with several other cavalry officers, had a drum beaten outside the church and repeated with great emotion the words of the dying general. "Gr<span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #5f6368; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;">â</span>ce, gr<span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #5f6368; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;">â</span>ce, sauvons les prisonniers, Bonchamps le veut. Bonchamps ordonne". (Deniau, p.79). The soldiers complied.</div><div><br /></div><div> According to the abbé Martin, who was at the bedside of the dying man, "M. de Bonchamps said that on no account must any captured enemy be killed. His wishes were respected".(ref)</div><div><br /></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">How many prisoners were there?</span></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Figures can be at best approximate. The consensus is somewhere between 4,000 (as claimed by Merlin de Thionville) and 7,000. The official figure was 6,000. Kléber wrote of 6,000 prisoners "spared by Bonchamps". The same number was given by general Léchelle, who boasted that he himself had liberated the prisoners. The editor of Kléber's memoirs, Henri Baguenier-Desormeaux, in his book of 1896, defends 4,000-6,000 as plausible. The Vendean army had taken very large numbers of captives, though many had already been liberated. In April 1793 had d'Elbée returned large numbers after he captured Cholet; more were returned in June at Saumur. At Fontenay, the Vendeans took 3,250 prisoners, one of whom had wounded Bonchamps. However, they had simply cut their hair and made them swear an oath not to serve again against the Catholic and Royal Army. The prisoners who were assembled at Saint-Florent came principally from the Royalist depots at Mortagne, Cholet, Beaupréau and the surrounding area. Some had been held since before the fall of Saumur on 9th June. The many actions which had been fought easily accounts for the numbers cited, even allowing for the prisoners left in Beaupréau, later liberated by Beaupuy and Westermann, which Kléber reckoned as more than 4,000 ( Baguenier-Desormeaux, B<i>onchamps et le passage de la Loire, </i>p.74-75)</div><div><br /></div><div>Prisoners were held in the church and abbey buildings and outside over the esplanade; with more under guard in the hamlets and chateaux of the area, some several kilometres away. It seems quite likely that, were it not for Bonchamps, considerable casualties would have been inflicted, certainly among those held in the church. </div><div><br /></div><div><div>Among those spared was Pierre-Louis David, the father of the sculptor David d'Angers, who had been wounded and captured at the Battle of Torfou (19th September 1793).</div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">The death of Bonchamps</span></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Later in the day, on 18th October, Bonchamps rallied sufficiently to be taken across the Loire. He was ferried by the fisherman René Bellion and<i> </i>brought ashore at the village of La Meilleraie, now part of Varades<i>. </i>It was here, in the modest house of René's brother Jean, that Bonchamps died at a little after midnight. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixtfq2kSx8dmnXif8VVbjOTFXXP4o2NbltoKZecDdiH-Lkoh4uwwiy4hRglKq9LOQIR49I6jglsIosB8le3FHivy1ipBN8x2xqJTNIFWbqQKkLlOFN5cPG3na-R6QXSofVMauVW0cYfh8-GIhxfSzsgwA-X1BDbDlf-momf8v_d9oOwgQzGnC__mHh/s1214/Maison%20de%20bonchamps.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="1214" height="389" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixtfq2kSx8dmnXif8VVbjOTFXXP4o2NbltoKZecDdiH-Lkoh4uwwiy4hRglKq9LOQIR49I6jglsIosB8le3FHivy1ipBN8x2xqJTNIFWbqQKkLlOFN5cPG3na-R6QXSofVMauVW0cYfh8-GIhxfSzsgwA-X1BDbDlf-momf8v_d9oOwgQzGnC__mHh/w640-h389/Maison%20de%20bonchamps.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">The "Maison Bonchamps" at Varades [Google maps]</span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK4g76OD6Ty7WVOBIEQ_CL9rfMrDWNvmAmmUaM71eyikU7k68yFJPoq2PBO1SLsGHCNHnKFbtV-2SpKMIneZ8YXzZj1D4ISokSgpOthuTubHH3rhnyDZ0FlHMLFv7fQrmFPi17ZZxLA475VvPdfzQX0cusMy73_u30UG95k6dQ-aSUwy_Bg6u28gsh/s667/0%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="667" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK4g76OD6Ty7WVOBIEQ_CL9rfMrDWNvmAmmUaM71eyikU7k68yFJPoq2PBO1SLsGHCNHnKFbtV-2SpKMIneZ8YXzZj1D4ISokSgpOthuTubHH3rhnyDZ0FlHMLFv7fQrmFPi17ZZxLA475VvPdfzQX0cusMy73_u30UG95k6dQ-aSUwy_Bg6u28gsh/s320/0%20(1).jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div></div><div>Today the "Maison Bonchamps" still stands, and is used as an exhibition space, though there is some question mark over its future - see the recent post from <span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 13.2px;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.vendeensetchouans.com/archives/2022/09/01/39614911.html" style="color: #2288bb; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Vendéens & Chouans</a><i style="color: #666666;">. </i>The house </span>was partly rebuilt after being destroyed by fire in April 1793. The roof was raised to make a room in the attic, but otherwise it retains its late 18th-century appearance, characterised by the massive external staircase. Tradition has it that Bonchamps died in the space under this staircase, though in reality this seems too small to have accommodated him.</div><div><br /></div><div>The commemorative plaque (to the right of the staircase) was added by David d'Angers in 1825.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><div>Bonchamps was initially buried, on the night of 18th-19th October 1793, in the cemetery at Varades His remains were later exhumed and transported, first to Saint-Florent-La-Chapelle in 1817 and then in 1825 to their final resting place in the Abbey church at Saint-Florent (See Readings, below)</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKod1QSqkVdCOj6UkEwIFpPEHiDXiUFaOJZXZL8J3D33Yy8xh8XJ__eosQIdCER28kMCjRvWtrPhwplRFo7vdL8hrsA9n6dfuv5JbhPInp0hcu1lTw9mVJkJVsAt18Owye9rGlc617SHASfFnJGK0o7i8168yAaZZpMtUICzR32qpPjhPhI5mClflq/s768/Bonchamp%20cenotaph.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="768" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKod1QSqkVdCOj6UkEwIFpPEHiDXiUFaOJZXZL8J3D33Yy8xh8XJ__eosQIdCER28kMCjRvWtrPhwplRFo7vdL8hrsA9n6dfuv5JbhPInp0hcu1lTw9mVJkJVsAt18Owye9rGlc617SHASfFnJGK0o7i8168yAaZZpMtUICzR32qpPjhPhI5mClflq/s320/Bonchamp%20cenotaph.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Grave of Bonchamps in the cemetery at Varades. <br />The monument was initially erected in 1816, and was restored in 2016.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: medium;">The Afterlife of the pardon</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>Bonchamps's act of clemency was to be the subject of much disagreement in the years which followed. At various points in the 19th century, the reality of his intervention was challenged, most notably by the ardent Republican Benjamin Fillon in the 1860s.</div><div><br /></div><div>Paradoxically, the initial sources for Bonchamps's action were almost entirely Republican. Vendean memorialists were either unaware of the episode or felt that it reflected badly on the Royalists as a whole. The marquise de La Rochejacquelein does not mention Bonchamps, whilst the 1802 history by Berthre de Bourniseaux attributes the pardon to Lescure. Le Bouvier-Desmortiers, the biographer of Charette, took pains to insist that Bonchamps was already dead, and that the pardon was the collective decision of the Vendean Council.</div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: maitree, serif; font-size: 17px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div><div>On the Republican side, Bonchamps's intervention was acknowledged at the time by Kléber and the general staff of the armies of the West , but there was at first no public commemoration. "This unfortunate action must be consigned to oblivion", wrote Merlin de Thionville. Generals and deputies felt free to rewrite history - Léchelle even claimed the credit for the liberation himself. Thus the memory was transmitted principally by the liberated soldiers themselves. In 1794 one of their number, the Nantes businessman Pierre Haudaudine, the "Regulus Nantais", submitted to the Convention a formal declaration of gratitude from eleven former captives in order to save Bonchamps's widow from execution. </div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2HJ8HdMwFCEvCwL4VI83He5efkc-d4jCJtL4n3MzVRRlJMfVkg--T5wIm-WZPEsbZlqsolCcjOGBUZhwUwn7Sk97XweId2TQiBfN93SVHr4Z6y4BEePzr11Ul1-pDuIfVfYtrh0sKLOcMcn-l54aXPt3YgXFuwkaOvFDZY10Pkizw_UCQYS_lk2gQ/s725/Capture.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><img border="0" data-original-height="461" data-original-width="725" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2HJ8HdMwFCEvCwL4VI83He5efkc-d4jCJtL4n3MzVRRlJMfVkg--T5wIm-WZPEsbZlqsolCcjOGBUZhwUwn7Sk97XweId2TQiBfN93SVHr4Z6y4BEePzr11Ul1-pDuIfVfYtrh0sKLOcMcn-l54aXPt3YgXFuwkaOvFDZY10Pkizw_UCQYS_lk2gQ/s320/Capture.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Copy of the petition of Haudaudine to the Convention, from the local museum at Saint-Florent, exhibited in 2019. [</span><a href="http://www.vendeensetchouans.com/archives/2019/04/27/37290827.html" target="_blank">Vendéen & Chouans</a><span style="color: #38761d;">, post of 27.04.2019.]