Philippe-Antoine Merlin

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Philippe Antoine Merlin

Philippe-Antoine Merlin (born October 30, 1754 in Arleux ( Département Nord ), † December 26, 1838 in Paris ) was a politician during the French Revolution, the consulate and the First Empire. He was a member of the board of directors from 1797 to 1799 . To avoid confusion with the politician Antoine Christophe Merlin (de Thionville) , he was called Merlin de Douai .

Life

Phillippe Antoine Merlin was born the son of a wealthy farmer. He studied law in Douai , practiced law there from 1775 and quickly earned a reputation as an excellent lawyer.

The third estate of the constituency of Douai elected Merlin in the spring of 1789 as a member of the Estates General (États généraux). He worked as a reporter for the "Feudalities Committee" of the Constituent Assembly and wrote essential parts of the decrees of March 15, 1790 and May 3, 1790 to solve the agrarian question. These decrees led to the equality of bourgeois and noble property, but increased the tax burden on the peasants. In the autumn of 1791 he was before the criminal court of his home department, which elected him in September 1792 as a deputy of the National Convention . He was close to the plain , was a member of the Legislative Committee and voted for the death of Louis XVI .

Merlin acted since January 1793 in occupied Belgium, since April 1793 in the rebellious Vendée as "representative in mission" and in September 1793 returned to Paris. There he worked out bills. His objections to the "Prairial Law" of June 10, 1794 earned him the hostility of Robespierre . Merlin therefore approved the overthrow of the 9th Thermidor (July 27, 1794).

On September 1, 1794, Merlin was elected to the Welfare Committee. He advocated France's policy of expansion towards the “natural borders” , the formation of sister republics and shaped the peace treaty of Basel with Prussia (April 5, 1795) and the peace treaty of The Hague with the Netherlands (May 16, 1795) to a large extent. Furthermore, he resolutely pursued the lifting of the "revolutionary terror" and called for the abolition of the "Prairial Laws" .

Merlin worked with the Eleven Commission to draft the constitution for year III (directorate constitution of 1795). He was also a member of the committee of five that led the suppression of the royalist Vendémiaire uprising (October 5, 1795). On October 25, 1795, he published the new penal code ( "Code de delits et des peines" ), which was largely his work. That is why Merlin was elected to the Council of the Elderly and the “Institut national des sciences et arts” .

Philippe Antoine Merlin de Douai headed the Ministry of Justice from November 3, 1795 to January 3, 1796, from January 3, 1796 to April 3, 1796 he led the Ministry of Police and from April 3, 1796 to September 8, 1797 he acted again as Minister of Justice.

After the coup d'état of the 18th Fructidor V (September 4, 1797), Merlin was appointed to the board of directors instead of Barthélemy. Together with Reubell, he approved and corrected the constitution of the Helvetic Republic , which had been drawn up by Peter Ochs . In principle, it was designed according to the model of the Constitution of Year III. Merlin shaped the church policy of the Directory, introduced the " cult of the decade " in France on August 30, 1798 and resigned from the Directory on June 18, 1799 ( coup d'état of 30th Prairial VII ).

In April 1800 Merlin was deputy government commissioner at the court of cassation and from 1801 its attorney general. In 1803 he was elected a member of the Académie française . Emperor Napoleon I made Merlin count in 1809 and appointed him councilor for life in 1811.

Merlin was exiled to Dieppe by the Bourbons in 1815, but he managed to escape to the Netherlands. After the July Revolution of 1830 , Merlin returned to Paris. He was taken back to the "Institute" , of which he remained until his death on December 26, 1838.

Philippe Antoine Merlin is the father of the French general Eugène Antoine François Merlin (1778–1854).

literature

  • Bernd Jeschonnek: Revolution in France 1789–1799. A lexicon. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-05-000801-6 .

Web links

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