Jean-François Lefèbvre, chevalier de la Barre

Monument in Abbeville

Jean-François Lefèbvre, chevalier de la Barre (born September 12, 1745 in the castle of Férolles ; † July 1, 1766 by execution in Abbeville / Somme) was a French nobleman who was the victim of a religiously motivated judicial murder . His case became known across Europe because Voltaire had campaigned , albeit in vain, for his acquittal .

After the ruin and death of his father, La Barre was taken in at the age of 16 by an aunt in Abbeville, an abbess. Here he got a reputation for being not very pious, if not even anti-clerical .

When it was discovered on August 9, 1765 that the wooden crucifix on the bridge over the Somme had some scratches and nicks, a deliberate desecration was immediately suspected and, at the instigation of the Bishop of Amiens, a hunt for the alleged perpetrator (s) was opened. The suspicion fell on three young people: de la Barre and d'Etallonde, who had not taken off their hats the year before in view of the Corpus Christi procession 30 paces away, and Moinel, who had carried his hat under his arm. Witnesses also accused La Barre of singing two slippery songs, reciting an obscene ode and making disrespectful remarks about religious symbols.

A search of his room found three forbidden writings: two books with erotic content and Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique portatif , published in 1764 .

On February 28, 1766, the competent court of the Seneschal of Abbeville sentenced the absent d'Etallonde, who fled via Holland under the name Morival, to cutting off his tongue, chopping off his right hand and then burning him in a low flame. The imprisoned La Barre was sentenced a tad milder to cutting off his tongue, chopping off his right hand, torture , beheading (to which he was entitled as a nobleman - instead of hanging or something else) and subsequent cremation. 15-year-old Moinel, who had confessed and exonerated by La Barre, was released.

The Abbeville Seneschal was subordinate to the Parlement of Paris as the Supreme Court. The verdict had to be confirmed there. La Barre's solid alibi was not taken into account here either, because an example should obviously be set. The judgment was confirmed by a majority of 15 to 10 judges and carried out on July 1, 1766 in Abbeville by Paris executioners . The king had refused the pardon requested by relatives of La Barres. Voltaire's dictionary was burned at the stake . The judgment against d'Etallonde was carried out “ in effigie ”, ie simulated on a portrait.

Voltaire, who intervened with journalistic means and alarmed the public, was unsuccessful. He was even sentenced to a (rather symbolic) punishment in his absence, although he was not bothered in distant Ferney .

The execution of La Barre caused consternation among supporters of the Enlightenment in France, the Philosophes , who also had to fear for their lives. Voltaire advised his friends to seek refuge in the Prussian town of Cleves.

He himself did extensive research on the case and published a detailed report in 1768, which he addressed pro forma to the great Italian legal philosopher Cesare Beccaria and which was indeed read throughout Europe: the Relation de la mort du chevalier de la Barre . He took up the case again in 1775 in the expanded Histoire du Parlement de Paris (chap. LXIX) and in the Cri du sang innocent , where he reports on d'Ettalonde's career and his escape: “This innocent blood screams, I scream too; and I will scream until my death ”.

Voltaire's struggle for the La Barres cause and against the Paris Parliament was one of the decisive factors in the judicial reform that Louis XV. his Minister of Justice (chancelier) Maupeou carried out in 1771 (which, however, was soon reversed by Louis XVI ).

Unlike Jean Calas , for whom Voltaire had campaigned in 1763, La Barre was no longer posthumously rehabilitated during the Ancien Régimes , but only on November 15, 1794 at the request of the Noblesse de Paris in 1789. After all, he stayed because of the uproar and the great outrage that his case aroused, the last person sentenced to death in France for blasphemy.

D'Etallonde, who after his escape under the name Morival lieutenant in Infantry Regiment No. 48 von Eichmann had become a member of the Prussian army in Wesel, was amnestied by Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia in 1787 and settled in Amiens. Voltaire had supported him in the meantime and stood up for him.

In 1905, the year the church and state were separated in France , the city of Paris erected a monument to La Barre on Place Nadar in Montmartre, within sight of the Sacré Coeur church. The base bears the inscription: "The Chevalier de la Barre, who was executed for not greeting a procession". A secularly committed Association du Chevalier de la Barre cherishes his memory.

literature

• Jacques de Saint Victor: Blasphemy. Story of an "imaginary crime". Hamburg 2017, pp. 47–61.
• Dominique Holleaux, Le procès du chevalier de La Barre, in: Jean Imbert (ed.): Quelques Procès Criminels des XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècles. Paris 1964, pp. 165-179.

Web links

Commons : Jean-François de La Barre  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Website of the Association du Chevalier de la Barre