</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For the text: <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Revue_des_facult%C3%A9s_catholiques_de_l_oue/lfUCAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA430&printsec=frontcover">Revue des facultés catholiques de l'ouest - Google Books</a></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>The later 1790s and 1800s saw a more generalised recognition, particularly among Republicans critical of the excesses of the Terror. In L<i>es brigands démasqués </i>(1796), the former <i>general-de-brigade, </i>Auguste Thévenet ("Danican") attacked the cruelties of the campaign in the Vendée, and noted that 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers owned their life to Bonchamps's "sublime trait of humanity" (p.77). (Danican. L<i>es brigands démasqués </i>(1796), p.77 [On <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Les_brigands_d%C3%A9masqu%C3%A9s_ou_M%C3%A9moires_po/i5vnTqy33AsC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA77&printsec=frontcover&dq=Bonchamps" target="_blank">Google Books</a>]. Alphonse de Beauchamp, a functionary of the Ministry of Police, in his history of the Vendée published in 1806, glorified Bonchamps's command "from the gates of the tomb" (Vol. 1, p.368-8) [<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Histoire_de_la_guerre_de_la_Vend%C3%A9e_et_d/t1kUAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=bonchamps&pg=PA368&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">On Google Books</a>]</div></div><div><br /></div><div>According to Anne Rolland-Boulestreau, the first major "monument" to Bonchamps's heroism, was the biography by Pierre-Marie Chauveau, medical officer-in-chief of the Paris National Guard, and curé of La-Chapelle-Saint-Florent, which was published in 1817. Chauveau supplied an appendix of twelve "pièces justificatives" including formal eyewitness accounts by Bonchamps's former companions-in-arms and by his confessor the abbé Martin. The work was the immediate prelude to Louis XVIII's consent to the erection of a commemorative monument.</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div><div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>References</b></div><div> </div><div>Pierre-Marie Chauveau, <i>Vie de Charles-Melchior-Artus, marquis de Bonchamps, général vendéen </i> (1817) [<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Vie_de_Charles_Melchior_Artus_marquis_de/RFhX8E4j7FMC?hl=en&gbpv=1"> Google Books</a> ]</div></div><div>Alfred Lallié, "La Grande Armée Vendéenne et les prisonniers de Saint-Florent-le-Vieil", <i>Revue de Bretagne de de Vendée</i>, 1868, p.7-19 [<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Revue_de_Bretagne_et_de_Vend%C3%A9e/ln8_AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1">Google Books</a>]</div><div><div>Albert Lemarchand, <i>Bonchamps et les prisonniers républicains de Saint-Florent-le-Vieil</i> (1867)[<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Bonchamps_et_les_prisonniers_r%C3%A9publicai/pB1YXQlQlbMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=vie+de+bonchamps&pg=PA17&printsec=frontcover">Google Books</a> ]</div></div><div>Félix Deniau, <i>Histoire de la Vendée d'après des documents nouveaux et inédit,</i> vol.3 (1878) [<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Histoire_de_la_Vend%C3%A9e_d_apr%C3%A8s_des_docu/Cn4LAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA57&printsec=frontcover">Google Books</a>]</div><div><div>Bertrand Poirier de Beauvais, <i>Mémoires inedits</i> (1893) <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k46819v/f170.item">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k46819v/f170.item</a></div></div><div><div>H. Baguenier-Desormeaux, B<i>onchamps et le passage de la Loire </i>(1896) p.71-80. [<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Bonchamps_et_le_passage_de_la_Loire/u8VAAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover"> Google Books</a>]</div></div><div>A.Velasque, "Haudaudine et Bonchamps", <i>Revue du Bas Poitou</i>, 27 (1914), p.23-40.<br />[<a href="https://etatcivil-archives.vendee.fr/arkotheque/visionneuse/visionneuse.php?arko=YTo4OntzOjQ6ImRhdGUiO3M6MTA6IjIwMjItMTEtMDEiO3M6MTA6InR5cGVfZm9uZHMiO3M6MTE6ImFya29fc2VyaWVsIjtzOjQ6InJlZjEiO2k6NDtzOjQ6InJlZjIiO3M6NToiMzc3NjQiO3M6MTY6ImJvcm5lX3BhZ2VfZGVidXQiO2k6MTtzOjE0OiJib3JuZV9wYWdlX2ZpbiI7aTo2MjtzOjE2OiJ2aXNpb25uZXVzZV9odG1sIjtiOjE7czoyMToidmlzaW9ubmV1c2VfaHRtbF9tb2RlIjtzOjQ6InByb2QiO30=">Archives départementales de la Vendée (vendee.fr)</a>]</div><div><br /></div><div>Béronique Boidard, Anne Rolland-Boulestreau et al.,<i> Après la guerre: Bonchamps par David d’Angers</i> (2019) . Publication of<i> Les Anneaux de la Mémoire</i> to accompany the exhibition <i>Bonchamps par David d’Angers. </i>Reviewed by Valérie Manac'h, <i>La Cliothèque</i>, 23.07.2019.</div><div><a href="https://clio-cr.clionautes.org/apres-la-guerre-bonchamps-par-david-dangers.html">https://clio-cr.clionautes.org/apres-la-guerre-bonchamps-par-david-dangers.html</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Readings</b></div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Formal statements collected by Chauveau in 1817</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">We the undersigned, officers and soldiers of the Royal Army of the Vendée, under the command of M. le marquis de Bonchamps, certify that, to our knowledge, in 1793, after the Battle of Cholet, we had with us five thousand Republican prisoners, who were shut inside the abbey of the Benedictines in Saint-Florent. Angered by the mortal wound of our general, who was about to breathe his last, the soldiers wanted to kill the prisoners shut in the abbey. Cannons were already trained on the building, when Bonchamps was asked what he wanted to do</span></i><span><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">. He replied that he had only one favour to ask his soldiers before he died, that they free the prisoners without doing them harm. All the Vendeans hurried to obey the command of their general, and the prisoners were immediately set at liberty. We swear on our honour the truth of this declaration. </i></span></div><div><span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Declaration of surviving officers and men of the Vendean army, dated 4th June 1817.</span></span></div></div><div>Chauveau, <i>Vie de Bonchamps, </i>"Pièces justificatives<i>", </i>No.III p.276-7.</div><div> <span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>On the 18th October 1793, M. le marquis de Bonchamps, commander-in-chief of the Royal Vendean Army of Anjou, was in the house of Duval, in a room overlooking the road. He received an officer from another division, who told him that there were five to six thousand Republican prisoners shut in the abbey, who in two hours' time would be our enemies; that we must be rid of them and shoot them. M. de Bonchamps said that on no account must any captured enemy be killed. His wishes were respected. Shortly afterwards, he crossed the Loire and died the same day in the village of La Meilleraie in the commune of Varades in Brittany. I, the undersigned, then Intendant of the army of Bonchamps, now curé of Montrevault in Anjou, declare, on my conscience and honour, that I heard these words of M. de Bonchamps, and was an eye-witness to the facts reported above. </i></span></div><div>Declaration of the abbé Mathurin Joseph Martin, curé of Montrevault, dated 5th June 1817.</div><div>Chauveau, <i>Vie de Bonchamps, </i>"Pièces justificatives<i>", </i>No.VIII, p.282.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">From the Memoirs of Madame de Bonchamps</span></b></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">.... It was in this fatal moment that M. de Bonchamps received a mortal wound in his body, and he fell bathed in his blood. M. Piron succeeded in making his way, and bearing off my husband, preserved him at least from the horror of falling into the hands of his ferocious enemies, who shot all their prisoners - he was placed on a litter. At this sight the Vendeans resumed all their courage to escort and protect him: they toiled round him, carrying his litter by turns, for five leagues, in spite of the pursuit of the Republicans. They deposited him at Saint-Florent, where five thousand prisoners were then confined in the church. Religion had as yet preserved the Vendeans from the crime of sanguinary reprisals. They had always, as I have already said, generously treated the Republicans - but when they were informed that my unfortunate husband was mortally wounded, their fury equalled their despair, and they vowed the death of their prisoners. During this time, M. de Bonchamps had been conveyed to the house of Madame Duval, in the lower part of the town. All the officers of his army knelt around the mattress upon which he was extended, waiting with the most fearful anxiety the decision of the surgeon. The wound was so severe that it left no hope. M. de Bonchamps read the coming event in the gloomy sadness of every countenance: he endeavoured to calm the grief of his officers - he afterwards demanded with intense anxiety that the last orders which he might give should be executed, and he then required that their lives should be spared to the prisoners confined in the abbey. Turning to M. d'Autichamp, one of the officers of his army that be loved the best, be added, My friend, this is unquestionably the last order that I shall give you - assure me that it shall be executed."</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The order of M. de Bonchamps, given on his deathbed, produced all the effect that was to have been expected from it. Hardly was it known by the soldiery, than they cried on all sides—"Grace! Grace! Bonchamps l'ordonne"; and the prisoners were saved.