Louis Monneron

Louis Monneron's signature in a letter to the Hamburg merchant Caspar Zeller from 1797.

Jean-Louis Monneron (born September 12, 1742 in Annonay , Ardèche , † November 30, 1805 in Senegal ), known as Monneron des Mortiers , was a French entrepreneur engaged in the East India trade, agent for France in Sri Lanka and Pondichéry's deputy in the Constituent Assembly .

Life

origin

Louis Monneron was one of six sons of a Huguenot legal family. His father Antoine Monneron (1693–1791) was a lawyer by profession and initially acted as "contrôleur des fermes" in Antibes before he became the leaseholder of the salt tax gabelle in Annonay. About his mother Barbe-Catherine, b. Arnaud Monneron was related to Joseph François Dupleix , the governor-general of the French branches in India .

Career in East India

French East India Company camp in Pondichéry.

Like some of his brothers, Louis Monneron was an entrepreneur in the East India trade. In 1765 he followed his older brother Charles (1735-1799) to India and settled in Chandannagar in Bengal . His younger brother Janvier (1754-1811) went to Pondichéry in 1770 ; his brother Pierre (1747–1801) was in 1787 the captain of the ship that the Tipu Sultan's embassy to France to the court of Louis XVI. brought. In India, Louis Monneron was accepted into the Masonic lodge “Amis Réunis de Pondichéry”.

When Chandannagar was captured by the English in July 1778, all of Monneron's goods were confiscated. Nevertheless, he continued to trade and was eventually expelled from Bengal. This did not affect his career, however, because from October 1780 he represented French interests in the Dutch Cape Colony for several years .

Because of his excellent knowledge of the Indian trade, he was appointed French agent in Sri Lanka in September 1781 . After doing brilliant business there, he was forced to return to France on charges of embezzlement in November 1785. He was detained for a short time but was then released.

Back in France: entrepreneur, member of parliament, visionary

While his brothers Pierre and Janvier were involved in the country trade , the privately organized intra-Asiatic trade, from the Île de France (today: Mauritius ) , Louis became Commissaire of the second French East Indies , founded by Calonne , due to his knowledge of the East India trade -Company appointed. In 1788 he was one of the members of the comité colonial founded by Gouy d'Arsy in Paris , an association of plantation owners and entrepreneurs engaged in overseas business.

Les Mortels sont égaux ( Eng . "All people are equal"), colored copper engraving by an unknown artist from 1791. The personified reason holds the bar of equality between a white and a black; the black man holds the declaration of human and civil rights passed by the Constituent Assembly in one hand and the decree of May 15, 1791, in which blacks are granted civil rights, in the other.

In November 1790 Monneron moved into the constituent assembly as a deputy from Pondichéry , replacing Joseph Desnos de Kerjean , who had given up his seat. From January 20, 1791 he belonged to the comité des Colonies responsible for colonial policy . During this time he published a number of smaller papers, including a paper in which he expressed his opinion on the organization of the navy ( Opinion ... sur l'organization de la marine , April 1791). In a debate on May 14, 1791, he advocated the use of merchant navy officers on warships.

In the debate about slavery he followed on May 11, 1791 the position of Abbé Grégoire , who demanded the right to vote for free blacks. After the entry into force of the decree of May 15, 1791, which granted black citizens civil rights, he fought against the resistance of the comité des Colonies to recognize the decree. On August 30, 1791, Monneron proposed to increase the number of members of the committee by adding six more deputies. The next day Monneron read a letter from Bordeaux in which a number of plantation owners from Saint-Domingue pledged to comply with the decree of May 15, 1791. Towards the end of his tenure he published the work Lettre… sur le décret du 15 May 1791 , in which he again dealt with the subject. In November 1791, his name appeared on a list of members of the Jacobin Club .

In the years 1792 to 1794 Monneron was - among other things via the ships of the Danish trading house Duntsfeld, Meyer & Cie. - involved in business with the Île de France. Between September and November 1795 he negotiated as part of a secret mission in London as a negotiator between France and the British about the release of prisoners in India. In 1796 he finally retired to Bordeaux , from where he continued to actively participate in international sea trade. At the same time he developed various visions of the future of France in Asia. In 1796 he sent a detailed treatise on French trade in the Orient to the Directory , in 1797 he spoke out in favor of the annexation of Sri Lanka and the Cape Colony, in 1799 he wrote to Napoleon Bonaparte and promoted the trade connection between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean via Suez strong.

The crash

From 1798 onwards his economic situation deteriorated noticeably. The disappearance of his brother Augustin (1756–1824), who, as director general of the Caisse des comptes courants, embezzled several million francs and whom he supported several times with loans, undoubtedly played a part in this. In 1801 he was in such financial need that he asked the London trading house Bourdieu and Chollet for a loan of 100,000 livres and offered his vineyards in the Bordelais and his collection of paintings as security . Although he still had the support of his brother Janvier, who lived on the Île de France, when he set off from Bordeaux on a trip to the west coast of Africa in 1804, his economic situation was already extremely precarious. He did not return from this last trip; he died in Senegal in 1805 under unknown circumstances .

