Guillaume Alexandre Tronson du Coudray
Guillaume Alexandre Tronson du Coudray (born November 18, 1750 in Reims , † May 27, 1798 in Sinnamary , French Guiana ) was a French lawyer and attorney .
Life
Family and education
Guillaume Alexandre Tronson du Coudray was born to Nicolas Tronson (* 1708) and his wife Marie Madeleine Sutaine (1718–1754). He came from a large family of ten children. He had five brothers and four siblings. His father, Nicolas Tronson, Seigneur du Coudray, was a citizen captain ( capitaine de bourgeoisie ), from 1750 alderman ( échevin ) of the city of Reims (1750) and a merchant . One of his brothers was the French officer and military officer Philippe Charles Jean Baptiste Tronson du Coudray (1738–1777).
Guillaume Alexandre Tronson du Coudray first attended a Catholic boys' college ( petit séminaire ) and then, after receiving a scholarship , studied law at the University of Reims . At the age of 25 he graduated with a licentiate in law. He then entered a French trading company, for which he undertook extensive business trips to Germany , Poland and the Russian Empire . After he was forced to bring his own employer to court, he left the trading company and settled as a lawyer ( avocat ).
In June 1789 he married Alexandrine Françoise Nau (1770–1846), the daughter of a royal secretary. The marriage had three children, two sons and a daughter.
Activity as a lawyer
Guillaume Alexandre Tronson du Coudray gained a great reputation as a defense attorney and through his plea in the “ Affaire Solar ” (1779), a trial of a miscarriage of justice , and in the defamation trial of the Count of Broglie against the Abbé Georgel (1779), and although he was subject to a scandal trial in the “ Affaire Sanois ” in 1786/1787.
During the French Revolution he offered himself to the National Convention as a defender for King Louis XVI. but was rejected. Together with Claude François Chauveau-Lagarde , he was Marie Antoinette's defense lawyer in October 1793 at the trial of the "widow Capet" for treason and fornication before the Revolutionary Tribunal . He was also a defense counsel in the trial against the notables from Nantes (1794), where, thanks to his poignant plea, he was able to obtain an acquittal for all of his clients.
Political offices
He was imprisoned during the reign of terror of the French Revolution. Under the Directory , after he was released, he was elected in 1795 as a deputy for the Seine-et-Oise department in the Council of Five Hundred ( Conseil des Cinq-Cents ). Guillaume Alexandre Tronson du Coudray was "one of the most respected parliamentary advocates". In 1797 he became secretary ( secrétaire ) of this legislative body, in which he campaigned in particular for the observance of the judiciary and the constitution.
After the coup d'état of the 18th Fructidor V (September 4, 1797) he was suspected of sympathy for royalty and deported to French Guiana, where he died about a year later, in May 1798.
literature
- Jacques de Cazotte: Un Avocat dans la Tourmente: Guillaume Alexandre Tronson du Coudray 1750–1798 - L'Avocat de Marie Antoinette . Maisonneuve & Larose. January 1993. ISBN 978-2-7068-1081-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e TRONSON DU COUDRAY . Biography. In: Joseph Marie Quérard: La France littéraire, ou Dictionnaire bibliographique des savants, historiens et gens de lettres de la France . Paris 1838. Page 563/564. Retrieved November 24, 2019.
- ↑ a b c d e Guillaume Alexandre Tronsson du Coudray . Family tree. Retrieved November 24, 2019.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Tronson du Coudray, Guillaume Alexandre |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Tronsson du Coudray, Guillaume Alexandre |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French lawyer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 18, 1750 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Reims |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 27, 1798 |
| Place of death | Sinnamary , French Guiana |