</span></i></div><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> A favourable symptom affording some hope, my husband availed himself of it to quit Saint-Florent. He caused himself to be carried to the village of La Meilleraie, where, in a fisherman's cottage, feeling his end approaching, he occupied himself with the duties of religion alone. In his last moments he had the happiness to be assisted by two venerable ecclesiastics, MM, Courgeon and Martin - he listened to their exhortations not only with courage but with rapture. They promised him those heavenly rewards which are laid up for those who have earned them by the purity of their lives, the fulfilment of their duties, and their fidelity to their obligations. After this discourse, M. de Bonchamps, lifting his eyes and his hands towards heaven, said, with a voice yet firm, "Yes, I dare rely on the supreme mercy. I have not acted from a sentiment of pride, nor from a wish to gather a reputation which perishes in eternity. I have not fought for human glory......" All the persons who listened to M. de Bonchamps melted into tears. His faith, his affecting fervour, diffused into every heart the sentiments with which he was penetrated. M. de Bonchamps repeated several times that the pardon of the prisoners had been promised him, and that he depended upon it. After having received with an angelic piety the succours of religion, he expired in the arms of MM Courgeon and Martin. </span></i><br /><i>Memoirs of the Marchioness de Bonchamps</i>, ed. the comtesse de Genlis (1823; English translation) p.77-82. [On <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Memoirs_of_the_Marchioness_de_Bonchamps/GnsGAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA77&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">Google Books</a>]</p></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>From the Memoirs of Mme de La Rochejaquelein:</b></span> </div><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">They had brought to St Florent five thousand Republican prisoners. M. Cesbron d'Argogne, an old chevalier of St. Louis and commandant of Cholet, had conducted them. He was a severe man, and had nine of them shot on the road for trying to escape. However, they could not be dragged further, nor taken across the river. The officers deliberated on the fate of these prisoners. I was present; M. de Lescure lay on a mattress and I attended him: everyone agreed, at first, that the prisoners should be shot on the spot. M. de Lescure said to me in a feeble voice that was not heard, "What a horror!" But when it came to giving the order and killing these unfortunate men, no one wanted to take responsibility, not even M. de Marigny. Some said that such awful butchery was beyond their strength, others that they did not want to become executioners. Others added that these poor men, who had been prisoners for four months, were not responsible for the crimes of the Republicans; such a massacre would only redouble the rage of the patriots who henceforth would not spare the lives of anyone left living in the Vendée...Finally it was decided to give them their freedom. M. de Lescure took no part in these deliberations. Only I heard him murmur, "Ah, now I can breathe easy!".</span></i><br /><i>Mémoires de Madame la marquise de La Rochejaquelein</i> (6th ed, 1848) p.297-298 [On <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/M%C3%A9moires_de_madame_la_marquise_de_La_Ro/jWwuAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA297&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">Google Books</a>]<br />There are slight variations between the different editions of Mme de La Rochejaquelein's text. The reference to Lescure's protest seems to have been a later addition, perhaps introduced by her editor Prosper de Brabante, who wanted to make explicit the collective rejection of violence by the Royalist leadership. However in a footnote to this edition Mme de La Rochjaquelein refers to Chauveau's biography of 1817, and says, straightforwardly, that she had been unaware of Bonchamps' intervention due to the disorder of the moment.</p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Republican reports from October 1793</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><div> In the night of 18th-19th October, Kléber sent a party to Saint-Florent-le-Vieil from Beaupréau, under the command of Captain Hauteville of the Légion des Francs. Kléber testifies that this officer found in the town "six thousand Republican prisoners who informed him they had been saved by the dying Bonchamps." </div><div><i>Kléber en Vendée </i>(1793-1794), ed. H. Baguenier-Desormeaux, p.229. |</div></div><div><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k111939x/f264">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k111939x/f264</a></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Bonchamps had only a few hours to live. The cowardly enemies of our nation, spared, so it is said, more than four thousand of our men, whom they held prisoner. Some allowed themselves to be touched by this INCREDIBLE HYPOCRISY. I addressed them and they soon understood that they did not owe any gratitude to the brigands...that they would do well not to breathe a word concerning such an indignity. Free men do not owe their lives to slaves! That is not Revolutionary. This unfortunate action must be consigned to oblivion; it should not be spoken of, even to the Convention. THE BRIGANDS HAVE NO TIME TO WRITE JOURNALS; this will soon be forgotten like so much else!</i></span></div><div><span>Report of the Representative Merlin de Thionville to the Committee of Public Safety, dated 19th October.</span></div><div><span>Quoted in Eugene Veuillot, <i>Les guerres de Vendée et de Bretagne 1790-1833</i> (1847) p.188.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div>In their report of 21st October the Representatives of the Convention attributed to themselves the liberation of the prisoners. However, Pierre-René Choudieu later privately acknowledged Bonchamps's part: </div></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Before crossing the Loire, the Royalists, exasperated by the great losses they had suffered, wanted to slaughter the numerous prisoners that they held at Saint-Florent. Bonchamps brought honour to his dying moments; he gathered his failing strength to order them not to dishonour themselves by such an action, and he was obeyed. I am pleased here to give him justice for his outstanding action. Brave men do not assassinate their enemies when they are disarmed.</span></i></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Mémoires et notes de Choudieu</i> - manuscript published in 1897. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k69577b/f470.item">https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k69577b/f470.item</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Accounts by the Prisoners</span></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">We the undersigned, inhabitants of Nantes, attest, that being among the Republican prisoners...we owe our salvation at that fatal time, to the noble and generous character of M. de Bonchamps, one of the generals of the Army of the Vendée. A few moments before his death, he managed, through his exhortations, to curb the fury of his troops, and to forbid them absolutely to take the life of the prisoners, whose sacrifice they had determined upon.</span></i></div><div>Signed Hardaudine, Painparay, J. B. Maucomble, F. Marrion. Dated 2nd July 1817.</div><div>Chauveau, <i>Vie de Bonchamps, </i>"Pièces justificatives<i>", </i>No.VI, p.279-800 </div><div style="font-size: medium;"><div></div></div></span></div><div><br /></div><div>In his <i>Souvenirs anecdotes</i> of 1868, the doctor, Charles Pellarin, recalled that his father, a former Swiss guard, was among the Republican prisoners saved by Bonchamps. His experience had led him to applaud grand and generous acts on either side, and to condemn "assassins and brigands, under whatever flag they hide their crimes".</div><div><div>"Un souvenir du Pardon de Bonchamps" <span style="color: #0000ee; text-decoration-line: underline;"><i>Vendéens & Chouans</i></span>, post of 19.05.2020.</div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Memoirs of Mocquereau de La Barrie</span></b></div><div><div><br /></div><div>The memoirs of the Republican prisoner, Mocquereau de La Barrie, published in 1882, were written as early as June 1794, and thus antedate Hardaudine's intervention on behalf of Mme de Bonchamps. Mocquereau de La Barrie was taken prisoner after the Republican defeat at Vihiers on 18th July 1793, then transported to Vezins and Cholet. His account shows that not all the prisoners were in fact held in the Abbey buildings. </div></div><div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">On the 18th October at seven in the morning we left for Saint-Florent, about a league-and-a-half away. We soon arrived. We passed huge numbers of caissons and a great seas of brigands, who were seething with rage. We entered the church and stayed there for half-hour whilst everything was evacuated. There remained with us only our guard; which was more than sufficient.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">We were then taken to a position across the park where we stayed for the rest of the day. As we went through the town we saw 40 to 50 caissons, all of them empty. We have since learned that the brigands had thrown all their munitions into the water, together with a large number of cannon. We witnessed the evacuation of a considerable number of Vendeans, who were able to cross the river with their feet almost dry using winding route that they had discovered.</span></i></div></div><div><br /></div><div>[After many hours a commander arrived, almost certainly d'Autichamps, who had just announced Bonchamps's pardon to those held captive in the church; he now made a futile attempt to rally this set of prisoners to follow him across the Loire.] </div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The guard thinned out imperceptibly. They had followed the main body of the army and we had not noticed. One of the chieftains of the brigands passed among us on horseback, crying: Vive le Roi! Some of us repeated the exclamation, so repugnant to our hearts. Then said he:,"You shout Vive le Roi with me; if this is sentiment is genuine, show it. If you love me, follow me." No-one was tempted to march after him.