François Antoine de Boissy d'Anglas

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Third Estate
In office
7 January 1789 – 9 July 1789
ConstituencyAnnonay
Personal details
Born(1756-12-08)8 December 1756
Girondist (1792–1793)
Maraisard (1793–1795)
Clichyens (1795–1797)
Independent
(1799–1826)
Spouse
Marie-Françoise Michel
​
​
(m. 1776)​
Children4 children
ProfessionWriter, lawyer

François-Antoine, Count of the Empire (1756–1826) was a French writer, lawyer and politician during the Revolution and the Empire.

Biography

Early career

Boissy d'Anglas in his youth.

Born to a

Protestant family in Saint-Jean-Chambre, Ardèche,[citation needed] he studied Law and, after literary attempts, became a lawyer to the parlement of Paris.[1]

In 1789 he was elected by the

Estates-General. He was one of those who induced the Estates-General to proclaim itself a National Assembly on 17 June 1789, and approved, in several speeches, of the storming of the Bastille and of the taking of the royal family to Paris (October 1789).[1]

Boissy d'Anglas demanded that strict measures be taken against the Royalists who were

département of Ardèche.[1]

During the Revolution

Elected to the

representative on mission to Lyon, charged with investigating frauds in connection with the supplies of the Army of the Alps.[1]

Although he had been close to several

insurrection of 2 June 1793,[citation needed] and he was one of several centrist deputies who supported Maximilien Robespierre during the early stages of the Reign of Terror. However, he was gained over by the members of The Mountain hostile to Robespierre, and his support, along with that of some other leaders of the Marais, made possible the Thermidorian Reaction.[1]

Boissy d'Anglas was then elected a member of the

Germinal and of Prairial of the year III, he was noted for his courage.[1]

On 12 Germinal, the day of

Insurrection of 1 Prairial, he was presiding over the Convention, and remained in his post despite insults and menaces of the insurgents. When the head of the deputy, Jean-Bertrand Féraud, was presented to him on the end of a pike, he saluted it impassively.[1]

Under the Directory

Boissy saluting Féraud's head by Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard (1831)

He was protractor of the committee which drew up the

tyranny and anarchy". This report, the proposal that he made (27 August 1795) to lessen the severity of the revolutionary laws, and the eulogies he received from several Paris sections suspected of Royalism, resulted in his being obliged to justify himself (15 October 1795).[1]

As a member of the

deported priests and attacked the Directory. Accordingly, he was proscribed immediately after the coup of 18 Fructidor, and lived in Great Britain until the establishment of the French Consulate.[1]

Later life

In 1801 he was made a member of the

Second Restoration, he was for a short while excluded.[1]

In the Chamber he still sought to obtain liberty for the press —a theme upon which he published a volume of his speeches (Paris, 1817). He was a member of the Institut de France from its foundation, and in 1816, after its reorganization, became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. He published in 1819–1821 a two-volume Essai sur la vie et les opinions de M. de Malesherbes.[1]

Family and children

He married Marie-Françoise Michel (Nîmes, 6 January 1759 – Bougival, 21 March 1850) on 11 March 1776 in Vauvert. They had four children:

  • Marie-Anne (17 February 1777 – October 1855)
  • Suzanne (14 October 1779 – 6 March 1851)
  • François-Antoine, Jr. (23 February 1781 – 12 November 1850), prefect of Charente
  • Jean-Gabriel (2 April 1783 – 6 May 1864), Orléanist politician

Bibliography


Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Anchel 1911, p. 155.
  2. ^ Siborne 1895, pp. 711–712.

References

  • Siborne, William (1895), The Waterloo Campaign, 1815 (4th ed.), Westminster: A. Constable

Attribution:

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