The French historian Paul Butel praised Monneron as one of the "greatest entrepreneurs at the end of the Ancien Régime ".

Fonts

First page of the text Lettre… sur le décret du 15 May 1791 , in which Monneron speaks out in favor of granting civil rights to blacks.

• Réponse de M. Louis Monneron… à l'Adresse de quelques habitans des Isles de France et de Bourbon, à l'Assemblée nationale (November 18, 1790)
• Lettre de M. Louis Monneron,… à MM. Les habitants des îles de France et de Bourbon actuellement à Paris (December 15, 1790)
• Responses aux objections contre le rétablissement de Pondichéry, présentées à MM. De l'Assemblée Nationale par MLM, député des isles Orientales (February 20, 1791)
• Lettre de M. Louis Monneron, député des Indes Orientales, sur le décret du 15 may 1791, en faveur des hommes libres de couleur (September 1, 1791)
• Opinion de M. Louis Monneron, député des Indes orientales, sur le projet de décret, présenté par M. Barnave… sur les hommes libres de couleur (September 24, 1791)
• Opinion de M. Louis Monneron, député des Indes orientales, sur l'organisation de la marine (1791), available online from Gallica , the French National Library's digitization project.
• Lettre de M. Louis Monneron, député des Indes orientales, sur le décret du 15 May 1791, en faveur des hommes libres de couleur (1791), available online via Gallica , the digitization project of the French National Library.
• Observations on the Legislation Coloniale (1791)
• Pensées miscellaneous (1793)

literature

• Paul Butel: Réorientations du négoce français à la fin du 18e siècle: les Monneron et l'Océan India , in: LM Cullen / P. Butel (ed.), Négoce et industrie en France et en Irlande aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles: actes du Colloque Franco-Irlandais d'Histoire, Bordeaux, May 1978, Paris 1980, pp. 65-73.
• Ananda Abeydeera: Louis Monneron, agent de la France à Ceylan , in: Dix-huitième siècle 22 (1990), ISSN  0070-6760 , pp. 25-37.
• Monneron, Jean-Louis , in: Dictionnaire des Constituants: 1789–1791, Edna Hindie Lemay (ed.) Avec la collaboration de Christine Favre-Lejeune, Volume 2, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-7400-0003-0 , p. 679 .

Remarks

1. ↑ Abeydeera, Louis Monneron, agent de la France à Ceylan , in: Dix-huitième siècle 22 (1990), pp. 25–37, here p. 27. Lemay states - unlike Abeydeera - Pondichéry as Monneron's place of residence in India. Lemay (ed.), Monneron, Jean Louis , in: Dictionnaire des Constituants, Vol. 2, p. 679.
2. ↑ On this Mohamed Majid: Les Ambassadeuers de Tipou Sultan à Versailles , in: Nouvelles de l'Inde, août – septembre 1984, pp. 14–17.
3. ↑ See also the list of persons in Hervé Perret, Une communauté de l'Océan India à Paris au XVIIIe siècle, le monde d'Henry Paulin Panon Desbassayns: tentative d'expression d'un réseau. Index des Personnes et des Francs-maçons par loge , in: Les Ego-documents à l'heure de l'électronique. Etudes réunies par Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire and Dominique Taurisson. Actes du colloque organisé à l'Université Paul-Valéry - Center d'étude du XVIIIe siècle, Montpellier, 23–25 October 2002, URL:  Archived copy ( Memento of the original of 15 October 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Retrieved February 26, 2007 at 5:44 p.m. UTC). 
4. ↑ Paul Butel comments on this: "Louis Monneron avait, comme bien d'autres agents européens aux Indes, construit sa fortune dans une série de transactions plus ou moins licites". Paul Butel: Réorientations du négoce français à la fin du 18e siècle: les Monneron et l'Océan India , in: Cullen / Butel (ed.), Négoce et industrie en France et en Irlande aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, Paris 1980, p . 65–73, here p. 72.
5. ↑ See the debate of May 11, 1791, in: Archives parlementaires de 1787 à 1860 , Volume 25: April 13, 1791 - May 11, 1791 , Paris 1769, p. 744.
6. ↑ Paul Butel: Réorientations you négoce français à la fin du 18e siècle: et les Monneron l'Océan Indien , in: (ed.) Cullen / Butel, Négoce et industrie en France et en Irlande aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, Paris 1980 Pp. 65–73, here p. 73.
7. ↑ “Un des plus grands hommes d'affaires de la fin de l'Ancien Régime”. Paul Butel: Réorientations du négoce français à la fin du 18e siècle: les Monneron et l'Océan India , in: Cullen / Butel (ed.), Négoce et industrie en France et en Irlande aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, Paris 1980, p . 65–73, here p. 73.