Jean Pelloutier

Jean Pelloutier (* around 1663 in Lyon ; † 1698 in Leipzig ) was a Huguenot merchant and father of the theologian Simon Pelloutier .

family

His father was the merchant Simon Pelloutier (1605–1683) from Lyon .

His ancestors came from a respected merchant family from Jausiers in southern France, which originally belonged to the Waldensian faith. She had lived in Jausiers for two centuries and kept her faith and sacrificed her fortune for it. When the territory of France was ceded to the House of Savoy in 1623 , the population was given the choice of either changing their religion or emigrating. The father Simon Pelloutier therefore emigrated to Lyon with no belongings, accompanied by his son Jean and with the Bible under his arm.

The Edict of Potsdam of 1685, title page

Since Jean Pelloutier saw the harbingers that the Edict of Nantes would be repealed and the Reformed would no longer be tolerated in France, he could not make up his mind to become a merchant in France himself. He emigrated to Leipzig in 1685 , before King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes by the Edict of Fontainebleau on October 18, 1685 . This deprived the French Protestants of all religious and civil rights. Within a few months hundreds of thousands fled mainly to the Calvinist areas of the Netherlands , the Calvinist cantons of Switzerland and Prussia after the ( Edict of Potsdam ) was issued, which granted the Huguenots freedom and support. Pelloutier worked as a businessman in Leipzig. About 1691 Jean Pelloutier married Françoise Claparède (Clapareste), the daughter of a wealthy Hamburg merchant Claparède, who came from Languedoc . From the marriage came Simon Pelloutier and Jean-Barthélémy Pelloutier, the later father-in-law of Nikolaus von Béguelin , educator of the Prussian heir to the throne and later King Friedrich Wilhelm II and director of the philosophical class of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Jean died in 1698, leaving his wife to take care of the upbringing.

Pelloutier vs. Magalon

Although Jean Pelloutier passed away early, he went down in legal history through a legal battle.

According to the assertion of the French nobleman Jean de Magalon from Grenoble, also a follower of the Reformed faith, who had emigrated to Geneva, Jean Pelloutier, at the age of twenty, was to set up a society on August 23, 1683 for six years with his brother Isaac Pelloutier and his business partner Stolzembauer in Lyon. Have concluded a contract. Given the miserable situation of the Reformed people in France, who were already being persecuted at that time, Jean Pelloutier could not make up his mind to enter the business as a partner. Although he had not made a statement orally or in writing, his older brother Isaac and Stolzembauer considered him a silent partner in their trading business. They also made commitments on his behalf. When they eventually went bankrupt , Jean Pelloutier was sued. In the meantime, however, he had emigrated to the Brandenburg-Prussian states, became a Brandenburg subject and finally relocated to Leipzig.

It was not a trivial matter. It was about a value in dispute of 10,000 Thalers. It had to be decided whether obligations entered into in France before 1885 would bind a Huguenot who had emigrated to Germany. According to French law, he was civilly dead and thus no longer existed.

King Louis XIV had forbidden to hand over anything to the emigrated Huguenots. Any kind of legal communication with them was forbidden.

When Jean Pelloutier got engaged to Françoise, the daughter of the wealthy merchant Clapparede, in Hamburg in 1691, Magalon reported 22,000 livres of claims against Jean Pelloutier to his father-in-law Clapparede and had the trousseau confiscated. Since neither Jean Pelloutier nor the Hamburg Clapparede wanted to pay the money, the court now had to be determined that would rule on the legal dispute. Pelloutier agreed to pay the required amount as soon as referees found that he owed it. Magalon did not respond to Pelloutier's suggestion to elect arbitrary impartial arbitrators in Hamburg, Amsterdam, London, Leipzig or Berlin, or any other city. He preferred to come to Berlin. But there he also rejected all proposed arbitrators. Then Jean Pelloutier sued him before the ordinary French court of the king in Berlin. These ordinary judges were also rejected by Magalon. Magalon finally selected a considerable number of people and asked the elector to act as judge. And the elector appointed some of the nominees in order to bring the dispute to an end. There were the former lawyer and secret councilor Georg von Berchem (1639–1701), the historian and Brandenburg legation counselor Isaac de Larrey (1638–1719) and the chief justice officer Jean Jacques de Rozel de Beaumont. The Berlin commissioners, who belonged to the Reformed Church, now had to recognize according to the rules of French law. They acted according to the following principle: Because public law requires that in whatever country the parties are located and in which courts they may stand, the force and efficiency of the actions must be recognized according to the laws of the country in which they were committed are. This must be observed all the more between the French, whom Se. Kurf. Durchl. (His electoral highness) has appointed judges of their nation to be judged according to their way and their custom .

