Félix Lepeletier

Félix Lepeletier ( Louis-Roland Trinquesse )

Ferdinand-Louis-Félix Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau (born October 1, 1767 in Paris ; † January 3, 1837 there ) was a politician during the French Revolution and during the First Empire, whose real name has been Félix Lepeletier since 1790 got known. He is the younger half-brother of the politician Louis-Michel Le Peletier, Marquis de Saint-Fargeau (1760-1793) and the older brother of the entomologist Amédée-Louis-Michel Le Peletier (1770-1845).

Life

Félix Lepeletier came from a wealthy and influential family of the noblesse de robe and was born as the son of the President of the Paris Parliament (Court of Justice), Baron du Péreuse. Before the beginning of the French Revolution, he served as an adjutant to the Prince of Lambesc, a relative of Queen Marie Antoinette , in the royal German cavalry regiment. On July 12, 1789, this regiment sabered the assembled Paris insurgents in front of the Tuileries. Lepeletier's participation in this massacre is uncertain, he denied it himself and had to defend himself against the accusations of his opponents throughout his life. After the storming of the Bastille (July 14, 1789) and the abolition of the privileges of the nobility (August 4, 1789), most of his family emigrated. However, Félix Lepeletier decided to stay with his older half-brother in Paris. However, he became known not because of his political activities, but because of his numerous affairs with women from the upper classes, including Thérésia Cabarrus and Joséphine de Beauharnais , of whom the press reported extensively.

Félix Lepeletier's life changed radically as a result of the murder of his brother Michel Le Peletier. In June 1793 the Jacobins granted Michel Le Peletier a state funeral in the Panthéon for the first time . During the funeral ceremony, they asked Félix Lepeletier to take on the role of his murdered brother and continue his work. Félix Lepeletier was accepted into the Jacobin Club and has since endeavored to fulfill his brother's legacy.

After the overthrow of 9th Thermidor II (July 27, 1794), Félix Lepeletier remained true to the ideals of the Jacobins. In autumn 1795 he joined the “Society of Friends of the Republic” , who held their meetings near the Panthéon and was therefore called the “Panthéon Club” . After the Panthéon Club was closed on February 27, 1796, Lepeletier took part in the "Conspiracy of Equals" under Babeuf's leadership. Despite their different origins, the two men became friends very quickly. Lepeletier had been a member of the uprising committee of the conspirators since March 30, 1796 and designed a poster addressed to soldiers with the inscription: “No, citizens soldiers! You will not shoot your brothers like you did in Germinal and Prairial. "

In May 1796, after the failure of the “Conspiracy of Equals” , Lepeletier fled Paris and was therefore able to evade the threat of arrest. The Vendôme Supreme Court acquitted him in absentia in May 1797 during the trial of the Babeuf conspirators. In his farewell letter to his colleagues, François Noël Babeuf expressed the wish that Félix Lepeletier should take care of his family. Lepeletier did Babeuf's last will. He supported the destitute widow financially and took care of the upbringing of Babeuf's sons.

In 1799 Lepeletier approached the Neo-Jacobins. After the coup d'état of the 30th Prairial VII (June 18, 1799) he joined the arena club and then tried to influence government policy for a short time. After the coup d'état of 18th Brumaire VIII ( 9/10 November 1799) he offered shelter to persecuted leftists on his property near Bacqueville-en-Caux in Normandy. Babeuf's widow and her children also lived there. A “democratic colony” should be built together. The assassination attempt of December 24th, 1800 ( "Infernal Machine" ) on the First Consul Napoléon Bonaparte gave them the pretext to dissolve the colony. Although it soon turned out that the assassin and designer of the "infernal machine" Pierre Robinault de Saint-Réjant (1766–1801) was acting on behalf of the royalist conspirator Cadoudal , the First Consul ordered the arrest of 130 former Jacobins. Félix Lepeletier managed to escape, but was soon arrested and placed under police supervision. He had to spend the years 1801 to 1805 first in constantly changing prisons and then in exile on the island of Ré.

After the Battle of Austerlitz on December 2, 1805, Napoleon pardoned Félix Lepeletier. In the following year Lepeletier returned from exile. He was monitored by the police and restricted in his freedom of residence and travel. He was not allowed to stay in or around Paris or on his possessions near Versailles. But the regime tolerated the indomitable Lepeletier as mayor of Bacqueville-en-Caux from 1806. In addition to his numerous activities in local politics and despite police surveillance, Félix Lepeletier was able to keep in touch with Napoleon's republican opponents. In 1814 he refused the returning Bourbons the oath of allegiance and had to resign from his mayor's office because of this.

Félix Lepeletier was elected to the House of Representatives during Napoleon's “Hundred Days” in 1815. He took sides with Napoleon, on the one hand to prevent a renewed restoration of the Bourbon rule, on the other hand Lepeletier hoped for a return to the form of the republic. But he felt this political turnaround from opponent to fellow campaigner Napoleon as a personal sacrifice. After the fall of Napoleon, Lepeletier was arrested in June 1815 and imprisoned for a few months. In 1816 he had to leave France. He stayed in Liège, but had to leave this city a little later due to his republican agitation. Then Félix Lepeletier lived in Aachen, Cologne, Koblenz and Frankfurt am Main. In April 1819 he was allowed to return to France.

Félix Lepeletier frequented liberal circles in Paris and made contact with representatives of the “ Charbonnerie ” in the 1820s . After the July Revolution of 1830, he accepted the idea of ​​a constitutional monarchy, as he no longer saw the possibility of establishing a republic. Disappointed by the politics of the citizen king Louis-Philippe , however, Lepeletier rejoined republican societies. There, after more than thirty years, he met Babeufs and his former companion Filippo Buonarroti . Both were regarded by their contemporaries as the embodiment of the upright and unbroken veteran of the French Revolution. Félix Lepeletier died on January 3rd, 1837 after a long illness.

literature

• Bernd Jeschonnek: Revolution in France 1789 to 1799. A lexicon. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-05-000801-6 .
• Katharina Middell, Matthias Middell: François Noël Babeuf. Martyrs of equality. New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-355-00604-1 .
• Albert Sacharowitsch Manfred: Napoleon Bonaparte. VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1978.
• Walter Markov , Albert Soboul : 1789. The Great Revolution of the French. Urania-Verlag, Leipzig et al. 1989, ISBN 3-332-00261-9 .