Léonard Bourdon

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Léonard Bourdon

Louis Jean Joseph Léonard Bourdon des Planches (also Bourdon de la Crosnière ; born November 6, 1754 in Alençon , † May 29, 1807 in Breslau or Toulon ) was a French politician , deputy prosecutor of the Paris Commune and president of the French National Assembly from 1789 .

Life

Career before the revolution

Before the revolution, Bourdon called himself “de La Crosnière” after a coastal spot in the Vendée (now Beauvoir-sur-Mer ) that a member of his family had drained in 1765 with a Dutch business partner .

Bourdon's father was Louis Joseph Bourdon des Planches, a senior official in the royal treasury, who published proposals to the public for reform of the postal system (from 1760) and the grain trade (1785), which had been rejected by his minister. was imprisoned in the Bastille until September 19, 1776 .

Léonard Bourdon completed a law degree in Orléans, was a lawyer in Paris since 1779 , was part of the Conseil du Roi and was committed to a reform of the educational system, to which he gave King Louis XVI. In 1788 he presented a program and in 1789 received approval to found a school, which he set up under the name Société royale d'émulation pour l'éducation nationale in Paris, in the Rue des Gobelins in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau .

Period of the French Revolution

Storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 (contemporary illustration)

At the beginning of the French Revolution , he and his father were among the first members of the Jacobin Club . On April 22, 1789, he was a member of the Assembly of States General as a representative of the Third Estate for the Faubourg Saint-Marceau . He took part in the storming of the Bastille in July 1789 and was then a member of a committee of four commissioners who had to determine those involved and the relatives of the fallen.

Bourdon pursued his educational reform plans under the conditions of the Revolution and founded a (further) school in 1792, which was set up under the name Société des jeunes français in the building of the monastery of St-Martin-des-Champs in Paris. In the same year he became a member of the National Convention , sent to the Loiret department .

In August 1792 Bourdon and Prosper Dubail were instructed by the Justice Minister Danton to transfer 52 prisoners from Orléans to Saumur as commissioners of the executive branch . Among them were well-known people such as the former Minister of War d'Abancourt , the former Minister of the Interior, Finance and Foreign Affairs Lessart and the Duke of Brissac . At the same time, a large number of Parisian "citoyens", under the leadership of Claude Fournier, set out for Orléans to take the prisoners to Paris instead. Bourdon and Dubail met with Fournier at Longjumeau to agree on how to proceed, and then moved ahead to Orléans.

The commissioners inspected the prisoners in the two prisons in the city and deployed teams to guard them. According to witnesses, there were looting and Bourdon also personally enriched himself. Although the city administration and parts of the population opposed the transport to Paris and demanded the transfer to Saumur and Bourdon also provided appropriate guarantees and, according to his own account, campaigned for the implementation, the train left on September 2nd, according to Bourdon at the request of the people, finally towards Paris. While Bourdon and Dubail, who regarded their mission as a failure and no longer felt responsible, stayed behind, the prisoners were first taken to Paris and then, in order to evade a gathering from there, to Versailles, where they received no significant resistance from the assembled population fell into the hand and 44 of them were massacred in the most cruel manner. The incident happened as part of the infamous September massacre .

The people of Paris in front of the City Hall

In the spring of 1793 Bourdon was sent on a mission to Burgundy and also visited Orléans on the way there on March 15, where a scuffle broke out on the street in front of the headquarters of the National Guard between his escort and local guardsmen and armed citizens Bourdon also suffered minor injuries. The affair, hyped up to be the "assassination attempt" against Bourdon, who immediately informed the National Convention by letter, had the consequence that the Convention, which saw it as an attack on its own sovereignty, declared the administration of Orléans to be deposed, and ordered the disarmament of the local guard and sent troops to Orléans to enforce the order. From June 28 to July 12, 26 defendants were tried and nine of them were sentenced to death. A pardon, presented on July 13 by relatives of the condemned before the National Convention in the presence of Bourdon, went unheard, and the executions were carried out that same day.

The incident was one of the reasons that moved Charlotte Corday to her attack on Jean Paul Marat that day : in her later interrogations, she testified that on the morning of July 13th she went for a walk to the Palais Royal, there a copy of the judgment against to have bought the assassins Bourdons and a knife, only to go to Marat in the cab and kill him.

Against the background of the de-Christianization of society, Bourdon attacked the priests in the Jacobin Club on November 6, 1793. Desfieux, Pereira, Proli wrote a petition to cancel the culture budget. Accompanied by Cloots and Bourdet, the petition was brought to Archbishop Jean Baptiste Joseph Gobel , who abdicated the following day.

Bourdon tended to the Hébertists in the factional struggles in the Convention , without belonging directly to their faction, and withdrew from the National Convention after arguments with Robespierre. He and Barras led the column that took the Hôtel de Ville de Paris on the 9th Thermidor of the year II (July 27, 1794) . Robespierre was executed the following day. He overthrew Jean Paul Marat's corps .

