Jean-Baptiste Coffinhal

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Pierre-André Coffinhal-Dubail (French pronunciation:

Paris commune and a judge of the Revolutionary Tribunal
.

Family

Pierre-André Coffinhal-Dubail[1] was the youngest of the six sons of Annet-Joseph Coffinhal (Pailherols 22 September 1705 - Vic-sur-Cère 6 December 1767), a lawyer in the bailiwick of Vic-sur-Cère, and Françoise Dunoyer, who were married in Aurillac on 18 May 1745.[2] He came from a long-established bourgeois family, which possessed wealth and authority already greater than that of the local nobility into which it was assimilating.

Two of his older brothers, Jean-Baptiste (

Cour de cassation and was ennobled by Napoleon, taking the title Baron Dunoyer and becoming a State Councillor. In fact after the Revolution both Jean-Baptiste and Joseph secured permission to change their name to that of their mother in order to dissociate themselves from their brother.[6]

Coffinhal himself began by studying medicine like his older brother Pierre but soon gave it up. He went to Paris, where he found a position as a clerk in a prosecutor's office.[7]

Revolutionary tribunal

rue Le Regrattier 16, where Coffinhal lived in 1793 (plaque).

He was enthusiastic about the French Revolution and took an active part in the political life of the city. He was an elector for the Section de l'Île-Saint-Louis (renamed Section de la Fraternité in 1792) for the

Gracchus Babeuf, Anacharsis Cloots) and took to calling himself Mucius Scaevola Coffinhal.[8]

When the

Fouquier-Tinville.[9] Politically close to Maximilien Robespierre, he behaved with a zeal and an intransigence that bred a deep hatred among his enemies, along with his tendency for misplaced witticisms.[10]

A year after the Revolutionary Tribunal was established, Coffinhal presided at the trial of

Vendemiaire Year III (30 September 1794).[11]

He also presided at the trial of Antoine Lavoisier and the Farmers General. It was during the course of this trial when he is said to have uttered the famous response to the appeal from Lavoisier's wife that he should be reprieved in order to pursue his scientific research: 'La République n'a pas besoin de savants ni de chimistes' ('The Republic has no need of scientists or chemists.')[note 1][note 2][note 3]

On 11 June 1794, the Tribunal was reorganized, and Coffinhal was made one of its three vice-presidents.

Thermidorian reaction which brought him down.[13]

Thermidorian reaction

Main article: Fall of Maximilien Robespierre

During the evening of

9 Thermidor (27 July 1794) Coffinhal, together with 8 or 10,000 men from the sections and a company of artillery, succeeded in bringing Hanriot from the Committee of General Security to the Hôtel de Ville, Paris.[14][15] The Convention then declared all the insurgents to be outlaws.[16][17] After midnight the forces of the Convention stormed the building. Some accounts say that Coffinhal pushed the drunken Hanriot out of a window, shouting 'You fool! It is your cowardice that has lost us!'[18] According to Ernest Hamel thus was one of the many legends spread by Barère.[19] Coffinhal managed to escape and made his way along the banks of the Seine to the Île des Cygnes where boatmen from his home region of Cantal concealed him. Eventually hunger forced him to break cover, and on 5 August he made for the house of his mistress Mme Nègre in the rue Montorgueil, but she refused to take him in. He came across someone who owed him money, who agreed to hide him, and then went straight to the police to denounce him.[20][21]
Nine days after his initial escape Coffinhal was arrested, totally exhausted.

The Revolutionary Tribunal itself had been suspended by this time, and he was condemned to death on 18 Thermidor (6 August 1794) by the criminal tribunal of the département, based on simple identification. The same day, the

Thermidorian reaction
.