</span></i></div><div><br /></div><div>At six in the evening La Barrie and some of his companionswere rescued by a townsman of Republican sympathies, who informed them that they had narrowly escaped death:</div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>My friends, he said, no doubt you are unaware of the danger you ran this morning? I will give you the details. I was eye-witness to all that happened. The Conseil supérieur of Châtillon, which had been forced to evacuate, took refuge in this town as the last stronghold of the Vendée. This was yesterday evening; and this morning at six o'clock, a general meeting was held. The question was raised as to what to do with the prisoners. An absolute majority voted for a general massacre; eleven cannons loaded with grapeshot, were trained on your passage, together with 1,500 well-armed brigands drawn up in two lines. The plan was discovered. The inhabitants of Saint-Florent met and decided to send their women and children to plead with these tigers. Patriotism, humanity and fear of Republican reprisals ...- all these motives dictated such a course of action. Our women presented themselves in tears and threw themselves at the feet of these monsters... They received only the cold, barbarous reply that they must withdraw immediately or be shot themselves.....In the fighting </i></span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>at Beaupréa</i></span><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"> </i><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">the day before yesterday, several commanders of the brigands perished; Bonchamps, among others, was mortally wounded. He expires as I speak. He was transported here yesterday evening. No doubt he learned this morning of the cruel fate that awaited you; scarcely had our women returned home, in despair, than he addressed an order to the army, approximately as follows:</i></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><br /></span></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">"Comrades, until this day, which is my last, you have always obeyed me. As your commander, I order you to pardon my prisoners. If the orders of a dying leader no longer have any force, then I beg you in the name of humanity, and in the name of the God for whom you fight, to spare their lives. Comrades, if you disregard my orders and my prayers, I declare that I will have myself taken into the midst of my prisoners and that your first bullets will strike me."</span></i></div><div>Mocquereau de La Barrie, <i>Mes trois mois en prison dans la Vendée </i>(1882), p.41ff. [<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Mes_trois_mois_de_prison_dans_la_Vend%C3%A9e/iWVTAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Mes%20trois%20mois%20de%20prison%20dans%20la%20Vend%C3%A9e&pg=PA41&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">Google Books</a>]</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The funeral of Bonchamps</b></span></div><div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">From the <i>Moniteur</i>, October 1817:</span></div><div><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Funeral ceremony, which took place at Saint-Florent, 18th October 1817, in which the remains of the Marquis de Bonchamps were provisionally transported to La Chapelle, the Sepulchre of his ancestors.</i></span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>...<i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">.The Count Arthur de Bouillé, son-in-law of M. de Bonchamps, had the remains of his father-in-law exhumed. On the 20th [October] these precious relics were taken from the commune of Varades to the church in La Chapelle-Saint-Florent, where they were provisionally deposited to await the erection of the monument which was to receive them forever.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">At ten o'clock in the morning the procession which accompanied the coffin crossed the Loire and headed towards La Chapelle-Saint-Florent. A detachment of the Legion of the Dordogne, garrisoned in Angers, several brigades of gendarmerie and a detachment of armed Vendeans, who served that day as National Guards, formed two columns. An immense crowd of unarmed Vendeans - public magistrates, various officers, old men, women and children, made up the cortege. It was headed by the comte Arthur de Bouillé. Also present were the Viscount de Bonchamps, first cousin of the general; the Count Charles d'Autichamp, a peer and lieutenant-general; M. le Chevalier d'Audigné, a peer and major-general..; M. le Chevalier de Fleuriol etc. etc. </span></i></div></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The coffin was carried by old Vendeans, soldiers of the army of M. de Bonchamps. They were proud to have been victorious under his command; proud of scars earned in the service of the old monarchy, and proud too of the duty that had been entrusted to them. Some of them had carried the dying Bonchamps when he crossed the Loire; involuntary tears betrayed the sad memory. The slow and silent march of the cortege; the sight of the fields of the Vendée, scenes of so much misfortune and so much glory; the memory of the general, his goodness, his popularity, his valour; the presence of these brave men whom he had so often led to victory, the rhythmic sounding of the drums, the sight of the stations on the way where assistants invoked on their knees the blessing of heaven - all these lent to the august ceremony a solemn and sombre character, which was deeply moving.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">When the procession arrived at the church, the coffin was placed in front of the altar. A Mass for the Dead was sung. The curé of Montrevault read the eulogy of the general....At the sound of the revered name of Bonchamps, and the evocation of their former exploits, the veterans assumed bold and proud postures; in these severe masculine figures one recognised once more the intrepid defenders of Throne and Altar...</span></i></div><div>Reproduced in Chauveau, <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Vie_de_Charles_Melchior_Artus_marquis_de/RBAEAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=RA1-PA250&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank"><i>Vie de Bonchamps </i>(1817) p.250f</a>. The text of the funeral oration by the abbé Martin is also included.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> In 1825 the mayor of Saint-Florent, Claude-Louis Gazeau, was called upon to formally witness the deposition of Bonchamps's remains in the Abbey. A copy of his procès-verbal was found inside the monument when it was moved from the sanctuary in 1890:</div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Procès-verbal of the transfer of Bonchamps' remains to the monument in the Church of Saint-Florent. </span></b></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Gazeau records that at six o'clock on the morning of 18th June 1825 the remains were transported from chapel of the Cemetery of Chapelle Saint-Florent in a coffin carried by eight men and followed by the Mayor of La Chapelle. Inside the Abbey church prayers were said, and the coffin opened in the presence of MM. the curés of La Chapelle and Le Marillais, M. Guérif, the mayor of La Chapelle and various other dignitaries. The bones of the late general de Bonchamp were taken out and placed in the monument by M. the curé of Le Marillais, acting for the curé of Saint-Florent. The mason Louis Rabjeau, himself a veteran, immediately sealed the opening with a stone, secured with quicklime. M. le Comte de Bouillé added a copy of Chauveau's biography. </span></div><div><br /></div><div>In 1890 when the monument was moved, the procès-verbal was discovered in a tube of glass. It is recorded that the remains of Bonchamps consisted of the skull and some bones, including the feet still in their silk slippers. Nearby the biography "by a doctor whose name was illegible", was almost totally eaten away by worms or mites. Everything was placed back inside the monument in a little oak casket. </div></div><div>See the documents reproduced in <a href="http://shenandoahdavis.canalblog.com/archives/2013/07/28/27740844.html" target="_blank"><i>La Maraîchine Normande</i>, post of 28.07.2013.</a> </div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-85905715199725686832022-09-28T06:21:00.003-07:002023-03-04T03:52:54.126-08:00Lescure crosses the Loire<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlBLF8ISv9a8MvhZwu3GAptUbxvxgPPI83IViIDiIJVGD_dlLPFJnFCec5UsOkOzW0_BrvlxsBGrxg5ueNeIeCyy9Bnv0ZeTzPRvFqrXGcak0xcQw_k7Z_d3G0kQrhyCyGCkJLTUeMYVFwy_yWn5zkP9HWimAMupNoP3khOP0cBKBxpmfSK4_gXHmk/s1000/MER_WGM_2974-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="544" data-original-width="1000" height="348" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlBLF8ISv9a8MvhZwu3GAptUbxvxgPPI83IViIDiIJVGD_dlLPFJnFCec5UsOkOzW0_BrvlxsBGrxg5ueNeIeCyy9Bnv0ZeTzPRvFqrXGcak0xcQw_k7Z_d3G0kQrhyCyGCkJLTUeMYVFwy_yWn5zkP9HWimAMupNoP3khOP0cBKBxpmfSK4_gXHmk/w640-h348/MER_WGM_2974-001.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-size: medium;"><b> Jules Girardet (1856–1946).</b></span></p><p><i><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-size: medium;"><b>General de Lescure, wounded, crossing the Loire from Saint-Florent with his defeated army</b></span></i></p><p><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-size: medium;"><b>Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1882. 152 cm x 249 cm.