The Hamburg Mission

The city of Altona around 1850 (today Hamburg-Altona)

In January 1798 he came to Hamburg on a diplomatic mission to renew the friendship treaty between the Republic and the Hamburg Senate and to negotiate a loan for armaments expenditure. In Hamburg, where there was a large community of French émigrés and maintained close contacts with émigré circles in England, his arrival attracted considerable attention. He sought connection to progressive-minded circles and was involved, among other things, in the Philanthropic Society founded by Johann Georg Kerner in Altona , Denmark in 1797 , a political association that also accepted Jews and campaigned for republican ideals. While Kerner was in Italy at the time, Bourdon temporarily gained some influence in that society, which was one of the reasons why it was later dissolved by the Senate in November 1798.

Bourdon agitated for the establishment of a republic or a republican association of all French living in Hamburg; His activities were viewed with suspicion in government circles in Prussia , Denmark and Russia and led to a diplomatic demarche from the Hamburg Senate to the French government, with the result that Bourdon was instructed to limit his activities to his official mandate. On April 20, 1798, he left Hamburg and returned to France.

The last few years

There is little clarity about the last years of his life and Bourdon's death. He temporarily performed administrative tasks in military hospitals in Toulon and Marseille and is said to have died in Wroclaw or Toulon in 1807.

Works

  • Consultation délibérée à Paris, on 29 avril 1781 . In: Compte que les RP visiteurs et les six députés de la province de Normandie rendent au chapitre général de leur diète et de ce qui l'a précédé , Paris, undated
  • Idées sur l'éducation du prince royal (L.-J.-J.-L. Bourdon de La Crosnière). Imprimerie de L.-P. Couret, Paris, undated
  • Plan d'un établissement d'éducation nationale, autorisé par arrêt du conseil du 5 octobre 1788, sous le titre de société royale d'émulation , Imprimérie Couret de Villeneuve, Orléans 1788 ( digital copy )
  • [Together with Louis Joseph Bourdon des Planches]: Subsistance et impôt, Ier No., Aux Etats-Généraux , Expl. "Présenté par MM. Bourdon des Planches & Bourdon de la Crosnière, pere et fils, Electeurs & Députés, à l ' Hotêl de Ville de Paris ", no place, no date [1789] ( digitized version )
  • Développement de la motion faite dans l'assemblée du tiers état de la ville de Paris, le jeudi 7 mai, sur l'importance de ne plus récompenser le mérite par des lettres de noblesse, et de substiter à celles-ci un autre genre de distinction personnelle et non transmissible, par M. Bourdon de La Crosnière . Without a place, without a date
  • Rapport de Léonard Bourdon, au nom de la commission d'instruction publique, Prononcé le premier Août. Imprimé par ordre de la Convention nationale. Imprimerie nationale, Paris, undated [1792] ( digitized )
  • [Together with Prosper Dubail]: Rapport de Léonard Bourdon et Prosper Dubail, Commissaires envoyés par le Pouvoir exécutif auprès de la haute Cour nationale à Orléans, en vertu de la Loi du 26 Aout et chargés ensuite de l'exécution de celle du 2 Septembre . Imprimerie nationale, Paris 1792; reprinted in: Archives parlementaires de 1787 à 1860. Recueil complet des débats législatifs et politiques des chambres françaises , Series I, Volume 49, Paul Dupont, Paris 1896, pp. 566–571
  • [Together with Robespierre u. a.]: La Société des amis de la Constitution de Paris, aux Sociétés affiliées , Imprimerie du Patriote François, undated [1792] (" prospectus de la Société des jeunes Français", digitized )
  • Convention national. Opinion de Léonard Bourdon,… sur le jugement de Louis Capet, dit Louis XVI. 18 November l'an Ier de la République . Imprimerie nationale, Paris, undated
  • Discours sur l'institution commune, Par Léonard Bourdon, Député du Loiret, & membre de la Commission d'instruction publique, prononcé dans la Séance du 3 juillet 1793. Imprimé par ordre de la Convention Nationale [Imprimerie nationale, Paris 1793] ( digitized )
  • Exposé des faits relatifs à l'assassinat commis à Orléans le 16 mars 1793, et réponse au Rapport du Comité de législation, par Léonard Bourdon, député par le Loiret à la Convention nationale. Imprimé par ordre de la Convention nationale . Imprimerie nationale, Paris, undated
  • Organization of the greniers nationaux… présentée au nom des Comités d'agriculture et de salut public (le 21 août 1793), by Léonard Bourdon . Imprimerie nationale, Paris, undated
  • Annales du civisme et de la vertu. No 1, présenté à la Convention nationale, au nom de la section du Comité d'instruction publique chargée de leur rédaction, par Léonard Bourdon. Imprimerie nationale, an II [1793/94]
  • Recueil des actions herroïques et civiques des républicains français (…) présenté à la Convention nationale, au nom de son comité d'instruction publique, par Léonard Bourdon, député par le département du Loiret . Imprimerie nationale, Paris an II [1793/94], 5 vols. Published, vol. 5 by Antoine-Clair Thibaudeau; German exercises: Collection of heroic deeds and noble civic acts of the Frankish republicans, the National Convention, on behalf of its committee for public education, presented by Leonhard Bourdon , Levrault, Strasbourg [1793/94]
  • Organization des greniers nationaux, Décretée par la Convention nationale, et imprimée par son ordre. Présentée au nom des Comités d'Agriculture & de Salut public, par Léonard Bourdon, député du Loiret , Imprimerie nationale, undated [1793?] ( Digitized version )
  • Report fait à la Convention nationale, au nom des Comités d'agriculture et de salut public, par Léonard Bourdon . Imprimerie nationale, Paris, undated
  • Projet de décret sur l'éducation nationale, by Léonard Bourdon . Imprimerie nationale, Paris, undated
  • Report fait au nom du Comité d'instruction publique sur la fête de la 5e sans-culotide, by Léonard Bourdon,… Details de la fête que la Convention nationale a décrétée, le 28 fructidor, pour être célébrée le quintidi des sans-culotides . Imprimerie nationale, Paris, undated [1794]
  • Le voeu de la nature et de la Constitution de l'an III, sur l'éducation générale; Applicable, dans ce moment, à celle des Orphelins des Défenseurs, et autres Enfans ou Elèves de la Patrie. Par le C [itoy] en Léonard Bourdon , Imprimerie de l'Institut National des Aveugles-Travailleurs / Desenne [1794/95] ( digitized )
  • [Together with Claude Charles Prost]: Compte de l'emploi des sommes reçues par Léonard Bourdon et Prost, représentants du peuple, commissaires dans les départements de la Côte-d'Or et du Jura, from 14 mars to 24 may. Imprimé par ordre de la Convention nationale . Imprimerie nationale, pluviôse an III [1795]
  • Copie de la declaration faite aux autorités constituées d'Orléans, par Léonard Bourdon,… conforme à l'extrait en forme envoyé au président de la Convention nationale. Without a place, without a date
  • Léonard Bourdon,… à Marat . Galletti, [Paris] to IV [1795/96]
  • Pétition au Conseil des Cinq-Cents, sur l'Éducation commune, Par Léonard Bourdon , Imprimerie de al rue de l'Université, 1797 ("4 Brumaire, an 6e de la Republique Française", digitized version )
  • Speech of Leonard Bourdon in Hamburg 1798 . In: Heinrich August Ottokar Reichard (ed.), Revolutions-Almanach von 1799 (= Volume 7), Dieterich Verlag, Göttingen 1798.

