Jeanbon St. André

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jeanbon Baron de Saint-André, contemporary copper engraving

Jeanbon (de) Saint-André (actually André Jeanbon ; born February 25, 1749 in Montauban ; † December 10, 1813 in Mainz ), Baron de Saint-André since 1809, was commissioner general of the four established in 1798 under Napoleon Bonaparte since 1801 departments on the left bank of the Rhine . Since February 1802 he was the French prefect of the Département du Mont-Tonnerre (Donnersberg) with seat in Mainz. Jeanbon St. André had a lasting impact on Mainz and the department under it during the time it belonged to the consulate and the Empire.

He fell ill with typhus , an epidemic disease that the defeated French army (approx. 50,000 men) brought to Mainz when they crossed the Rhine at the beginning of November 1813 after the Battle of Leipzig , where the epidemic killed thousands of soldiers and civilians. André Jeanbon died there on December 10, 1813 and was buried in the main cemetery he had established.

Life

Before the French Revolution

André Jeanbon was born on February 25, 1749 in Montauban, Quercy . He was the second son of the Protestant miller Antoine Jeanbon and his wife Marie, née Molles. The house where he was born at number 40 Grand Rue Villenouvelle bears a plaque. After the Edict of Fontainebleau, the French Protestants could only practice their religion underground. This is how André was baptized a Catholic. After his education in the local Jesuit school from 1759 to 1765, he initially wanted to become a lawyer , a career which, as a Protestant in the Catholic-Royalist France of the pre-revolutionary period, remained closed to him. After training as a helmsman in Bordeaux from 1765 to 1766, he went to sea until 1771 and made it up to the captain of the merchant navy . He survived a total of three shipwrecks , but lost all his savings in a shipwreck in the Caribbean in 1771 (probably before Hispaniola ).

After this incident, André Jeanbon decided to study Reformed theology . He completed this in half of the otherwise usual study period from 1771 to 1773 at the French [theological] seminar in Lausanne , Switzerland (1729-1812). This is not affiliated with the university. The cantonal grammar school is now in his building. At the age of 24 he was ordained a pastor in Lausanne on April 21, 1773 and changed his name to Jeanbon de Saint-André. As there was a lack of pastors, he got his first job as an illegal pastor in Castres , today Département Tarn, from 1773 to 1783 without a church or prayer hall, the services were held secretly in the open. Here he married the demoiselle Marie de Suc from Castres on June 24, 1778. His whereabouts are unknown for the period after 1783. He lived in secrecy but wrote his Considérations sur l'organization civile des Églises protestantes during this time , which was only published in 1848 by the Catholic Auguste Nicolas . After the Edict of Tolerance of Versailles of November 29, 1787, he was appointed by the consistory on July 1, 1788 to his home town of Montauban. There he worked as a pastor until 1790 and witnessed the outbreak of the French Revolution .

Jeanbon St. André and the French Revolution

With the revolutionary year 1789 Jeanbon St. André began to be politically active. In his hometown he was elected President of the Jacobin Club . On September 6, 1792 he was elected to the National Assembly in Paris as a member of the Lot department . He belonged to it from 1792 to 1795 and was briefly its president from 11 to 25 July 1793. He was considered one of the National Assembly's most outstanding speakers and one of its most dedicated workers. The French historian Hippolyte Taine described St. Andrés appearance in this phase of his life as follows: “He wears wooden shoes and a woolen Jacobin jacket, eats a piece of homemade bread, drinks a glass of bad beer and writes and dictates until his strength fails; then he throws himself to sleep on a mattress lying on the floor. "

Jeanbon St. André, painted in 1795 by Jacques-Louis David , Art Institute of Chicago

Politically, St. André was a partisan Robespierre . He belonged to the faction of the Montagnards and voted together with them for the death penalty for Louis XVI. 1793 to 1794 he was also an elected member of the Welfare Committee (French Comité de salut public , "Committee of public welfare and general defense"). In this function he was the people's representative in the Northern Army. After the military failures of the Revolutionary Army in July 1793 near Mainz, he was entrusted with the task of stabilizing the situation in the army in the north. He was also given the task of reorganizing the military ports in Brest and Cherbourg . As naval commissioner of the welfare committee, at the end of May / beginning of June 1794, he took part in securing a food convoy in which the naval battle between French and British ships on the 13th Prairial broke out, in which he was slightly wounded. The French ships were to give safe conduct to an American convoy under Rear Admiral Pierre Jean Van Stabel. Other tasks led St. André to Toulon and Marseille . He probably owed his life as a partisan to Robespierre's fact that he was not in Paris on the 9th Thermidor : He thus escaped the wave of purges at the end of the reign of terror and did not have to share the fate of Robespierre and his followers, almost without exception under the guillotine ended. Instead, he was arrested on May 28, 1795. During this imprisonment his portrait was made by the hand of the famous French painter Jacques-Louis David .