After his execution, an inventory was drawn up of his possessions, which included a cellar of 237 bottles of wine, with 300 empty bottles, and a further full barrel, amounting to 225 litres of wine all told.

better source needed
]

Notes

  1. doi:10.1021/ed031p60
    ..
  2. ^ The French 'n'a pas besoin de savants' might also be translated as 'has no lack of scientists' or 'has no shortage of scientists', which would change the meaning, if indeed he actually said this.
  3. Fouquier-Tinville
    , but that neither Fourcroy nor Jérôme Lalande, in his 'Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de Lavoisier'(1795) make any mention of an appeal for clemency in behalf of Lavoisier.

Further reading

References

  1. ^ François Wartelle & Albert Soboul (dir.), Dictionnaire Historique de la Révolution française, PUF, coll. « Quadrige », 2005
  2. ^ Albert Révérend, Titres, anoblissements et pairies de la restoration 1814-1830, Chez l'auteur et chez H. Champion 1902 vol.2 p. 466
  3. ^ "Biographie extraite du dictionnaire des parlementaires français de 1789 à 1889 (Adolphe Robert et Gaston Cougny)". Archived from the original on January 10, 2018. Retrieved May 6, 2017.
  4. ^ "Family tree of Jean-Baptiste COFFINHAL". gw.geneanet.org. Archived from the original on February 7, 2019. Retrieved May 6, 2017.
  5. ^ "Family tree of Joseph COFFINHAL-DUNOYER dit "Baron Joseph Dunoyer"". gw.geneanet.org. Archived from the original on July 24, 2022. Retrieved May 6, 2017.
  6. ^ « Coffinhal Dunoyer (Joseph) » Archived 2018-01-10 at the Wayback Machine, Biographie Universelle, Ancienne et moderne, vols 5-6, 1847, p. 96.
  7. ^ Bulletin de la Société française d' Histoire de la médecine, Paris, Alphonse Picard & fils, 1903, chap. 2, p. 239
  8. ^ W.R. Aykroyd, Three Philosophers: Lavoisier, Priestley and Cavendish, Butterworth-Heineman 2014 p.183
  9. ^ "Family tree of Pierre-André COFFINHAL (1)". gw.geneanet.org. Archived from the original on 2022-07-24. Retrieved 2017-05-05.
  10. Louis-Gabriel Michaud, Biographie Universelle Ancienne et moderne, Madame C. Desplaces, 1854, vol. 8, p. 529-530 Archived 2018-01-09 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ "Family tree of Pierre-André COFFINHAL (1)". gw.geneanet.org. Archived from the original on 2022-07-24. Retrieved 2017-05-05.
  12. ^ François Wartelle & Albert Soboul (dir.), Dictionnaire Historique de la Révolution française, PUF, coll. « Quadrige », 2005
  13. ^ [1] Archived 2016-04-18 at the Wayback Machine accessed 5/5/20178
  14. ^ Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 235
  15. ^ "The public prosecutor of the Terror by A.Q. Fouquier-Tinville, p. 117" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-12-03. Retrieved 2017-05-06.
  16. ^ Richard T. Bienvenu (1968) The Ninth of Thermidor, p. 211
  17. ^ Blanc, Louis Jean Joseph (1869). "Histoire de la Révolution française, Band 3 by Louis Jean Joseph Blanc, p. 76-77". Archived from the original on 2019-02-07. Retrieved 2019-02-04.
  18. ^ Étienne Léon Lamothe-Langon, Histoire religieuse, monarchique, militaire et littéraire de la révolution française, et de l'empire, Albanel et Martin, 1840 vol.2 p.129
  19. ^ E. Hamel (1867) Histoire de Robespierre, p. 342
  20. ^ W.R. Aykroyd, Three Philosophers: Lavoisier, Priestley and Cavendish, Butterworth-Heineman 2014 p.195
  21. ^ Antoine-Denis Bailly, Choix d'anecdotes anciennes et modernes, Roret, Librairie, 1828 p.242
  22. ^ W.R. Aykroyd, Three Philosophers: Lavoisier, Priestley and Cavendish, Butterworth-Heineman 2014 p.195
  23. ^ "Family tree of Pierre-André COFFINHAL (1)". gw.geneanet.org. Archived from the original on 2022-07-24. Retrieved 2017-05-05.
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