Jean Antoine Rossignol

Jean Antoine Rossignol

Jean Antoine Rossignol (born November 7, 1759 in Paris , † April 28, 1802 on the Comoros island of Anjouan ) was a general during the French Revolution .

Life

Jean Antoine Rossignol was born the youngest of five children to a packmaster from Burgundy. He grew up in poor conditions, learned the trade of goldsmith between 1771 and 1774 and then tried to find permanent employment as a journeyman in Bordeaux , La Rochelle and Niort . Since he could not find work in these cities, Rossignol returned to his hometown disaffected after half a year of wandering. He remained unemployed in Paris and joined the royal army on August 13, 1775. Rossignol then served eight years in the Régiment de Royal-Roussillon in Dunkirk, then went hiking again and earned his living as a casual laborer. In July 1789 he returned to Paris because of the political events ( ball house oath ).

Rossignol experienced the storming of the Bastille there on July 14, 1789 , he took on 5./6. October 1789 took part in the March of the Poissards and he took part in the assault on the Tuileries on August 10, 1792 . Finally, in March 1793, as a captain , later with the rank of lieutenant colonel , the popular man led an army of Parisian sans-culottes against the rebellious peasants of the Vendée .

The brave Rossignol, who was popular with his soldiers, rose to Général de division in July 1793 through the protection of War Minister Bouchotte and General Ronsin and then came into conflict with the Commander in Chief of the Coast Army in La Rochelle, Biron , an experienced general of the former royal army. The sans-culottes general Rossignol initiated the removal of the former duke, who was then brought before a revolutionary tribunal, sentenced to death and executed on December 31, 1793.

Jean Antoine Rossignol was then transferred to the command of the coastal army. Bourdon de la Crosnière and Goupilleau de Montaigu , both working on behalf of the Welfare Committee as representatives in missions to the Coast Army, deposed him on August 23, 1793 due to the indiscipline of the soldiers and the intrigues of the generals and officers.

A few days later, however, Rossignol successfully defended himself before the National Convention in Paris and from September until his final dismissal in December 1793 again led the high command of the coastal army, later the Western Army. The removed general approached the " Hébertists " in early 1794 and was imprisoned after the overthrow of 9th Thermidor II (July 27, 1794), from which he was only released as a result of the general amnesty of the Directory on October 26, 1795. Soon after, Rossignol joined Babeuf's "Conspiracy of Equals" .

Babeuf installed the former general as the secret director's liaison with the army. The conspiracy failed, Babeuf and over forty co-conspirators were arrested on May 10, 1796 for treason by a police spy. The arrested were transferred to Vendôme on August 30, 1796 , where the trial of the conspirators took place from February 20 to May 26, 1797. The Supreme Court sentenced Babeuf to death, some of the conspirators were deported, but most of the accused, including Rossignol, were acquitted. The staunch free thinker then joined the theophilanthropists and then supported the coup d'état of the 18th Fructidor V (September 4, 1797).

The failed assassination attempt on December 24, 1800 on the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte gave him the opportunity to get rid of his political opponents. Jean Antoine Rossignol, who was completely uninvolved in the attack, but considered a troublemaker, was first deported to the Seychelles at the beginning of 1801 and then to the Comoros island of Anjouan on Bonaparte's orders . Rossignol died there on April 28, 1802.

literature

• Bernd Jeschonnek: Revolution in France 1789–1799. A lexicon. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-05-000801-6 .
• Katharina Middell, Matthias Middell: François Noël Babeuf. Martyrs of equality. New Life, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-355-00604-1 .

Literature about him

Jean Antoine Rossignol published the autobiographical four-volume novel "The Robinson of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine", based on his diary, around 1800 . This novel was used as the source of the following biography:

• Victor Barrucand; “The real life of the citizen Jean Rossignol, victor of the Bastille and general of the Army of the Republic in the War of the Vendée (1759-1802)” ; Paris, 1820