Jeanbon St. André was released on October 26, 1795 due to an amnesty and was sent as consul to Algiers and Smyrna (1798) on a diplomatic mission. In Smyrna, however, he was arrested by the Turks and held from 1798 to 1801.

After his return to Paris in 1801, Napoleon Bonaparte , meanwhile the first consul of the republic , offered him the post of general commissioner of the four departments on the left bank of the Rhine (including the department du Mont-Tonnerre), which were newly founded in 1800, as well as the prefecture based in Mayence (Mainz), now in France .

Napoleon Bonaparte, Mayence and the Département du Mont-Tonnerre

As a result of the French Revolution, large parts of the left bank of the Rhine from Andernach to Basel came under French control from 1792/93 . French rule was finally established in 1797 with the Campo Formio peace treaty between France and Austria.

Seal of Mairie Mayence, 1805-1811

Napoleon Bonaparte, first consul of the republic since 1799 and emperor of the French from 1804, gradually integrated these won territories into the political administrative structures of the republic and the following empire. In 1800, for example, he had the Département du Mont-Tonnerre founded. Mainz became on September 23, 1802 after the peace treaty of Lunéville as the French Mayence capital of the department, which consisted of large parts of the later Rheinhessen and parts of the Palatinate . The sub-prefectures of the department were the arrondissements of Mainz, Kaiserslautern , Speyer and Zweibrücken . Jeanbon St. André was appointed the first prefect of the department on December 10, 1801, which on August 3, 1802, together with the other departments on the left bank of the Rhine, was legally equal to the inner-French departments. He dedicated himself to this task, as can be seen from contemporary reports, with great commitment.

Napoleon also had big plans for the capital of the department: the city should take on important military functions, later also serve as an imperial residence and become the “showcase of the Empire”. In a decree of June 22nd, Mayence was made one of the 36 most important cities in France ( bonnes villes de l'Empire ) .

Major structural changes in the cityscape, planned but only partially implemented by the departmental building director JF Eustache de St. Far , were the result. Today's Ludwigsstraße , then Grande Rue Napoleon, is the example of this planning and construction period that is still visible today. During this time, the Gothic Martinsburg was finally demolished and the former Electoral Palace was used as a warehouse and goods store. The demolition of the Mainz Cathedral , which had been badly damaged since the Revolutionary Wars of 1793, and the burned-out Church of Our Lady at the cathedral were also promoted by St. André as the responsible Prefect. The new bishop of Mainz, Joseph Ludwig Colmar , appointed by Napoleon in 1802 , was able to prevent this after violent disputes with the Protestant prefect and after the launch of a corresponding order from Paris to St. André. Colmar also prevented the demolition of the Speyer Cathedral .

Further plans, including for the extensive fortification of Mainz and Kastel as well as the conversion and expansion of the Deutschhaus into the imperial residential palace (Palais Imperial) , were never realized.

But also in the rural areas of the department there were changes that were initiated by St. André from Mainz. So was z. B. the cultivation of sugar beet in the Palatinate by ordinance (imperial decree of March 25, 1811) successfully established and expanded into an important economic factor. Trade and production were promoted not only in Mainz but also in rural areas in order to secure supplies for the army and to mitigate the effects of the continental blockade.

Jeanbon St. André as prefect in Mainz

The tomb of Jeanbon St. André in the main cemetery in Mainz

Jeanbon St. André, who resided in the Erthaler Hof , was initially not very popular with the Mainz people as prefect. A notorious distrust of the Mainz population towards the authorities and St. Andrés iron will in the implementation of new projects and political guidelines from Paris ensured this. St. Andrés' serious consideration of demolishing the Mainz Cathedral, which was badly damaged after the Prussian artillery bombardment in 1793, also caused outrage. His great commitment to caring for the sick and poor, efforts in the school system in Mainz and the rest of the department, as well as his personally modest but efficient demeanor, however, after some time earned him a high reputation both with the Mainz and his French compatriots a. Napoleon, with whom he had a good relationship, called him the "model example of a prefect" and made him a Grand Notable de l'Empire with the title of baron in 1809 .

