Antoine Claire Thibaudeau

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Antoine Claire Thibaudeau

Antoine Claire Thibaudeau (born March 23, 1765 in Poitiers , † March 8, 1854 in Paris ) was a French politician and historian .

Life

Antoine Claire Thibaudeau was a son of the lawyer Antoine de Thibaudeau (1739-1813) who worked in Poitiers. He was admitted to the bar in Poitiers in 1787. In 1789 he accompanied his father when as a deputy of the Third Estate to the Estates General of Versailles went. He enthusiastically joined the outbreak of the French Revolution , but returned after the on 5./6. September 1789 forced move of King Louis XVI. returned to Paris to his hometown Poitiers and founded a revolutionary association there. In 1790 he was elected municipal procurator, then départements procurator, and in 1792 he was elected deputy of the National Convention.

As a result, Thibaudeau joined the mountain party , voted for the execution of Louis XVI. and rejected every appeal to the people as well as every delay in the execution of the judgment. Despite the determination of his Republican sentiments, he aroused suspicion because he did not want to join the Jacobin Club . When he was sent to the western departments in May 1793, he showed an unusual mildness for that time and was therefore called back to Paris after the fall of the Girondins (early June 1793). During the reign of terror , his father and several of his relatives were jailed for suspicion of federalism. He did everything possible to save his relatives and almost fell victim to the guillotine himself . He contributed little to the overthrow of Robespierre in the Convention itself, but had been working towards it for a long time through word and writing among the people.

After Robespierre's fall on Thermidor 9 (July 27, 1794), Thibaudeau took the side of the moderates with firmness and gained such influence that he was able to initiate the recall of the Girondins, demand the restitution of their goods and enforce the abolition of many bloody laws. He also dealt with educational matters and the organization of the Louvre . In March 1795 he was elected President of the Convention and as such showed great energy during the Jacobin riots on the 12th Germinal (April 1, 1795). He then became a member of the Safety Committee and on September 1, 1795 a member of the Welfare Committee .

If Thibaudeau opposed the excesses of republican anarchy in the Prairial Uprising of May 20, 1795 and the royalist uprising of Vendémiaire 13 (October 5, 1795), he did so no less in relation to the royalist intrigues of Tallien , Fréron and other earlier ones Jacobins who tried to prevent the completion and introduction of the constitution of year III (according to the revolutionary calendar ). He had become so popular that 32 departments simultaneously elected him to the Council of Five Hundred , of which he became president on February 20, 1796 for a month. But his endeavors to completely repeal the bloody revolutionary laws, his open appearance on the speaker's platform against the intrigues of the Jacobins, against the thefts of agents of the Directorate Government, especially against the operations of the Dijon company, and his reluctance to face any coup, made him suspect of royalism. The board of directors put him on the deportation list after the coup d'état of the 18th Fructidor V (September 4, 1797). However, the efforts of some of his friends, notably Boulays de la Meurthe , succeeded in rehabilitating him. Thibaudeau remained on the Council of Five Hundred until May 1799, when he was not elected.

Thibaudeau then successfully resumed the practice as a lawyer. The coup d'état of 18th Brumaire VIII (November 9th 1799) brought him back to the political scene. Napoleon Bonaparte appointed him Prefect of the Gironde Department on February 27, 1800, and in the same year gave him a seat on the Council of State because of his legal knowledge . As such, he participated in the drafting of the Civil Code . At this point he had Napoleon's confidence and supported him wholeheartedly. But he did not completely hide his disapproval of the establishment of the Legion of Honor and the establishment of the Concordat and Consulate for Life. His appointment as prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhône department in 1803 and the associated banishment from Paris meant that he had fallen somewhat out of favor. After all, he was appointed commander of the Legion of Honor in 1804 and made a knight on August 20, 1809, and count of the Empire on December 31 of the same year .

After the first restoration of the Bourbons in 1814, Thibaudeau lost his priest to the prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhône department and retired into private life. During Napoleon's rule of the Hundred Days , he was again appointed to the Council of State, Imperial Commissar of the Sixth Military Division and a member of the Chamber of Peers . In the latter capacity he eagerly participated in the address directed against the return of the Bourbons to the French people. Although this address did not come about, his work for it was too well known to have stayed in France after the second restoration of the Bourbons in June 1815, as he moreover identified himself as a regicide in the exile decree of Louis XVIII. of July 24, 1815 included.

Thibaudeau fled with his son to Switzerland , where he was imprisoned in Lausanne on the orders of Archduke John of Austria . He was then taken to Basel and Freiburg and, after a month's imprisonment, interned in Colmar , which was then occupied by the Austrians. He then received an Austrian passport for the trip to Prague . In 1819 he was allowed to move to Vienna , then went to Augsburg and in 1823 to Brussels . After the July Revolution of 1830 he returned to France. After the coup of Napoleon III. from December 2, 1851, the latter appointed him senator in 1852 and the following year as Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor. He died in Paris on March 8, 1854, at the age of 89.

Thibaudeau wrote the following historical writings:

  • Mémoires sur la Convention et le Directoire , 2 volumes, Paris 1824
  • Mémoires sur le Consulat, par un ancien Conseiller d'État, 1799–1804 , Paris 1827
  • Histoire générale de Napoléon Bonaparte , 5 volumes, Paris 1827–28; German, Stuttgart 1827-30
  • Le Consulat et l'Empire , 10 volumes, Paris 1835; 2nd edition 1837-38
  • Histoire des États généraux et des institutions représentatives en France , 2 volumes, Paris 1843

After Thibaudeau's death:

  • Ma biography, mes mémoires 1765–92 , Paris 1875

literature

personal data
SURNAME Thibaudeau, Antoine Claire
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French politician and historian
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1765
PLACE OF BIRTH Poitiers
DATE OF DEATH March 8, 1854
Place of death Paris