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b></span></p><p><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-size: medium;"><b>Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead</b></span></p><p><br /></p><p>Here is a striking image of the conflict in the Vendée to be admired in an unexpected location! </p><p>Girardet's canvas captures the moment when the stricken general Lescure was ferried across the Loire from Saint-Florent, with his wife, daughter and father-in-law. </p><p>Lescure had been shot in the head by a musket ball and seriously wounded at La Tremblaye on 15th October 1793, just prior to the decisive Royalist defeat at Cholet. He had opposed the crossing and declared his wish to die in the Vendée, but in the end he had little choice. He was carried slowly and painfully by his men on the long retreat of the Vendéan army, to die finally at Laval on 2nd November. His passage across the Loire is described vividly in the <i>Memoirs</i> of his widow, the Marquise de La Rochejaquelein: </p><p><br /><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLDZKpRv1x_J5b-MDD_xv0ZOPJKgPCN1UytZ1rBku_YQ0K0cxtsIvGqF4FWplmRXkMA3bxwXYzEACxXfqIduav-ctiLu9O-C0NOUobLuf1wh-JX9TbM5nQK7zXJKsJvtGXv30mBGmkLO085kTC2LIu0UKhZEkNoMotMieRR9TAjuAWSme9fZyN2zwE/s817/Girardet.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="817" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLDZKpRv1x_J5b-MDD_xv0ZOPJKgPCN1UytZ1rBku_YQ0K0cxtsIvGqF4FWplmRXkMA3bxwXYzEACxXfqIduav-ctiLu9O-C0NOUobLuf1wh-JX9TbM5nQK7zXJKsJvtGXv30mBGmkLO085kTC2LIu0UKhZEkNoMotMieRR9TAjuAWSme9fZyN2zwE/w320-h215/Girardet.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Catalogue_illustre_du_Salon/8uoYAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Girardet+lescure&pg=RA1-PA16&printsec=frontcover" style="background-color: white; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; font-size: xx-small;">Catalogue illustre du Salon de 1882 - Google Books</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><span face="Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif"><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">When on the morning of the 18th, the officers arrived, the passage was begun. We had left Chaudron during the night. M. de Lescure was carried on a bed, which they had covered as well as they possibly could; he suffered dreadfully. I travelled by his side. I was three months gone with child; my situation was shocking. We arrived early at St. Florent, and then I saw the greatest and the saddest sight which can be imagined; a sight which never can be effaced from the memory of the wretched Vendéens.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">The heights of st Florent form a kind of semicircular boundary to a vast level strand reaching to the Loire, which is very wide at this place. Eighty thousand people were crowded together in this valley; soldiers, women, children, the aged, and the wounded, flying from immediate destruction. Behind them, they perceived the smoke rising from the villages the Republicans were burning. Nothing was heard but loud sobs, groans, and cries. In this confused crowd, everyone sought his relations, his friends, and his protectors. They knew not what fate they should meet on the other shore, yet hastened to it, as if beyond the stream they were to find an end to all their misfortunes. Twenty bad boats carried successively the fugitives, who crowded in them; others tried to cross on horses; all spread out their arms towards the other side, supplicating to be taken there. At the distance on the opposite shore, another multitude was seen and heard fainter. In the middle was a small island covered with people.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Many of us compared this disorder, this despair, this terrible uncertainty of the future, this immense spectacle, this bewildered crowd this valley, this stream which must be crossed, to the ideas of the Last Judgement. </span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">We were preparing to cross over. M. de Lescure was wrapped up in his bed-clothes, and he was put on an arm chair covered with a kind of mattress. We descended from St Florent to the shore in the middle of the crowd. Many officers accompanied us, and we arrived at the edge of the water. </span></i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>They drew their sabres, made a circle around us, and we arrived at the edge of the water. </i></span><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">We found the old Madame de Meynard, who had broken her leg in coming to St Florent; her daughter was by her side, and begged me to receive them in our boat. M de Lescure was put in. M.Durivault, my little girl, my father, our servants, and I, got into the boat. It could not hold Madame de Meynard's litter; and her daughter would not leave her: - they both remained....</span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">When we were embarked, my father told the boatman who conducted us, to pass the little island, and go to Varades at once without stopping, to save M. de Lescure the pain of being landed and put in the boat again. The man refused absolutely; neither entreaties nor threats could induce him. My father was angry, and drew his sabre. "Alas! Sir," said the boatman to him, "I am a poor priest; out of charity I came to ferry the Vendéens over. I have now been working eight hours in this boat; I am overpowered with fatigue, and I am not skillful in this business; I should run a risk of drowning you if I crossed the great arm of the river."</span></i></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">We were then obliged to land on the island, in the middle of the confusion. We found a boat there which took us to the other side, where there were a number of Vendéens seated on the grass, all waiting for their friends. My father went in search of my mother. I sent to a half-burnt hamlet on the edge of the Loire for some milk for my child. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">(p.279-281)<br /></span><a href="https://archive.org/details/memoirsmarchion00scotgoog/page/n216/mode/2up?view=theater">Memoirs of the Marchioness de La Rochejaquelein (1827) Internet Archive<br /></a> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>References</b></div></span><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">Entry on National Inventory of Continental European Paintings <br /><a href="https://vads.ac.uk/digital/collection/NIRP/id/28763">https://vads.ac.uk/digital/collection/NIRP/id/28763</a></div><p>According to NICE Paintings, Girardet's picture was donated to the Williamson Gallery in 1951. It was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1882 and and also at the Exposition Universelle in 1889, when it was listed as belonging to "M. G. Herring of London". It subsequently passed through a number of hands before ending up at the Williamson. </p><p style="text-align: left;">This blog post has some fine close-up photographs showing details of the painting: <a href="http://scriptorsenex.blogspot.com/2010/08/war-in-vendee.html">RAMBLES FROM MY CHAIR: The War in the Vendée (scriptorsenex.blogspot.com)</a></p>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-55819306466537989942022-09-14T06:57:00.006-07:002023-01-13T14:59:13.435-08:00Saint-Florent-le-Vieil (2)<p> [continued from previous post]</p><div class="separator"><p style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /> </p></div><div><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;"><b>17th-19th October 1793: The Army of the Vendée crosses the Loire</b></span><p></p><p>If Saint-Florent saw the beginning of the conflict in the Vendée, in October 1793 it was to witness its critical turning-point, as the Royalist forces crossed the Loire and turned West at the start of the <i>Virée de Galerne. </i></p><p>On the evening of 16th October at Beaupréau, Bonchamps's plan to extend the war to Brittany had been reluctantly agreed by the Royalist leadership. A detachment under the orders of Autichamp, Bonchamps's aide-de-camp, successfully secured the commune of Varades on the north bank, directly opposite Saint-Florent, and the way now stood open. However, the catastrophic defeat at Cholet on 17th October, meant that the crossing took place under chaotic conditions. Both D'Elbée and Bonchamps had been gravely wounded. The mass of dispirited troops retreated in disarray first to Beaupréau, then in the evening to Saint-Florent. On the same night, 17th October, the crossing began. It continued throughout the next day, principally from Saint-Florent, and Cul-de-boeuf a short distance upstream. Due to the shortage of boats, huge numbers of Vendeans found themselves crowded together on the riverback. Several thousand Republican prisoners who had been brought into the town were famously liberated by order of Bonchamps, who was taken across the Loire and died at the village of Meilleraie on the evening of the 18th.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifmFiUaFK0HMQ-7l7TRi8XUUirIbznfQ2_6nT2SK39rpSSKQ4HgC49xhE8d5nJWD1AHZbXZDXWjhllrGwUJPWnfqIokoNstLWu3p1b-dERDIli7gyP5VnpF6D6LL6oIt_9FA1HZIeOnLtcdEnkiUy_bVQMGLoU6ooWB7KquhCNYKfkhkWjn1v2t5Ij/s4608/IMG_3360.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="4608" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifmFiUaFK0HMQ-7l7TRi8XUUirIbznfQ2_6nT2SK39rpSSKQ4HgC49xhE8d5nJWD1AHZbXZDXWjhllrGwUJPWnfqIokoNstLWu3p1b-dERDIli7gyP5VnpF6D6LL6oIt_9FA1HZIeOnLtcdEnkiUy_bVQMGLoU6ooWB7KquhCNYKfkhkWjn1v2t5Ij/w400-h300/IMG_3360.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="4608" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHJPIj-axhw1V_EQyMt2YQS34FG3txs9LhbvhnHgPt9zybb1gdb3JLp0eVEmYOw3O824FkH-fzfFTqvAt2qBsSxa-zCivAcWGG6rguY_wraHGgcjG5Ql7RQIVu1a5-pEy9kth4jnIq1G7oyk_UhXoDFUklAcEuzr5sEFoh-aGnIOSw_cKE9wxpXpF-/w400-h300/IMG_3354.JPG" width="400" /><p></p></div><div><br /></div><div>The site of the crossing can be surveyed evocatively from the steep hill of Saint-Florent, surmounted by the Abbey church and the wide expanse of the Place d'Armes. Below, the Loire is broad and shallow, with a flat bank, which must have been far too small to accommodate the press of people gathered on it. According to Mme de La Rochejaquelein there were only twenty or so boats, though there were doubtless other improvised rafts. A first branch of the river, with dykes and low water levels, could be forded on foot "with water to half-way up the body". In the centre was the Ile Batailleuse and then the second branch of the river, whilst at the foot of the hill of Varades, yet a third branch had to be negotiated. The horsemen swam across with their horses. The weather was reported to be cold, but without wind to make waves on the river; elsewhere it was described as "calm" but with a cold wind.There is record of only one woman ,plus three horses, drowning.