Jean Lambert Tallien

Jean Lambert Tallien, graphic by François Bonneville .
Tallien's signature:

Jean Lambert Tallien (born January 23, 1767 in Paris , †  November 16, 1820 there ) was a French journalist and revolutionary .

Origin and career until 1792

Tallien received an excellent education through the sponsorship of the Marquis de Bercy, in whose service his father was steward. After his training, Tallien took a job as a clerk in a lawyer’s office, and later worked in the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Finance. In 1790 he became secretary to the Member of Parliament Brostaret, and in 1791 he worked for the Moniteur newspaper . After the unsuccessful escape of Louis XVI. In June 1791 Tallien was editor of L'Ami des citoyens, journal fraternel, in which he fought against the Marat- style monarchy violently. On April 15, 1792, Tallien hosted the Festival of Freedom in honor of the amnestied soldiers of the Nancy mutiny.

From the storming of the Tuileries to the 9th Thermidor

On August 10, 1792, Tallien took part in the assault on the Tuileries . This was followed by his election as a member of the General Council and secretary of the Paris Commune. In September 1792 Tallien was elected to the convention by the Seine-et-Oise department . Tallien sided with the Mountain Party (La Montagne) and voted for the execution of Louis XVI. In February 1793 he condemned the indictment against Marat and called for "the prosperity of the suffering population". In March 1793, he went as a missionary Représentant en in the Indre-et-Loire and in the insurgent Vendée . Then Tallien returned to Paris and participated from May 31 to June 2, 1793 in the fall of the Girondins .

“Everything we have done has been approved by the people. If you want to strike a blow against us, you will also hit the people who made the revolution of July 14th, who consolidated it on August 10th, 1792 and who will keep it going. "

The National Convention sent Tallien to the Gironde department . In Bordeaux , Tallien established the Jacobin reign of terror . With exaggerated severity and cruelty, he led the persecution of the Girondins who had fled Paris and had actual enemies of the revolution, but also those who were innocently denounced, executed. But while there was general need in Bordeaux, Tallien lived arrogantly in luxury. He enriched himself by blackmailing families and friends of those sentenced to death and only pardoned them after receiving generous monetary gifts. Tallien met his future wife, the former marquise Thérésia Cabarrus , in the Bordeaux prison . He immediately fell in love with the beautiful Spanish woman and freed her from prison. Thérésia Cabarrus then influenced Tallien to moderate politics. In the autumn of 1793 Tallien closed the Jacobin Club of Bordeaux and dissolved the Revolutionary Tribunal. In May 1794 Tallien had to answer to Robespierre in Paris for his policy in Bordeaux. Tallien was expelled from the Jacobin Club and the Thérésia that followed him to Paris was imprisoned in the Petite-Force women's prison in Paris. Thérésia was nevertheless able to smuggle the following message from the prison to Tallien:

"I had a dream. I dreamed that I would be executed the next day. This could be changed if there weren't faint-hearted weaklings but real men. "

Tallien feared for the life of his lover. Knowing that his own life was also in danger, Tallien Robespierre joined opponents around Fouché , Barras , Fréron , Carrier , Billaud-Varenne and Collot d'Herbois . On July 19, 1794, as a result of the proposal from Tallien, the convention decided to appoint every fourth member of the welfare committee and the security committee .

On July 27, 1794 ( 9th Thermidor ), Fouché, Barras, Fréron and Tallien were to be indicted by Robespierre and Saint-Just . Tallien was outraged by the Jacobin tyranny and terror. The conspirators were able to prevent Robespierre and Saint-Just from speaking before the National Convention. Robespierre was overwhelmed in tumultuous scenes and left the stands with the words:

"The Republic? It is lost because the robbers triumph. "

After the 9th Thermidor

On July 29, 1794 Tallien, who with his opposition to Robespierre now counted to the group of Thermidorians , was elected to the welfare committee, but was voted out two months later. Tallien formed the Jeunesse dorée with Fréron and Rovère with the aim of exerting pressure on the National Assembly and on public opinion.

On December 26, 1794, Tallien and Thérésia married. But the marriage did not last long. Thérésia left Tallien and became a well-known courtesan as Madame Tallien during the reign of the Directory. She became the lover of Barras, later she lived with the punter and state banker Ouvrard and became a close friend of the Joséphine de Beauharnais . The Talliens' marriage ended in divorce in April 1802.

In March 1795 Tallien was ordered to the Western Army. There he set up martial law for the execution of the royalists who had landed in Quiberon. In April 1795, Tallien, a member of the Seine-et-Oise department, declared in his speech to the convention that the sale of the confiscated property from the innocent executed would be morally reprehensible.

“If I had had the misfortune to acquire, in a moment of utter unscrupulousness, a field of the virtuous Malesherbes, the interesting Beauharnais, the honorable Lavoisier, I would think I saw the spirits of these victims of terror in front of my plow, and I would have this feeling as if I could only sow remorse on this desecrated earth. "

After the suppression of the royalist Vendémiaire uprising on October 5, 1795, Tallien was elected to the Council of Five Hundred. He worked to defend the gains of the revolution and the republic. On March 9, 1796, Tallien and Barras were witnesses to the marriage of Napoléon Bonaparte to Joséphine . In April 1796, Tallien claimed in his speech to the Council of Five Hundred that the " conspiracy of equals " around Babeuf , Filippo Buonarroti and Darthé was paid for by royalists. But Tallien increasingly lost his influence and was not re-elected to the Council of Five Hundred in May 1798. A little later he accompanied Napoléon Bonaparte on the Egypt campaign . There Tallien was appointed to the newly founded Institute for Sciences and Arts in Cairo. During the Empire, Tallien was consul of Alicante for a short time.

On November 16, 1820, Tallien died completely impoverished and forgotten in Paris. He was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery (Division 14). His recently restored grave is adorned by two stelae stones, the right of which bears the text of an important revolutionary article that Tallien published in a newspaper in 1791.

literature

• Bernard Chevallier, Christophe Pincemaille: Joséphine. Napoleon's great love. Heyne, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-453-05042-8 ( Heyne books 12, 210).
• Bernd Jeschonnek: Revolution in France 1789 to 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 .
• Katharina Middell, Matthias Middell: François Noël Babeuf. Martyrs of equality. New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-355-00604-1 .
• Albert Sacharowitsch Manfred: Rousseau - Mirabeau - Robespierre. 3 images of life. Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-373-00304-0 .
• Frederic Tuten : Tallien. A novel. Fischer-Taschenbuch Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-596-13537-0 ( Fischer 13537 Roman ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Today's Division 10.