According to French law, the refugee was civilly dead on the day of his departure. His property fell to the French state. Pelloutier argued that if the refugee was deemed to be without possessions and incapable of work, he could no longer commit himself, nor be committed. Much less could he oblige those who were outside the realm.

Furthermore, the principle applied in Kurbrandenburg that debts incurred before emigrating from France had no force in the Brandenburg-Prussian states. The legal dispute also preoccupied the Reich Chamber of Commerce in Wetzlar. The process dragged on, but seems to have been decided in favor of Jean Pelloutier.

The process files are partially published and digitized:

• Inventaire De Production, Pour Jean Pelloutier, Marchand François Refugié, Defendeur, Contre Le Sieur Jean Magalon, Aussi François Refugié, Demandeur, Berlin 1692, digital [6]

• Refutation De ce que Sieur Jean Pelloutier Marchand de Leipsig Deffendeur, a opposite à la Replique De Noble Jean Magalon Seigneur De la Riviere, faisant tant pour lui, que pour noble Daniel Magalon Seigneur De Rousset son frere Demandeur, digital [7]

• Repliques Que donne pardevant vous Messieurs les Commissaires nommés par Sa Serenité Electorale, pour juger le differend d'entre les parties: Noble Jean Magalon, Seigneur de la Riviere, tant en son nom, que de noble Daniel Magalon, Seigneur de Rousset son frere, Demandeurs. Contre le Sieur Jean Pelloutier, Marchand à Leipzig, Defendeur: Pour servir de contredits à l'Inventaire de Production donné par ledit Defendeur, 1692, digital [8]

• Suite Du Dernier Factum De Noble Jean Magalon, Seigneur de la Riviere, tant en son Nom, que de Noble Daniel Magalon Seigneur de Rousset son frere, Demandeurs, Servant de Reponse aux deux Continuations de Factum du Sieur Jean Pelloutier Marchand François, habitant a Leipzig , Defendeur, 1693, digital [9]

literature

• Henri Tollin, History of the French Colony of Magdeburg, vol. 1, anniversary publication, Halle 1886, p. 596 ff, digital: [10]
• en: Johann Christoph Strodtmann , History of Mr. Simon Pelloutier in: The new learned Europe: Part 16, Volumes 9–12, 1756, p. 882 ff, digital: [11]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jean-Baptisten Fahy & Benoît Mamet, Huguenots in Lyon in the seventeenth century , digitally accessed on July 8, 2016, [1]
2. ↑ Magalon was also involved in another legal dispute with his religious brother Pierre Valentin (Joachim Bahlcke, Rainer Bendel, Migration and Church Practice: The Religious Life of Early Modern Religious Refugees in Everyday History Perspective, Cologne Weimar 2008, p. 241, digital preview: [2] )
3. ↑ ^{a b} Wilhelm Beulecke, Die Hugenottengemeinde Braunschweig (I), p. 120, in: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch Vol. 42, Wolfenbüttel 1961, digital: Archived copy ( Memento from July 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ Birgit Kletzin, Strangers in Brandenburg: From Huguenots, socialist contract workers and right-wing enemy image, p. 26 ff, 2nd edition, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-6331-X , digital preview [3]
5. ↑ In Tollin's book, History of the French Colony of Magdeburg, Vol. 1, only the name “de Beaumont” is given. But it is probably about Jean Jacques de Rozel de Beaumont , who belonged to one of the most widespread noble families in France. As soon as he arrived in Germany, the royal council of Castres was appointed court and legation councilor and sent to Brandenburg in 1687 as Juge et directeur. In Berlin he was employed as chief judge in 1790 and appointed on March 4, 1718 as the first court and legation councilor to the French senior directorate (Grand Directoire or Conseil français). (Henri Tollin, History of the French Colony of Magdeburg, Vol. 2, Jubiläumsschrift, Halle 1887, p. 376 f, digital: [4] )
6. ^ Charles Ancillon , Histoire de l'établissement des Français réfugiés dans les états de l'Electeur de Brandebourg Berlin 1690, quoted from Henri Tollin, History of the French Colonie of Magdeburg, Vol. 1, Jubiläumsschrift, Halle 1886, p. 634, footnote 134 , digital: [5]