</div><div><br /></div><div><span><a name='more'></a></span> How many were involved? The usual estimate is 55-65,000 troops, with a following of women, children and old people; Kléber thought perhaps 100,000 in all. They brought with them much baggage - caissons, artillery, ambulances, provisions - which they were obliged in part to abandon. The report of the Representatives Bourbotte, Tourreau, Francastel and Choudieu listed "forty gun carriages, numerous cannons that the Vendeans had thrown into the Loire, as well as flour and corn." There were said to be 500 cannons at Cholet but it was possible to bring only 36 pieces of artillery down river to cross the Loire at Ancenis. Were the rest, including the famous "Marie-Jeanne", spiked and consigned to the Loire at Saint-Florent? If so, despite numerous searches, they have never been found.</div><p><b>See: </b>Jacques Boislève, Passer la Loire: "La Vendée pouvait tout, exceptée cette enjambée", In<i> La Loire, la guerre et les hommes</i>, ed. Jean-Pierre Bois. Presses universaires de Rennes, 2013, p.165-174. [Open access] <a href="http://books.openedition.org/pur/27357">http://books.openedition.org/pur/27357</a> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLBkApJei71FCNS24YZNhiomWa9eRbr_FsTr-fSJLz30-bjQDlJ6jgcE6ff8aTQRFPkdA5kbxEPqV-59XVF5E6oiIeGK0FNxDEXxxkvz8AuX_Fudau9fTgrvWbB-U_QMdDlJ9aCy4GfURZX-yurOmXGnHCLeFZ9HD16WihdX99udfcYJbZB_9pFotb/s797/-le-passage-de-la-loire-par-l-armee-vendeenne-a-saint-florent-.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="797" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLBkApJei71FCNS24YZNhiomWa9eRbr_FsTr-fSJLz30-bjQDlJ6jgcE6ff8aTQRFPkdA5kbxEPqV-59XVF5E6oiIeGK0FNxDEXxxkvz8AuX_Fudau9fTgrvWbB-U_QMdDlJ9aCy4GfURZX-yurOmXGnHCLeFZ9HD16WihdX99udfcYJbZB_9pFotb/w400-h283/-le-passage-de-la-loire-par-l-armee-vendeenne-a-saint-florent-.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #6aa84f;">Jean Sorieul, </span><i><span style="color: #6aa84f;">Passage of the Loire by the Vendean Army at Saint-Florent</span></i><span style="color: #6aa84f;"> (1848),<br /> oil on canvas, Musée de Cholet.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-align: left;"><div><span><p style="color: black; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"><b style="color: #800180; font-size: x-large;">Republican Vengeance </b></p><p style="color: black; font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="934" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghqT96KKILyTzWnm-rMSyq5-nv5zRxfsnzpAA-Msfefv8UOwfdBrb5_M54r4-hjJlvYWdSM8EyarMFFL1J2CCxRk3mE297PpZKTiQYccQ6ldtZsFYX1Y_gz7SmDVG-y7hvtNJTcKvWqnZD_CeOMSuYR4Z2QYP8tOV25oRfg63ACiSp7nDyDtpcrPG5/w640-h480/20220824_111536.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Picture on display in the church which shows Saint-Florent in ruins. The town was subsequently rebuilt much as it appeared originally, although the bell-tower of the parish church (on the left) subsequently collapsed in 1836.</span> </td></tr></tbody></table><p>In the winter of 1793 Republican forces reoccupied Saint-Florent, now renamed "Montglonne", which in Spring 1794 became a strategic centre for the deployment of Cordelier's mobile columns . There were mass executions. Up to two thousand Vendeans, both soldiers and civilians, were shot in the "Champ des Martyrs" near the sanctuary of Notre-Dame-du-Marillais, just outside the town. On 8th June 1794, the Committee of Public Safety ordered the evacuation of the population to Saumur and the town was burnt to the ground. By tradition only one house, belonging to a baker named Thareau, remained standing. </p><div><b>See</b>: "Le Champ des Martyrs à Marillais (Le)" Entry on <i>Petit patrimoine </i>website (with good photos)<br /><a href="https://www.petit-patrimoine.com/fiche-petit-patrimoine.php?id_pp=49190_1">https://www.petit-patrimoine.com/fiche-petit-patrimoine.php?id_pp=49190_1</a></div><div><br /></div><div>"Notre-Dame du Marillais et le Champ des Martyrs", <i>Vendéens & Chouans</i>, post of 19.08.2011</div><div><a href="http://www.vendeensetchouans.com/archives/2011/08/19/21823977.html">http://www.vendeensetchouans.com/archives/2011/08/19/21823977.html</a></div><div><br /></div><div>After an abortive attack on the town on 22nd March 1795, it was at Saint-Florent that Stofflet signed the short-lived peace treaty of 2nd May.</div><div style="color: #800180; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;"><br style="color: black; font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;" /></div><div style="color: #800180;"><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><b style="color: #800180; font-size: x-large;"><br /></b></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><b style="color: #800180; font-size: x-large;">Saint-Florent Cemetery</b></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: black; font-size: medium; font-weight: 400; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioZY4gNhge-n5YQwQ2vFj5hjwVEmDJA6hIWgrsYZ8YFgHZqSW1ddtV6M6mc3Z6wpPZC2OX9sRFg5aex6kt3CZqdiqNnAIkn9O1J4J-G3FfzmTHVoNsOTpEW0pp1vCoVYwKdCIkxTGdIUhQdR52ESMGODixRn8kRkaLj27YPvhyx5jNvl3acUxDFPeK/s1059/Capture.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="302" data-original-width="1059" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioZY4gNhge-n5YQwQ2vFj5hjwVEmDJA6hIWgrsYZ8YFgHZqSW1ddtV6M6mc3Z6wpPZC2OX9sRFg5aex6kt3CZqdiqNnAIkn9O1J4J-G3FfzmTHVoNsOTpEW0pp1vCoVYwKdCIkxTGdIUhQdR52ESMGODixRn8kRkaLj27YPvhyx5jNvl3acUxDFPeK/w640-h182/Capture.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br style="color: black; font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;" /><div style="color: black; font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In February 2020 the commune announced its ambition to restore the local cemetery. Among those interred here is Jeanne Bussonnière, the nurse who tended the wounded at the hôpital de Sainte-Croix. She died at age of 82 in 1854. Also buried here is Léonard-François Oger (died 1822), the surgeon who attended both Cathelineau and Bonchamps </span></div><div style="color: black; font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>See:</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> "Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, l’autre Panthéon de la Vendée militaire", <i>Vendéens & Chouans</i>, post of 14.02.2000.</span></span></div><div style="color: black; font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.vendeensetchouans.com/archives/2020/02/14/38023570.html">http://www.vendeensetchouans.com/archives/2020/02/14/38023570.html</a> </span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><br /></div></div></span></div><div><b style="color: #800180; font-size: x-large;"><br /></b></div><div><b style="color: #800180; font-size: x-large;">Memories of Bonchamps</b></div><div><br /></div><div>In 1817, the abbé Mathurin Joseph Martin, parish priest of Montrevault, and former treasurer to the Vendean army, confirmed that it was at 13 Grande Rue, just off the place Maubert, that Bonchamps issued his immortal order to spare the Republican prisoners. [Chaveau <i>Vie de Bonchamps</i> (1817) Pièces justificatives, no 8] The property belonged to the wife of a local justice of the peace, Julien René Marin Duval. In the early 20th century a plaque was erected on the house which now occupies the site. Tradition has it that the stricken Bonchamps was carried down to the Loire via the adjoining alleyway, wrapped in a fishing net </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjElpkL7gSp-TS7fgHJzK-KWKpCLJoKG13tURYxw1usObDf7wcN0FSrmFkd09rrt5H_Oa9cepv4oC_qBqHNhf8_GxqlamKjLRnPKnIHaevaMzqo--DA3KZ5gLkpVrZ2lmMMpQBDGFYng4IiyHfjwNVPWkDTV09q1RJVN8KlNw0ZlrNwSr1l3zUbzRBW/s1079/13%20grande%20rue.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="629" data-original-width="1079" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjElpkL7gSp-TS7fgHJzK-KWKpCLJoKG13tURYxw1usObDf7wcN0FSrmFkd09rrt5H_Oa9cepv4oC_qBqHNhf8_GxqlamKjLRnPKnIHaevaMzqo--DA3KZ5gLkpVrZ2lmMMpQBDGFYng4IiyHfjwNVPWkDTV09q1RJVN8KlNw0ZlrNwSr1l3zUbzRBW/s320/13%20grande%20rue.JPG" width="320" /></a><br /></div></span></div></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkFG9aOZFTEXmeGAoBlD0JoGv5kWLKHqfNfwLcpq8GaCEuVgnGkReTm_n8SJudvaezwE-0-j1n3VHWMO1P0ix34hGwZbL8DU2ugVQz0k5lVxokAOF1OXwnJT7TsEQlXk3RIJyBZ1yzN-2KMdUbYeqMcQEP7WR3ZqurP4q4y3nLHupW1Kb2UoZtiR02/s800/56440308.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkFG9aOZFTEXmeGAoBlD0JoGv5kWLKHqfNfwLcpq8GaCEuVgnGkReTm_n8SJudvaezwE-0-j1n3VHWMO1P0ix34hGwZbL8DU2ugVQz0k5lVxokAOF1OXwnJT7TsEQlXk3RIJyBZ1yzN-2KMdUbYeqMcQEP7WR3ZqurP4q4y3nLHupW1Kb2UoZtiR02/w640-h480/56440308.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b style="color: #800180; font-size: x-large;">The monument to Bonchamps</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The magnificent monument to Bonchamps in the Abbey Church, was installed in 1825. The statue was sculpted by David d'Angers, whose father had been among the prisoners saved by Bonchamps. The general is depicted half-recumbent, with one hand raised to command attention. The tomb is inscribed with his immortal command : <i>Grâce aux prisonniers! </i></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPmZ9AjkIdMGvwixv50mqSM0u2fX8jDfDY2NaAtCbtXuK_G8vPNM6s2EXa076qVwyoVtS3BWfIKcMG-cx7vXW7O0y6IBfI-n4XYbDccIPWtbUcmLfeWhHMEP6eZ0znBZbJapiXmlQVXZ97jboYx6tUhvl5RnRszpgiEgAjZw2HjDSQUQHLZ-uW7UQ_/s1716/Church.