Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve

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This article is about the French politician. For the Haitian revolutionary leader, see Alexandre Pétion.

Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve
Mayor of Paris
In office
18 November 1791 – 15 October 1792
Preceded byJean Sylvain Bailly
Succeeded byPhilibert Borie (temporary mayor)
Personal details
Born(1756-01-03)3 January 1756
Girondist
OccupationWriter, politician
Signature

Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve (French pronunciation:

mayor of Paris, from 1791 to 1792, and the first regular president of the National Convention in 1792. During the French Revolution, he was associated with the moderate Girondins, and voted against the immediate execution of Louis XVI at the king's trial in January 1793, though he supported a suspended sentence. This led to Pétion's proscription by the Convention alongside other Girondin deputies following the radical insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793, and ultimately his suicide together with fellow-Girondin François Buzot while evading arrest during the Terror
.

Early life and work

Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve was the son of a

Brissot
so much that he printed it in vol. vii. of his Bibliothèque philosophique des législateurs.

Pétion's next works, Les Lois civiles, and Essais sur le mariage, in which he advocated the marriage of priests, confirmed his position as a bold reformer. He also attacked long-held

Ancien Régime traditions such as primogeniture, accusing it of dividing the countryside into "proletarians and colossal properties."[2] Later works penned by Pétion include his account of Haiti entitled "Reflexions sur la noir et denonciation d'un crime affreux commis a Saint-Domingue" (1790)[3] and "Avis aux francois" in which he chides France for its corruption.[4]

When the elections to the Estates-General took place in 1789 he was elected a deputy to the

Mirabeau on 23 June, attacked the queen on 5 October, and was elected president on 4 December 1790. On 15 June 1791 he was elected president of the criminal tribunal of Paris. On 21 June 1791 he was chosen one of three commissioners appointed to bring back the king from Varennes, and he has left an account of the journey. After the last meeting of the assembly on 30 September 1791 Robespierre
and Pétion were made the popular heroes and were crowned by the populace with civic crowns.

Mayor of Paris

From 24 October - 11 November Pétion visited London and had dinner with

Jean-Sylvain Bailly had resigned due to constant political attacks from the left.[7] Pétion received a still further proof of the affection of the Parisians for him on 16 November 1791, when he was elected second mayor of Paris in succession to Bailly in a contest against Lafayette. (Only 10% of eligible citizens cast a vote, and Pétion won 60% of votes cast).[8] In his mayoralty he exhibited clearly his republican tendency and his hatred of the old monarchy, especially on 20 June 1792, when he allowed the mob to overrun the Tuileries
and insult the royal family. For neglecting to protect the Tuileries he was suspended from his functions on 6 July by Louis Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld, the president of the Directory of the
Catholic priests in a series of acts of violence that would come to be known as the September Massacres.[11]

Convention, flight and death

Pétion was elected to the Convention for

Dumouriez's project of restoring the French Constitution of 1791
.

Pétion's name was among those of the twenty-two Girondin deputies proscribed on 2 June 1793 (see

Charles MacFarlane states that "whether they had committed suicide by poison or by other means, or whether they had perished of hunger"[17]
was impossible to say due to the decomposed state the bodies were found in.

Publications

See FA Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Constituante (Paris, 1882).

Notes

  1. ^ John Adolphus, Biographical Memoirs of the French Revolution (T. Cadell, jun. and W. Davies, 1799), 328.
  2. ^ John Markoff, "Peasants Help Destroy an Old Regime and Defy a New One: Some Lessons from (and for) the Study of Social Movements", The American Journal of Sociology 102, 4 (Jan 1997): 1135.
  3. ^ Glenn O. Phillips, "The Caribbean Collection at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University," Latin American Research Review 15, 2 (1980), 168.
  4. ^ David A. Bell, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being French: Law, Republicanism and National Identity at the End of the Old Regime", The American Historical Review 106, 4 (Oct 2001), 1231.
  5. ^ Adolphus, 330.
  6. ^ Duthille, Rémy (2010). “1688–1789. Au carrefour des révolutions : les célébrations de la révolution anglaise de 1688 en Grande-Bretagne après 1789”. In Cottret, Bernard; Henneton, Lauric (eds.). Du Bon Usage des commémorations : histoire, mémoire, identité, XVIe – XVIIIe siècles (in French). Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. pp. 107–120.
  7. ^ David Andress, The Terror (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 61.
  8. ^ Chronicle of the French Revolution,Longman Group 1989 p.245
  9. ^ Chronicle of the French Revolution, Longman Group 1989 p.271
  10. ^ Chronicle of the French Revolution, Longman Group 1989 p.276
  11. ^ Andress, 96.
  12. ^ Chronicle of the French Revolution, Longman Group 1989 p.305
  13. ^ Andress, 116.
  14. ^ Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley; Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984, 2004), 129.
  15. ^ Mémoires sur la Révolution Française By François Buzot, p. 108
  16. ^ Stephens, H. Morse (1891). A History of the French Revolution. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 278.
  17. MacFarlane, Charles
    (1845). The French Revolution: Volume IV. London: Charles Knight & Co. p. 10.

References

  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pétion de Villeneuve, Jerôme". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  • Adolphus, John. Biographical Memoirs of the French Revolution. T. Cadell, jun. and W. Davies, 1799.
  • Andress, David. The Terror. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.
  • Bell, David A. "The Unbearable Lightness of Being French: Law, Republicanism and National Identity at the End of the Old Regime." The American Historical Review 106, 4 (Oct 2001): 1215–1235.
  • Hunt, Lynn. Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution. Berkeley; Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984, 2004.
  • Markoff, John. "Peasants Help Destroy an Old Regime and Defy a New One: Some Lessons from (and for) the Study of Social Movements." The American Journal of Sociology 102, 4 (Jan 1997): 1113–1142.
  • Phillips, Glenn O. "The Caribbean Collection at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University." Latin American Research Review 15, 2 (1980): 162–178.
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