Pierre Vergniaud
Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud (born May 31, 1753 in Limoges , † October 31, 1793 in Paris ) was one of the leaders of the Girondins in the French Revolution .
His saying "The revolution is like Saturn , it eats its own children" achieved proverbial fame in a shortened form.
Life
Origin, education and career until 1789
Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud was born the son of an army supplier. With the help of the then director of the Limousin , Turgot , the gifted boy received a scholarship for the Jesuit-led Collège du Plessis in Paris, where he received thorough training, especially in Greek and Latin literature as well as in ancient philosophy and history. Throughout his life Vergniaud adored the Roman philosopher Seneca , the German archaeologist Winckelmann and the French enlightener Jean Meslier .
Since his father, impoverished by speculation, could not finance further education, Pierre Victurnien entered the St. Sulpice seminary . However, he felt no spiritual calling and soon left the seminary without receiving the minor ordinations. However, his brother-in-law Alluald, an engineer who was to become mayor of Limoges during the revolution, enabled him to study law in Bordeaux.
After his admission to the bar, Vergniaud found a job as secretary to the President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, Charles du Patys (1746–1788). In 1781 he was admitted to the parliament as a lawyer, and a year later he won his first trial with confidence.
Local politician in the Gironde department 1789/91
Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud served as a captain in the National Guard after the outbreak of the revolution and joined the General Council of the Gironde department in 1790 . He founded the Jacobin Club of Bordeaux with his friends Jean-Baptiste Boyer-Fonfrède (1765-1793) and Jean-François Ducos (1765-1793) and gained the reputation of one because of his passionate speeches in which he vividly described the suffering of the peasants Tribuns.
In March 1791 he took over the chairmanship of the jury at the criminal court. Initially, Vergniaud welcomed the constitutional monarchy, but after the failed escape of the royal family in June 1791, he turned into a determined republican and was elected to the legislature on August 31, 1791.
Member of the legislature 1791/92
Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud moved to Paris in September 1791 and lived there with the actress Julie Simon-Candeille (1767–1834), for whom he wrote some scenes from the then famous drama "The Beautiful Peasant Woman". In the legislature, as its president he was from October 30 to November 15, 1791, Vergniaud demanded the establishment of a republic based on the model of Plato and joined the politicians around Jacques Pierre Brissot , from whom the Girondists emerged.
In order to prevent a planned invasion of France after the Pillnitz Declaration and to divert attention from internal grievances, the Girondins called for war in autumn 1791. Vergniaud also stood up for the civic equality of all citizens before the law. This led to strong resistance from the sans-culottes, who strived for economic equality, and from parts of the nobility and upper class, who rejected the constitution of September 3, 1791 and wanted to preserve their privileges.
In March 1792, Vergniaud pushed through the dismissal and indictment of Foreign Minister de Lessart , who wanted to prevent a war. On April 20, 1792, France declared war on Austria, although the royal army was not yet sufficiently prepared and armed for a victorious campaign. The army temporarily stopped their fighting on May 17, 1792 and their commanders-in-chief demanded Louis XVI. to make peace immediately. Thereupon, on May 23, 1792, Brissot and Vergniaud reported an “Austrian committee” that, under Marie Antoinette's leadership, prepared the victory of the Austrians and thus the failure of the revolution. The legislature then decided to disband the royal bodyguard, deport oath-refusing priests and raise 20,000 federates in the départements. Louis XVI vetoed the last two resolutions, on June 12, 1792 he dismissed the Girondist ministers from the government and replaced them with ministers from the ranks of the Feuillants .
Vergniaud now tried to form a political alliance with Lafayette . This failed because Lafayette preferred the court and the Feuillants and had his own ambitions for power. On June 20, 1792, on the anniversary of the Ballhaus oath , the brewer Santerre organized a rally of 10,000 armed sans-culottes to protest against the dismissal of the Girondin ministers and the conflicting policies of the king. Vergniaud took advantage of the discontent of the Parisian population and violently attacked the king's policy.