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="1716" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPmZ9AjkIdMGvwixv50mqSM0u2fX8jDfDY2NaAtCbtXuK_G8vPNM6s2EXa076qVwyoVtS3BWfIKcMG-cx7vXW7O0y6IBfI-n4XYbDccIPWtbUcmLfeWhHMEP6eZ0znBZbJapiXmlQVXZ97jboYx6tUhvl5RnRszpgiEgAjZw2HjDSQUQHLZ-uW7UQ_/w640-h210/Church.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;"><b>Visit of the duchesse d'Angoulême, 23rd September 1823</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUbbEgnC5nymmtnG4rJ9pulhMopZauhDDBV6CjAbrPZalEpSLM1xfWEIPSq4q4NqqgQkDKPBFJMOUSDiRsxwLwn8C031-ABS6OGRtKyKt-FGskGyJsYLnY7YK3CPEw0vxEZFrXV5LzJZQnul7QOC7teWxEPV5QMff5kcrEIyCAc9npkE0rNDN6dhOO/s553/Column.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="553" data-original-width="546" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUbbEgnC5nymmtnG4rJ9pulhMopZauhDDBV6CjAbrPZalEpSLM1xfWEIPSq4q4NqqgQkDKPBFJMOUSDiRsxwLwn8C031-ABS6OGRtKyKt-FGskGyJsYLnY7YK3CPEw0vxEZFrXV5LzJZQnul7QOC7teWxEPV5QMff5kcrEIyCAc9npkE0rNDN6dhOO/s320/Column.jpg" width="316" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3rxEbF2jUY0hRnO7aVo_iBAWyLaGFcjZ86xMeU_iomdxq11d7NcDrQGYMfGmvKdjSxtA18JxA6O79rpaUDtlxQYPQ2zz2b2utUTxiLq7A7MnxDNxqS-B6HF4JfWvVLMC1gRh23wewc_9c5xaAYNVZWhs9edseLC4pwuGEhvWV1Y-O6WqF_2ZDM4Hf/s4608/IMG_3424.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4608" data-original-width="3456" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3rxEbF2jUY0hRnO7aVo_iBAWyLaGFcjZ86xMeU_iomdxq11d7NcDrQGYMfGmvKdjSxtA18JxA6O79rpaUDtlxQYPQ2zz2b2utUTxiLq7A7MnxDNxqS-B6HF4JfWvVLMC1gRh23wewc_9c5xaAYNVZWhs9edseLC4pwuGEhvWV1Y-O6WqF_2ZDM4Hf/w240-h320/IMG_3424.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><span><div style="text-align: left;"><span> An ancient feudal motte just off the places d'Armes is occupied by a conspicuous memorial column. It commemorates the visit of the </span>duchesse d'Angoulême, who, on 22nd September 1823 diverted briefly to Saint-Florent on her way from Nantes to Angers. Her arrival was an occasion for great celebration, as the engraving below (also displayed in the church) shows. The royal party crossed the Loire from La Meilleraie on a boat fitted with a canopied dias, whilst on the bank the veterans of the Army of the Vendée formed a guard of honour. In the illustration, a standard floats from the top of the Abbey Church whilst white smoke curls up from the salvoes of the cannon. A temporary obelisk occupies the site of the later memorial, which was erected in 1828 under the direction of François Villers, an architect from Angers. Vestiges of the medieval castle survived until 1806.</div></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLnZBO832r150ZwXVAz_lj54-JbN3zzxjXzkqvEzMZbpYdA7h_SR70nHxTVmcWSg3HSeE0aPvlohp6oLE_1FB_cCmZob93IEoEoC3gKcDyuuzvxCgBWjrGl5srgjRt6ELjElQPKRHXU7DaWJ6nO5zmCVCRkATNJPKues6Z4iUV4TPT17APr_-x8WwW/s4608/IMG_3414.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="4608" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLnZBO832r150ZwXVAz_lj54-JbN3zzxjXzkqvEzMZbpYdA7h_SR70nHxTVmcWSg3HSeE0aPvlohp6oLE_1FB_cCmZob93IEoEoC3gKcDyuuzvxCgBWjrGl5srgjRt6ELjElQPKRHXU7DaWJ6nO5zmCVCRkATNJPKues6Z4iUV4TPT17APr_-x8WwW/w640-h480/IMG_3414.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><b>See</b>: "Le 22 septembre 1823 à Saint Florent, Marie-Thérèse de France duchesse d’Angoulême et le sculpteur Pierre David d’Angers", </span><i> PHystorique - Les Portes du Temps</i> [website], post of 30.09.2020</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><a href="http://www.lesportesdutemps.com/archives/2020/09/30/38561869.html">http://www.lesportesdutemps.com/archives/2020/09/30/38561869.html</a></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span>Shenandoah Davis, "Saint-Florent-le-Vieil: le tombeau de Bonchamps et le passage de la duchesse d'Angoulême.<i>La Maraîchine Normand</i>e [blog], post of 28.07.2013.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #800180;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://shenandoahdavis.canalblog.com/archives/2013/07/28/27740844.html">http://shenandoahdavis.canalblog.com/archives/2013/07/28/27740844.html</a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></span></div></div><p><b>General references</b></p><p><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"> "A saint Florent le VIEIL le 12 mars 1793 commença l'épopée vendéenne, la guerre de géants" </span><i style="color: black;">PHystorique - Les Portes du Temps </i><span style="color: black;">[website], post of 08/40/2018.</span><br style="color: black;" /><a href="http://www.lesportesdutemps.com/archives/2018/04/08/36304618.html">http://www.lesportesdutemps.com/archives/2018/04/08/36304618.html</a></span></p><div style="text-align: left;">A la découverte du vieux St-Florent" <i>Clemenceau du Petit Moulin </i>[blog], various posts.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://clemenceaudupetitmoulin.centerblog.net/rub-a-la-decouverte-du-vieux-st-florent-i-.html">http://clemenceaudupetitmoulin.centerblog.net/rub-a-la-decouverte-du-vieux-st-florent-i-.html</a></div><p><a href="https://monumentum.fr/ancienne-abbaye-pa00109258.html">Ancienne abbaye à Saint-Florent-le-Vieil - PA00109258 - Monumentum</a></p><p>Flickr album of Saint-Florent<br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hclm49/albums/72157710509066978">https://www.flickr.com/photos/hclm49/albums/7215771050906697</a></p></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8832859209231480725.post-75123321989027842242022-09-12T00:13:00.004-07:002022-12-09T07:28:12.635-08:00Saint-Florent-le-Vieil (1)<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizDKrLEJ0ki0AqHXUkXCotfW0nOdAuAXpZjQmyJsUNnlqkR18-sHHMgRNBPMVL14Y134ZMJBm_z5mkHN7CXXBTnrWFoRbLAXPMDOcrfTAot-MuETec2NEb0Af-ho7HSdtGtvGA4dnxLBblfEIpyX8SbxhMiLP9S43K4RW6BkcPuRehjBvohpNEpqWI/s2560/2560px-Saint_Florent_le_Vieil_(_Maine_et_Loire_).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="2560" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizDKrLEJ0ki0AqHXUkXCotfW0nOdAuAXpZjQmyJsUNnlqkR18-sHHMgRNBPMVL14Y134ZMJBm_z5mkHN7CXXBTnrWFoRbLAXPMDOcrfTAot-MuETec2NEb0Af-ho7HSdtGtvGA4dnxLBblfEIpyX8SbxhMiLP9S43K4RW6BkcPuRehjBvohpNEpqWI/s320/2560px-Saint_Florent_le_Vieil_(_Maine_et_Loire_).jpg" width="320" /></a> On the way back from Nantes to Dieppe we stopped off at Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, one of the key "places of memory" of the War in the Vendée. The little town, to the north of Cholet, occupies a strategic promontory over the Loire at the entry to the Mauges, later the heartland of the Army of Anjou. It was here that the war is traditionally said to have begun, on 12th March 1793.</p><p> It was only a flying visit - just enough time to take in the atmosphere and see the famous tomb of Bonchamps sculpted by David d'Angers. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4YZF11_exD_OoWLIe13_wkItvb2BuYlE4NgDeDtoqhhuUJpNE3ptTyed1YNRzs17u9JVUWkxaoqtxLeRY_vf7A_GIMzEqiO5qwWfW5FMQNBOYXUkSfFw5vvYb7Qz2pIcEs7J2BHTat7xzg1_nj3xa6xpFjYU2BHFqzG0iM7JiPVyIsTm0g5AjrFl9/s1600/Map%20of%20Saint-Florent%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4YZF11_exD_OoWLIe13_wkItvb2BuYlE4NgDeDtoqhhuUJpNE3ptTyed1YNRzs17u9JVUWkxaoqtxLeRY_vf7A_GIMzEqiO5qwWfW5FMQNBOYXUkSfFw5vvYb7Qz2pIcEs7J2BHTat7xzg1_nj3xa6xpFjYU2BHFqzG0iM7JiPVyIsTm0g5AjrFl9/w640-h360/Map%20of%20Saint-Florent%20(1).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b><p></p><p><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;">12th March 1793: T</span></b><b><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;">he War in the Vendée begins</span></b></p><div><br /></div><div>John Haycraft visited Saint-Florent in 1989 in the company of the local historian and ardent Royalist Dominique Lambert de La Douasnerie: </div><div><br /></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">When we asked Dominique about the start of the insurrection, he took us to the little town of St-Florent-le-Vieil, which is not far south of Angers. Approaching it from the north bank of the Loire, we could see the houses jostling up the hill to a picturesque church with a spire. Most of St Florent was burnt in 1793. However, it was rebuilt shortly afterwards, and still looks much like old prints, standing beyond the flat islands in the river, on which tall poplars stand, their small leaves rustling in the breeze.</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">We stopped beyond the suspension bridge on the Place Maubert. "It was here," said Dominique, dramatically, "that the war started."</span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">He looked round at the old houses in the little square. "On Sunday March 12th, 1793, on this spot, the municipal authorities announced that lots would be drawn for conscription, as there were insufficient volunteers for the army. Hitherto, the Vendeans had accepted the Revolution passively, but they were certainly not prepared to leave their farms and fight on distant frontiers for ideals they detested. They resented, too, that the municipal authorities and the National Guard were exempt from conscription, and that the burden therefore fell mainly on them. Protesting, the crowd jostled the officials and several young men were arrested and taken to the local jail.</span></i></div><div><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG3NoAmE5HbjI1xBWxR1vmbDhIyZzOZANRo84OKX0DHLy3mNhBr-K81a9NEOnmTZDq7WgujaP9tAcjIi2Nqztvfmzk0NbkTYY1Q3sOsbXrq6FKwoYvSWfGw_tOVQKNL3_3RY5xryD3zgy-C29uopieOFBeJCiLLNdWebrV8V_VAuKHOHIIQ56qMey_/s1536/Place%20Maubert.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="1536" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG3NoAmE5HbjI1xBWxR1vmbDhIyZzOZANRo84OKX0DHLy3mNhBr-K81a9NEOnmTZDq7WgujaP9tAcjIi2Nqztvfmzk0NbkTYY1Q3sOsbXrq6FKwoYvSWfGw_tOVQKNL3_3RY5xryD3zgy-C29uopieOFBeJCiLLNdWebrV8V_VAuKHOHIIQ56qMey_/w640-h182/Place%20Maubert.