Together with the Maire (Mayor) of Mayence, Franz Konrad Macké , St. André campaigned above all for the revival of the trade, which had almost collapsed after the end of the electorate . For this purpose, a chamber of commerce was set up, together with Cologne, the oldest in Germany. Mainz retained by a decree of Napoleon, issued during his first stay in Mainz on October 1, 1804, the old stacking right , which was now called entrepôt réel . In February 1809 a free port was opened, which the people of Mainz owed mainly to the sustained political commitment of their prefect and their mayor. A sugar refinery and a paint factory as well as a cotton weaving mill were also built. The Mainz trade flourished briefly under French rule. It was short-lived because, in the eyes of Napoleon and French politics, the French Mayence was primarily the easternmost fortress of the Empire on the Rhine and at the same time had a main function as a troop deployment area to Germany (Boulevard de l'Empire) . The economic interests of the city were subordinate to this.

On the other hand, cultural life was promoted under the prefect of St. André. The surrender of 36 paintings on the basis of direct instructions from Napoleon was intended to culturally enhance the capital of the department, Mayence, and to make the citizenship positive. Due to the Chaptal decree, this collection of paintings became the basis of today's Mainz State Museum , which was founded in 1803.

"La Bibliothèque de Mayence est mise à la disposition de la commune" - "The library of Mainz is made available to the community". With this key sentence from the decree of the French Interior Minister Jean-Baptiste Nompère de Champagny of August 20, 1805 to the Prefect of the Département du Mont-Tonnerre, a new era in the history of Mainz's library began. The entire extremely extensive library of the University of Mainz , which was abolished in 1798, was given to the city of Mainz and thus to the citizens of Mainz. This laid the foundation for today's city ​​library .

During the term of office of St. Andrés, Mainz expanded and enlarged its urban area. In this way, the prefect achieved the expansion of the city limits from Mainz to Bretzenheim while at the same time incorporating the up to then halfway independent Zahlbach . In the Mainzer Zeitung on August 26th ( 8th Fructidor ) 1805 one could read about this event:

"By an imperial decree of the 3rd Prairial (23 May) the boundaries between the city of Mainz and the municipality of Bretzenheim were determined in such a way that Zahlbach and its territory will belong to Mainz in the future."

Linked to this was the establishment of the new Mainz main cemetery by St. André two years earlier. In the course of the French Revolution and Napoleon's takeover, monasteries and churches were secularized . The tradition dating back to the Middle Ages of burying the dead in churches and monasteries could no longer be maintained in this form as it increasingly led to hygienic problems. Under French rule, this form of burial was forbidden within the city, as happened in Mainz by two decrees of Jeanbon St. André of March 19 and 30, 1803. On the instructions of the prefect, the city of Mainz bought the site of the former Dalheim monastery for the new extra-urban cemetery complex. On May 30, 1803 the new "Aureus Cemetery" was inaugurated, where in 1813 Jeanbon St. André also found his final resting place.

On typhoid de Mayence ill soldiers (Contemporary Drawing)
French inscription on the tomb

Under the prefecture of St. André, for the first time since the Swedish occupation , Protestant services were allowed in church buildings that were left to them on the basis of the organic articles . In March 1802, for example, the Mainz Protestants celebrated their first public service again in the Altmünster Church that had been left to them .

The aftermath of Jeanbon St. Andrés work can still be observed beyond Mainz. So, among other things, to counteract the shortage of goods caused by the continental barrier against England (1806), he ordered sugar beet cultivation in the Palatinate , which became one of the most important economic factors there alongside viticulture. St. André also campaigned for the improvement of the road system. For example, the Route de Charlemagne was built, a trunk road via Ingelheim to Koblenz . The street name Pariser Tor, which is still preserved today in the Upper Town of Mainz, points to the direct trunk road connection ( Pariser- or Kaiserstraße ) from Mainz via the Palatinate and Saarbrücken to Paris , which was built at the initiative of the Prefect.