literature

  • Michael John Sydenham: Léonard Bourdon. The Career of a Revolutionary. 1754-1807 . Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo (Ontario / Canada) 1999, ISBN 0-88920-319-9 (English).

Web links

Commons : Léonard Bourdon  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Armand-Désiré de La Fontenelle de Vaudoré: L'histoire du monastère et des évêques de Luçon , Gaudin fils aîné, Fontenay-le-Comte 1847, Part II, pp. 825-826
  2. ↑ La Bastille dévoilée, ou Recueil de pièces authentiques pour servir a son histoire , Quatrième livraison, Desenne, Paris 1789, p. 16, pp. 115–118
  3. ^ Charles Louis Chassin: Les élections et les cahiers de Paris en 1789. Documents receuillis, mis en ordre et annotés , Volume II, Jouaust et Sigaux / Charles Noblet, Paris 1888, p. 325
  4. ↑ Auguste Jean François Arnould / Jules Edouard Alboize du Pujol: Histoire de la Bastille depuis sa fondation 1374 jusqu'à sa destruction 1789 , Vol. I, Administration de librairie, Paris 1844, p. 325
  5. ↑ Detailed description of the following in the justification written by Bourdon and co-signed by Dubail, Rapport de Léonard Bourdon et Prosper Dubail, Commissaires envoyés par le Pouvoir exécutif auprès de la haute Cour nationale à Orléans, en vertu de la Loi du 26 Aout et chargés ensuite de l'exécution de celle du 2 Septembre (Paris 1792), reprinted in: Archives parlementaires de 1787 à 1860. Recueil complet des débats législatifs et politiques des chambres françaises , Series I, Volume 49, Paul Dupont, Paris 1896, p. 566 -571
  6. ^ Dépositions faites à l'occasion du procès intenté contre Fournier l'américain . In: Louis Mortimer Ternaux: Histoire de la terreur 1792–1794, d'après des documents authentiques et inédits , Imprimerie de J. Claye / Michel Lévy Frères, 1863, pp. 602–609
  7. ^ Henri Alexandre Wallon: Histoire du tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris avec le journal de ses actes , Vol. I, Hachette, Paris 1880, pp. 181-186
  8. ^ Wallon: Histoire du tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris . 1880, p. 200
  9. ^ Hans Werner Engels: Georg Kerner (1770-1812) and the Philanthropic Society in Hamburg ( Memento from June 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).
personal data
SURNAME Bourdon, Leonard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bourdon de la Cronière, Louis Jean Joseph Léonard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1754
PLACE OF BIRTH Alencon
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1807
Place of death Wroclaw