Pierre Jean Louis Victor Thuillier

Pierre Jean Louis Victor Thuillier (born July 1, 1765 in Blérancourt , Picardy , † 1794 in Paris ) was a French revolutionary and politician who achieved a certain fame as a friend and helper of Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767–1794) . Their friendship began at an early age, around 1776 when the Saint-Just family moved from Decize to Blérancourt and took up residence there. A portrait of Thuillier has not survived, only a signal element in his passport, which shows, among other things, that he had brown hair, a long nose, blue eyes and a full face.

Blérancourt

A street in Blérancourt that is unlikely to have changed over the centuries. Saint-Just lived in the left corner house from 1776 to 1792

Thuillier's father owned an inn, La croix blanche (The White Cross), in Blerancourt. It is not known what schooling Pierre Jean Louis Victor received. Perhaps it resembled that of his friend Louis Antoine, who attended the Saint-Nicolas school of the Oratorians in Soissons from 1777 to 1785 .

After the outbreak of the French Revolution , some of its effects were soon felt in the Blérancourt area. For example, by law of December 22, 1789, the Constituent Assembly decided on a new territorial division for all of France : instead of the old districts, there were now départements , which were divided into districts, cantons and communes and named according to geographical or traditional circumstances. From March 1790, Blérancourt belonged to the Aisne department , after the river of the same name in the region. At that time, Thuillier was hired by the Blérancourt commune. He was a member of the Blérancourt National Guard as well as his friend Saint-Just, who was appointed lieutenant colonel in the municipality in June and honorary commander in the entire canton in August. The two friends were very active in political life, promoting the revolution on a provincial level, so to speak. They were recognized in the community, but they also had a number of enemies. For example, when Saint-Just was elected member of the Legislative Assembly in 1791 by the voters of the municipality , an adversary brought an action against it because Saint-Just was too young. The lawsuit was successful and the Blérancourt voters' decision was overturned by the district administration. - A year later, however, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just was elected member of the National Convention and went to Paris in September 1792, where he was soon to become one of the leading men in the events of the French Revolution. From then on, Thuillier had to deal with her opposition in Blérancourt alone, a matter that will certainly have been an issue in her correspondence over the next few months. In the course of time, however, the situation for Thuillier became more and more unbearable and so he finally asked his friend Saint-Just to find him a job in Paris in his sphere of influence, which then happened.

Paris

In August 1793, Pierre Jean Louis Victor Thuillier came to Paris and became an agent (administrator) for military supplies (administrateur des subsistances militaires). His wife and son stayed behind in Blérancourt. Thuillier then always worked at Saint-Just's side and took part in many important events. He was there in autumn 1793 when Saint-Just and Le Bas reorganized the Rhine Army in Alsace and carried out many civilian measures. In the spring of 1794 this work was repeated in the north with the Northern Army and in June Thuillier witnessed the battle of Fleurus , which was victorious for the French , perhaps even directly in battle like his friend Saint-Just. Some experiences from these times have also been reported by Thuillier. For example, in a note he gave Saint-Just's negative opinion of the Prairial Laws : I witnessed the indignation with which he read the Law of the 22nd Prairial in the garden of the headquarters in Marchienne-au-Pont outside Charleroi ... He said: "One cannot propose a hard and wholesome law which is not usurped by intrigue, crime and frenzy according to whim and passion in order to make an instrument of death out of it."

After Fleurus, Pierre Jean Louis Victor Thuillier then worked in Paris as a member of the Committee on Agriculture (Commission de l'agriculture). Immediately after the Thermidor , he was arrested and thrown in prison, where he died a few weeks later.

literature

• Marisa Linton: Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship, and Authenticity in the French Revolution , Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013
• Albert Ollivier: Saint-Just et la force des choses , Gallimard, Paris 1966
• Hans Peter Richter : Saint-Just and the French Revolution: Grosse Gestalten series , Engelbert-Verlag, Gebr. Zimmermann GmbH, Balve / Sauerland 1975

Web links

• Literature by and about Pierre Jean Louis Victor Thuillier in the bibliographic database WorldCat

Remarks

1. ^ Hans Peter Richter: Saint-Just and the French Revolution (1975), page 119