Guy-Jean-Baptiste Target

Guy-Jean-Baptiste Target (born December 6, 1733 in Paris , † September 9, 1807 in Les Molières ) was a French lawyer and politician. He played an important role in the legal and political discourse on the way to the French Revolution . As a member of the Constituent Assembly , he made a major contribution to the formulation of the 1791 constitution . He later worked on the Civil Code and the Criminal Code under Napoleon .

Guy-Jean-Baptiste Target

Before the revolution

His father was already a lawyer and a member of the Parlement of Paris. Since 1752 he was also a member. He subsequently rose to become one of the capital's most important lawyers. Among other things, he was a member of commissions for judicial reform. Since 1785 he was a member of the Académie française . In 1787 he was involved in the Edict of Versailles in favor of the non-Catholics.

Target protested against the judicial reforms of René-Nicolas-Charles-Augustin de Maupeou in 1771 and defended Cardinal Rohan in the collar affair in 1785 . He exaggerated the conditions of his client's detention and otherwise played with arguments based on emotions. In the legal reform debates shortly before the revolution, as chairman of a parliamentary committee, he advocated a stay of execution for those sentenced to death so that a revision or a pardon by the king would be possible. But he couldn't get his way.

Target participated intensively in the political discourse of the pre-revolutionary period. In 1788 he belonged to a minority of the members of the parliament who advocated that in the future Estates General the third estate should be represented at least as strongly as the first and second estate combined. The group also called for votes on heads and not on stands. This resulted in the Societé des Trente (Society of Thirty). Personalities such as Mirabeau , Talleyrand and Sieyes were also represented in this.

Target had broken with the conservatives in the parliament and took on cases that were likely to criticize the regime. This was the case, for example, with the rose queen of the village of Salency . So far, the village mayor had the right to choose the queen. When the local landlord claimed this right for himself, the village called the parliament. Target stylized the case as a struggle between innocence and violence. Other cases that he took over in 1788 were similar.

He refused to accept the majority in Parliament that France had some kind of unwritten constitution that Parliament had to defend. He said we were at zero and had to first create a constitution. A little later, the majority in parliament joined this.

Since the revolution

In 1789 he was elected to the Estates General as a representative of the Third Estate . He was subsequently a leading member of the Constitutional Committee of the National Assembly. He helped to promote the declaration of human and civil rights or advocated the end of feudal privileges. He was one of the authoritative authors of the constitution of 1791. Among other things, he advocated a parliament with one chamber and a suspensive veto by the king. He achieved that the constitutional monarch was no longer referred to as roi de France et Navarre , but as roi des français . The kingdom should no longer appear to be owned by one person. Last but not least, he campaigned for the civil constitution of the clergy . He was President of the National Assembly in January 1790.

From time to time he was a member of the Jacobin Club , but did not take part in their meetings since autumn 1790. He supported Maximilian Robespierre's initiative that the members of the national constituent assembly were not allowed to become members of the national legislative assembly . Then he withdrew from politics. After his removal, Louis XVI asked . Target that he should defend him in the upcoming trial. He declined the offer on the grounds of his health.

He supported Napoleon's takeover. Between 1798 and his death, Target was a judge on the Tribunal Cassation . He also contributed to the creation of the Civil Code. In particular, he devoted himself to the criminal code. He had been a member of the tribunate since 1802 .

literature

• Paul R. Hanson: Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution. Oxford, 2004 pp. 306f.
• Simon Schama: The hesitant citizen. Step backwards and progress in the French Revolution. Munich 1989
• Stephano Solimano: Verso Il Code Napoleon. Il progetto di Codice civile di Guy Jean Baptiste Target (1798–1799) . Milan 1998.

Web links

Commons : Guy-Jean-Baptiste Target  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Short biography
• Entry on assemblee-nationale.fr
• Short biography and list of works of the Académie française (French)