Raymond de Sèze
Raymond Romain, Comte de Sèze or Desèze (26 September 1750 – 2 May 1828) was a
Life
Raymond de Sèze was born in
When, at forty-four, he was called out of retirement to assist
Louis ascended the throne at the age of twenty, and at the age of twenty he gave to the throne the example of character. He brought to the throne no wicked weaknesses, no corrupting passions. He was economical, just, severe. He showed himself always the constant friend of the people. The people wanted the abolition of servitude. He began by abolishing it on his own lands. The people asked for reforms in the criminal law... he carried out these reforms. The people wanted liberty: he gave it to them. The people themselves came before him in his sacrifices. Nevertheless, it is in the name of these very people that one today demands... Citizens, I cannot finish... I stop myself before History. Think how it will judge your judgement, and that the judgement of him will be judged by the centuries.
Jean-Paul Marat, the démagogue of the sans-culottes, was favourably impressed, and declared: "De Séze read a long speech made with a great deal of art". The Commune, the most violent of the factions at the time, described the speech as "very adroit". Nevertheless, the case was lost, and the King was sent to the guillotine.[3]
De Sèze himself was imprisoned during the revolution, but he managed to elude the scaffold.
References
- ^ Raymond Desèze: Plaidoyer prononcé à l’audience du Châtelet de Paris, tous les services assemblés, du Lundi 1er Mars 1790, par M. Desèze, avocat au Parlement, pour M. Le Baron de Besenval, accusé, contre M. Le Procureur du Roi au Châtelet, accusateur, chez Prault, Imprimeur du Roi, Quai des Augustins, Paris, 1790
- ^ Journal de Paris: L’affaire de Besenval – Acquittement de l'accusation de lèse-nation, le 1er mars 1790, Numéro 225, supplément au Journal de Paris, Vendredi, 13 août 1790, de la Lune le 4, de l’imprimerie de Quillau, rue Plâtrière, 11, Paris, supplément (no. 59)
- ^ "Milestones: 1792". BBC History. December 2012.
- ^ a b Wood, James, ed. (1907). . The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne.
Source
- The King's Trial (Louis XVI vs The French Revolution), David P. Jordan, University of California Press, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition. Copyright 1979, 2004