Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois
Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois | |
|---|---|
President of the National Convention | |
| In office 19 July 1794 – 3 August 1794 | |
| Preceded by | Jean-Antoine Louis |
| Succeeded by | Philippe-Antoine Merlin |
| In office 13 June 1793 – 27 June 1793 | |
| Preceded by | François René Mallarmé |
| Succeeded by | Jacques-Alexis Thuriot |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 19 June 1749 Paris, France |
| Died | 8 June 1796 (aged 46) Cayenne, French Guiana |
| Cause of death | Yellow fever |
| Citizenship | French |
| Political party | the Mountain |
| Parent(s) | Gabriel-Jacques Collot, Jeanne-Agnès Collot née Hannen |
| Occupation |
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| Known for | member of the Committee of Public Safety, execution of more than 2,000 people in Lyon |
| Signature |  |
Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois (French pronunciation:
Early life
Born in Paris, Collot left his home in the rue St. Jacques in his teens to join the travelling theatres of provincial France. His moderately successful career as an actor, supplemented by a vigorous outpouring of works for the stage, took him from Bordeaux in the south of France to Nantes in the west and Lille in the north and even into the Dutch Republic, where he met his wife.
In 1784 he became director of the theatre in Geneva, Switzerland, and then at the prestigious playhouse at Lyon in 1787. At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 he dropped everything and returned to Paris, where his lead actor's voice, his writing skills, and his ability to organise and direct large-scale fêtes (civic feasts) were to make him famous.
Activism
Collot contributed to revolutionary agitation from the very beginning, but it was not until 1791 that he became a figure of importance. With the publication of L'Almanach du Père Gérard, an almanac advocating a constitutional monarchy in popular terms, he suddenly acquired great popularity.[2]
His fame was soon increased by his involvement on behalf of the Swiss of the
His opinions became more and more
Terror, Thermidor, Deportation and Death
After the insurrection of August 10 and the establishment of the National Convention, Collot d'Herbois became engaged in the struggle between the two main political parties,
After having entrusted him with several
The month of May 1794 saw
Works
Beginning his literary career in 1772 with the critically acclaimed Lucie, ou les Parents imprudents and finishing in 1792 with L'Aîné et le cadet, Collot was an accomplished, if minor, dramatist in a turbulent period of the French stage.
Before the Revolution, he wrote at least fifteen plays, of which ten survive, including Lucie, an adaptation of
In 1791, he wrote the prize-winning L'Almanach du père Gérard (lit. 'The Almanac of Father Gérard'), a fictional account of revolutionary morality which went on to become the best-seller of the period, establishing his political credentials in the process.
He was also one of the authors of the first French republican Constitution, which was written in 1793 but never applied.[5]
References
- ^ Undine Concannon, 'Tussaud , Anna Maria (bap. 1761, d. 1850)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
- ^ a b c d Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Citizens: A Chronicle of The French Revolution, Simon Schama, Penguin UK 2004
- ^ Narrative of the Deportation to Cayenne, of Barthélemy, Pichegru, &c. in Consequence of the Revolution of the 18th Fructidor, (General J.P. Ramel) J. Wright, 1799 p.91
- ^ Crowe, Michael Bertram. 1977. The Changing Profile of the Natural Law. P. 243
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Collot d'Herbois, Jean Marie". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 694. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, in turn, cites as a reference:
- F.A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Legislative et de la Convention (Paris, 1885–1886), t. ii. pp. 501–512. The principal documents relative to the trial of Collot d'Herbois, Barère and Billaud-Varenne are indicated in Aulard, Recueil des actes du comité de salut public, t. i. pp. 5 and 6.
Bibliography
- Much recent study has been done on Collot d'Herbois, in Australia (articles by Paul Mansfield - 'Collot d'Herbois and the Dechristianizers', Journal of Religious History, volume 14, number 4 (December, 1987), pp. 406–18; 'The Repression of Lyon, 1793-4: Origins, Responsibility and Significance', French History, volume 2, number 1 (March, 1988), pp. 74–101; 'Collot d'Herbois at the Committee of Public Safety: a revaluation', English Historical Review, volume 103, number 2 (March, 1988), pp. 565–87; 'The Management of Terror in Montagnard Lyon, Year II', European History Quarterly, volume 20, number 4 (October, 1990), pp. 467–98; 'Collot d'Herbois in the Theatre of the Old Regime: homme de lettres or "poor hack"?', Australian Journal of French Studies, volume 27, number 2 (1990), pp. 107–120; Peter Bruce's "Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois dans son théâtre pré-révolutionnaire"; and in France (Michel Biard Collot d'Herbois. Légendes noires et révolution).
- A more easily obtainable work is R. R. Palmer's Twelve Who Ruled, which contains a biographical account of the members of the Committee of Public Safety.
- A. Kuscinski Dictionnaire des conventionnels (1916)
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