After the defeat of the Grande Armée near Leipzig and Hanau in 1813, the surviving soldiers fled in panic back to the Rhine and across the Mainz Rhine bridge into the city. They brought the so-called Typhus de Mayence with them, which is estimated to have killed over 16,000 French soldiers and almost 2,500 Mainz residents (10% of the population!). Prefect Jeanbon St. André was among the victims. He died on December 10, 1813, after having rendered services to the organization of the sick and wounded care and not sparing himself. He found his final resting place in a grave of honor in the main cemetery in Mainz, which he founded, where an elaborately designed tomb still commemorates him. The French inscription on the gravestone, written by the Mainz writer Friedrich Lehne , is translated as follows:

Under this monument,
just like him, in the
midst of those he loved
in their final resting place, sanctified by his care
and under his administration,
rests
J. B. Baron de St. André,
Prefect of the Donnersberg Department,
Officer of the Legion of Honor,
died on December 10, 1813.

Aftermath: Memories of Jeanbon St. André in the Mainz population

St. André was a high-ranking personality in Mainz in his day. As has been the norm with the Mainz population at all times, the French prefect also quickly got his nickname in the Mainz dialect. In corruption of his first name Jeanbon to the French jambon (ham) and with the addition of his surname, he was only affectionately and mockingly called "Schinkenandres" in the Mainz population. There is also a children's song in France, Le jambon de Mayence , see also Mainz ham .

The short Jeanbon-St-Andre-Straße at the entrance to the main cemetery reminds of him. There is also a street named after him in his birthplace, Montauban.

Jeanbon bequeathed his theological library to the Theological Faculty in Montauban, which was reopened in 1808 and is now the Institut Protestant de Théologie in Montpellier .

Works

  • Considérations sur l'organisation des églises protestantes , Paris 1848

literature

  • Helmut Mathy : Jeanbon St. André, the Prefect of Napoleon in Mainz and promoter of the Gutenberg idea 1802–1813. Small print no. 85 of the Gutenberg Society, Verlag der Gutenberg Society, Mainz 1969. ISBN 3-7755-0092-8 .
  • Gerda Kirmse: The model prefect from Donnersberg, The life of Jeanbon St. André and its historical background . Pandion Verlag, Simmern 1998. ISBN 3-922929-76-1 .
  • Michael Huyer: France and Mainz - history around 1800 as reflected in monuments . State Center for Civic Education Rhineland-Palatinate, Mainz 3/2001, PDF document
  • Georg May : The right to worship in the Diocese of Mainz at the time of Bishop Joseph Ludwig Colmar (1802-1818) . Grüner, Amsterdam 1987. ISBN 90-6032-290-8 .
  • Franz Dumont, Ferdinand Scherf, Friedrich Schütz (eds.): Mainz - The history of the city . Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2nd edition 1999. ISBN 3-8053-2000-0 .
  • Wolfgang Balzer: Mainz: personalities of the city's history , vol. 1: Mainz honorary citizens, Mainz church princes, military personalities, Mainz mayors . Kügler Verlag, Ingelheim 1985. ISBN 3-924124-01-9 .

Web links

Commons : Jeanbon St. André  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Interview with Helmut Schmahl , Wormser Zeitung, December 27, 2013.
  2. ↑ Kirmse, p. 25 f
  3. ↑ Quoted from: Karl Schramm : Two thousand years, where you walk and stand. Publishing house Dr. Hanns Krach, Mainz 1962.
  4. ^ Mittelrheinisches Landesmuseum Mainz (ed.): Mainz in Napoleonic times: aspects of culture and art history. Mainz 1982, 29.
  5. ↑ The effects of French rule, legislation and administration on Aachen's economic life (PDF; 303 kB)
  6. ↑ Gustav Faber : I think of Germany ... Nine journeys through past and present . Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1975. ISBN 3-458-05898-2 . P. 18.
  7. ↑ Kirmse, p. 23
  8. ↑ Kirmse, p. 15
predecessor Office successor

Jacques-Alexis Thuriot de La Rosière 		President of the French National Convention
July 11, 1793 - July 25, 1793
Georges Danton
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on November 28, 2005 .
personal data
SURNAME St. André, Jeanbon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jeanbon, André
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French prefect at the time of the Revolutionary Wars
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1749
PLACE OF BIRTH Montauban
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 1813
Place of death Mainz