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;">The Place Maubert - nowadays truncated by the D752 as it enters the town via a suspension bridge</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">"The following Tuesday," continued Dominique, "more than 2,000 peasants marched into the town, wearing white royalist cockades. As the confronted the municipality and shouted to them to suspend the drawing of lots, the National Guard panicked and fired. The crowd then surged forward, and the Guard fled down the slope, just there, to the river." We walked through a narrow passageway between an old chapel, now a museum, and an ugly, rectangular cinema, and descended a cobbled path through trees to the banks of the river. Before us, the Loire flowed swiftly past. "The National Guards took refuge there, on those islands, and the town was in the hands of the insurgents."</span></i></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><span><a name='more'></a></span></span></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">"A delegation now set out for the local chateau to implore the Marquis de Bonchamps to be their leader. Bonchamps had seen service as a major in the royal army in India. Like most Vendean leaders, he was reluctant to accept, as he regarded the cause as hopeless. However, after a few hours, he changed his mind and set up his headquarters at St Florent. From the church steeple floated the white banner of the Bourbons. The War of the Vendée had begun."</span></i></div><div>John Haycraft, <i>In search of the French Revolution</i> (1989), p.</div><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZkP-4B9MTf_3FPRx9YcXLQvP4DOJuWcMhRX4fb3ItGE-sQdviG0NeZEiVeAEmwec8_dcZXD70LCR7DL8Y5sMQtgSEbsobuXlhGUUktfhM72b-V6gCh8erjSpqpuw4x6GWbdR3Q81PuApKER8kYT2XPT8nU4Zz8Tp_-lX5Ul9svGsGmL_avW-GPMDX/s656/Capture1.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="656" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZkP-4B9MTf_3FPRx9YcXLQvP4DOJuWcMhRX4fb3ItGE-sQdviG0NeZEiVeAEmwec8_dcZXD70LCR7DL8Y5sMQtgSEbsobuXlhGUUktfhM72b-V6gCh8erjSpqpuw4x6GWbdR3Q81PuApKER8kYT2XPT8nU4Zz8Tp_-lX5Ul9svGsGmL_avW-GPMDX/s320/Capture1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj342BxFlneYk_pnrIzL6u0JZtF7-dfZpe9eXao78KaU7LAaJDbSEVCOa4Dr8A26sIt5UUSwPJXE3BN5qu_uoRg-C1ivRpWzLZiFYqr4bpGdX6rlpGK7SP4YCs0YmuYGspsfcprK3GaReLc3HHKtFr0RnGfmE2QDQ0Nen9605BRdKYwRcETSz6bEFzB/s1085/Place%20de%20l'Arm%C3%A9e.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="515" data-original-width="1085" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj342BxFlneYk_pnrIzL6u0JZtF7-dfZpe9eXao78KaU7LAaJDbSEVCOa4Dr8A26sIt5UUSwPJXE3BN5qu_uoRg-C1ivRpWzLZiFYqr4bpGdX6rlpGK7SP4YCs0YmuYGspsfcprK3GaReLc3HHKtFr0RnGfmE2QDQ0Nen9605BRdKYwRcETSz6bEFzB/w640-h304/Place%20de%20l'Arm%C3%A9e.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;">The place d'Armes with the imposing Abbey church & buildings, which in 1793 housed the District offices.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #800180; font-size: large;"><b>14th July 1793: The death of Cathelineau</b></span></p><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyY5O6r9uu23ltiPcSvmSsZqLpTK5-qQGzRkEmZLZwwKWEcVsTokV6P3r6wfOjIRlYphL_3lu6tdzooUuvoi8iLq0jUtDigVAbUsw8Qde3nzFg9jPDhPTVxbEg4GesSBeLmLWBreeyqUUIrsuW6qiX5nvvPL8YlAhZlZv7CEh9QkFzdlizaEoxjZNH/s1611/E6RS2ZcXsAMApY9.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1205" data-original-width="1611" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyY5O6r9uu23ltiPcSvmSsZqLpTK5-qQGzRkEmZLZwwKWEcVsTokV6P3r6wfOjIRlYphL_3lu6tdzooUuvoi8iLq0jUtDigVAbUsw8Qde3nzFg9jPDhPTVxbEg4GesSBeLmLWBreeyqUUIrsuW6qiX5nvvPL8YlAhZlZv7CEh9QkFzdlizaEoxjZNH/w400-h299/E6RS2ZcXsAMApY9.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;">Plaque on the former convent of the Cordelières</span><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>On 29th June 1793, during the abortive Royalist attack on Nantes, Cathelineau was shot in the chest by a sniper stationed in a window in the place Viarme and fatally wounded. He was evacuated to Saint-Florent, to the former convent of the Cordelier nuns, which now served as a military hospital. Here he lingered for a fortnight, receiving reports and giving orders. The abbé Cantiteau, who attended him in his final hours, reported that he remained tranquil to the end, content to have given his life in the service of God. He died on 14th July and was buried in the local cemetery. He was thirty-four years old. For a while his death was kept secret, in order not to demoralise his men. According to some accounts, his grave, close to the chapel in the cemetery, was marked by a piece of white flint.<p></p><p><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh2KUQgpGgAO0lSnwkq_tm28scpMPwfysndTPua4IELuz0vkKcIHBSoiWrir1D0OfUy1qcP78_PTFU5_bky-EbWpLjaSp6lpZ4kIfoP43FJGpjmx9QDyQUQMnRCe-yNsl4wioKfRAe_-KaUCi6Yz27DQ_aEn9bshNoqRVvEz4YjqEobBqZb1cjEoFbg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="255" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh2KUQgpGgAO0lSnwkq_tm28scpMPwfysndTPua4IELuz0vkKcIHBSoiWrir1D0OfUy1qcP78_PTFU5_bky-EbWpLjaSp6lpZ4kIfoP43FJGpjmx9QDyQUQMnRCe-yNsl4wioKfRAe_-KaUCi6Yz27DQ_aEn9bshNoqRVvEz4YjqEobBqZb1cjEoFbg=w143-h200" width="143" /></a></p><p></p>In 1856-58 the comte Théodore de Quatrebarbes, erected a memorial chapel, the chapelle Saint-Charles, on the site of the former convent. This modest edifice now earns a place in the Base Mérimée as an early example of "neo-Plantagenet" style. In 1858 the General's remains were re-interred in the chapel, together with those of his son Jacques-Joseph de Cathelineau who had been killed defending the Royalist cause in 1832.<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGAkUpRIF_zZtiQw4OcThgn_fQcn-FGfmDJzQLaEaGoIHH44Bt9uC_-8C6YqqNMtECravgxh1yHruHTTggD2IzEKUt7su6eWMN5BaD9zlnthKz_09zjmEB4BrtNMBxd5whhiYynd1vgW8Q2tymCuAktdIoCae7Akl6OM4fEoAeqF5ex8juj2TK6zt9/s931/tombeau%20de%20cathelineau.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="931" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGAkUpRIF_zZtiQw4OcThgn_fQcn-FGfmDJzQLaEaGoIHH44Bt9uC_-8C6YqqNMtECravgxh1yHruHTTggD2IzEKUt7su6eWMN5BaD9zlnthKz_09zjmEB4BrtNMBxd5whhiYynd1vgW8Q2tymCuAktdIoCae7Akl6OM4fEoAeqF5ex8juj2TK6zt9/w640-h356/tombeau%20de%20cathelineau.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;">Image from Google Maps</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /><div><br /></div><div>Here are some evocative details from the <i>Revue de Bretagne</i> for 1858:</div><div><br /><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">[I was informed that] a chapel has been built at Saint-Florent in the garden of the former community of nuns where General Cathelineau died in 14th July 1793, having been nursed by Sister Saint-Jean-Baptiste (Mlle Bussonni</span></i><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">è</i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">re, who died at Saint-Florent only three years ago). In this chapel, M. le comte de Quatrebarbes, who inherited the land, has erected two tombs. In these have been placed the body of General Cathelineau, together with remains of his son, who was killed in 1832. The general had been interred in the cemetery of Saint-Florent by M. l'abbé Gruget, the parish priest, in the presence of M. Gazeau, Mlle Bussonni</span></i><i style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">è</i><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">re and others. They were able to show M. l'abbé Courant, M. Gruget's successor, the ditch where the Saint of Anjou lay. Since no-one else had been buried near him, his bones were found intact. </span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7QpMeS7jaL6ZQOpl8qQb8SB-udCvpYNLZtIrAYZDSrYDNRAQOHXly0EYSpOuuCStZGyBZYKoV7c4CM0G5KX2ELwgnHw3JgkqRYtuIHka8gA4bJeRmnKWBg8lgmSPWOYybeywz0bH4C1zi50MWURYAvBQyDAcBXTaH3BeJMcpIgMSYv4Q_Sgggu3FN/s1207/E6RS5G3WYAM-BM2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1207" data-original-width="906" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7QpMeS7jaL6ZQOpl8qQb8SB-udCvpYNLZtIrAYZDSrYDNRAQOHXly0EYSpOuuCStZGyBZYKoV7c4CM0G5KX2ELwgnHw3JgkqRYtuIHka8gA4bJeRmnKWBg8lgmSPWOYybeywz0bH4C1zi50MWURYAvBQyDAcBXTaH3BeJMcpIgMSYv4Q_Sgggu3FN/w240-h320/E6RS5G3WYAM-BM2.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: georgia;">Original tombstone of 1848 <br />in the chapel</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div><i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;">Can we believe this? </span></i><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>There was not even a stone on the spot when the comtesse de la Granville visited the tombs of Saint-Florent in September 1847. Surprised by this state of abandon, the pious lady sent seven hundred francs to the parish priest to provide a simple gravestone for the general and a perpetual mass to be said each year on the anniversary of his death. </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>On 23rd June last, M. de Quatrebarbes and M. Henri Cathelineau, the generalissimo's grandson, came to Saint-Florent and carried out the exhumation, without ceremony. The remains of the father and son were transferred to their tombs in the chapel. </i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: georgia;"><i>Cathelineau's head, added my esteemed correspondent, the curé of Saint-Florent himself... was very fine, with a wide forehead, similar to the heads which sculptors use as models. </i></span></div><div><i>Revue de Bretagne</i> (1856), p. 189-90 [<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Revue_de_Bretagne/BOUwAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA189&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">On Google Books]</a></div><div><br /></div><div>(Cathelineau posthumous life has proved a little restless, since 1896 he was disturbed once more when a tomb was erected at his birthplace in Le-Pin-en-Mauges and "part of his remains" transferred there.) </div><div><br /></div><div>[To be continued]</div></div></div>Rodama1789http://www.blogger.com/profile/06617445289314104257noreply@blogger.com0