After the ministers of the Feuillants resigned on July 10, 1792, Vergniaud, Guadet and Gensonné conducted secret negotiations with the king with the intention of reinstating the Girondist ministers who had been dismissed in June. Vergniaud therefore raised his vote on July 24, 1792 against the republican movement and on August 4, 1792 opposed the decision of the legislature to depose the king.
Since Louis XVI. refused to reappoint Girondins in the government, Vergniaud returned to the Republican camp. He announced on 10 August 1792, the dismissal of Louis XVI., After the royal family at the Tuileries from the Palais des Tuileries escaped and sought among the deputies of the legislative protection, and then the convening of a national convention called.
Member of the National Convention 1792/93
In September 1792, Pierre Vergniaud was elected to the National Convention by the Gironde department . He strongly condemned the September murders and proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy on September 21, 1792. In October 1792 he was elected one of the secretaries of the National Convention and a member of its first constitutional committee. There he asserted himself alongside Brissot and Manon Roland as the most important politician of the Girondins and as an opponent of the Montagnarden , whom he fought because of their extreme views.
Vergniaud represented during the trial of Louis XVI. the point of view that the constitution of September 3, 1791 grants the king inviolability and that this can only be revoked from him by a referendum. From January 10 to 24, 1793, Vergniaud presided over the assemblies in the National Convention. Despite his original opinion, he voted for the death of the former king on January 17, 1793. A little later, Vergniaud rejected the establishment of the Revolutionary Tribunal. He also opposed a war with England, which ran counter to the economic interests of the merchants of Bordeaux and thus increasingly came into conflict with the Jacobins around Robespierre and Marat . The situation came to a head when, on April 10, 1793, Robespierre accused Vergniaud of plotting a conspiracy in favor of the king during the summer of 1792 and accusing him of moderatism, too much moderation. Because of this, Vergniaud called on the residents of Bordeaux on May 4, 1793, to raise troops and lead them to Paris to defend the Girondas.
On May 31, 1793, the first attempt by the Jacobins around Robespierre and Marat to overthrow the Girondins with the help of the Parisian sans-culottes failed. Two days later, however, 80,000 sans-culottes with 150 guns surrounded the Palais des Tuileries and demanded that the National Convention ostracize and arrest all 22 Girondin MPs. Vergniaud was placed under house arrest the same day. The Revolutionary Tribunal indicted the Gironde MPs on October 2, 1793, and sentenced them to death on October 30, 1793, a verdict that was finalized before the trial began. The next day, the day of the plow in the revolutionary calendar, 21 Girondists died under the guillotine within forty minutes. Although Vergniaud had been carrying a bottle of poison with him for days, he made no use of it to end his own life shortly before the execution. Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud saw the execution of his political and personal friends, such as Brissot, Gensonné, Boyer-Fonfréde or Ducos, and was the last to be led to the scaffold. On the scaffold he said his last sentence: “ The revolution, like Saturn, eats its own children. "
literature
- Bernd Jeschonnek: Revolution in France 1789–1799. A lexicon. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-05-000801-6 .
- Walter Markov , Albert Soboul : 1789. The great French revolution. Urania-Verlag, Leipzig / Jena / Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-332-00261-9 .
- Stefan W. Römmelt: Vergniaud, PV ; in: historicum.net; URL: January 4th, 2006
- Jörg-Uwe Albig: Virtue or Death In: GEO EPOCHE - The Magazine for History, Issue No. 22 The French Revolution , Hamburg, Verlag Gruner + Jahr AG & Co. KG, 2006, ISBN 3-570-19672-0
- CG Bouwers: Pierre Vergniaud - Voice of the French Revolution , New York 1950
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Text in: The bourgeois revolutions in the 18th century. Series: themed books. World history in outline. Ed. Werner Ripper. Diesterweg, Frankfurt 1977, ISBN 3-425-07397-4 , p. 59.
- ↑ Helge Hesse : Here I stand, I can't help it. Through world history in 80 sentences. Munich 2008, p. 182.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vergniaud, Pierre |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Vergniaud, Pierre Victurnien (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French leader of the Girondins in the French Revolution |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 31, 1753 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Limoges , France |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 31, 1793 |
| Place of death | Paris , France |