Revelliere-Lepeaux Citizen Director 1753-1824 9780231889742

Citation preview

Frontispiece Bronze bust of Revelliere-lépeaux now standing before the town hall of Montaigu, department of the Vendée, where it was unveiled on J u n e 14, 1886. The photograph, by Douillard Frères, MontaiguVendée, is reproduced here with the permission of Mademoiselle Douillard of Montaigu.

REVELLI ERE- LEPEAUX CITIZEN DIRECTOR 1753-1824

BY

GEORGIA ROBISON

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE COLUMBIA

UNIVERSITY

NUMBER 438

NEW

YORK

1938

COPYRIGHT, 1938 BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

PRESS

PUNTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMEBICA

tto DORA SLEDD ROBISON AND

HENRY BARTON ROBISON

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THIS study was begun at the University of Chicago at the suggestion of Professor Louis Gottschalk and continued in Paris with the encouragement of Professors Albert Meynier, Bernard Fay, and Philippe Sagnac and the late Albert Mathiez and Raymond Guyot; it was concluded at Columbia University under the supervision of Professors Charles Downer Hazen and Carlton J. H. Hayes. Grants of the University Fellowship in History at Columbia University for the academic year 1929-1930 and of the European Fellowship of the American Association of University Women for the academic year 19301931 made possible the first stages of necessary research. A very great number of persons in public and private archives and libraries have rendered invaluable assistance in gathering and interpreting materials. It seems appropriate to mention four of these persons who have particularly facilitated the author's work in the west of France where Revelliere-lepeaux was born and reared: M. Marc Sache, former Director of the Bibliothèque de la Ville d'Angers and of the Archives Départementales de Maine-et-Loire at Angers; M. Jacques Levron, present Director of the Archives Départementales de Maine-et-Loire; M. l'Abbé Emile Pasquier, Professor at the Externat Saint-Maurille at Angers; and M. Gustave Pilastre of Mareuil-sur-Lay, Vendée. The author is deeply grateful for this generous personal guidance and for the timely financial grants. Thanks are due, finally, to Dr. Katharine Elizabeth Crane, assistant editor of the Dictionary of American Biography, for reading the manuscript at various stages of its preparation for publication. G. R. VILLA

EZE-LES-ROSES

EZE-SUR-MER, SEPTEMBER 2 4 ,

FRANCE 1936

CONTENTS CHAPTER

I

PAG*

Son of the Mayor

15

Deputy from Angers

51

III

First Executive Directory

85

IV

Ministers and Majorities

131

New Morality

161

Prairial

197

Retirement

227

Comment and Criticism

259

II

V VI VII VIII

APPENDIX A

273

APPENDIX B

275

BIBLIOGRAPHY

278

ICONOGRAPHY

289

INDEX

293

ILLUSTRATIONS FACINO P A O «

Brome bust of Revelliere-lépeaux by Eude Frontispiece Birth registration of Revelliere-lépeaux

22

Priory of Saint Radegonde, Montmorency

78

Letter of Revelliere-lépeaux, accepting election to Directory

85

Signature and postscript of letter from Bonaparte to Revelliere-lépeaux 88 Revelliere-lépeaux in costume of Director, German engraving The

French

Mahomet,

caricature

of

Revelliere-lépeaux,

131 English

engraving

156

Un Théophilanthrope, caricature of Revelliere-lépeaux by Fragonard

161

New Morality, caricature by Gillray

180

Portrait of Revelliere-lépeaux by Gérard

197

Bronze medallion of Revelliere-lépeaux by David d'Angers

227

Marble bust of Revelliere-lépeaux by David d'Angers

240

Letter of Michelet, with regard to publication of the memoirs of Revelliere-lépeaux

262

TABLE AND MAPS PAGE

Genealogical Table France in 1795, showing executive regional partition of appointments

18 120

Western France, detail of regional division supervised by Revellierelépeaux

122

ABBREVIATIONS AN Archives Nationales ALI Archives Départementales de la Loire-Inférieure AML Archives Départementales de Maine-et-Loire AV Archives Départementales de la Vendée AAE Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères AHG Archives Historiques du Ministère de la Guerre AL Archives du Musée du Louvre BN Bibliothèque Nationale BA Bibliothèque Municipale de la Ville d'Angers BMN Bibliothèque Municipale de la Ville de Nantes BMHN Bibliothèque du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle PR Parish Register MLL Mémoires de Larevellière-Lépeaux

13

CHAPTER I SON OF THE MAYOR Digne fils d'un excellent père; Comme lui vertueux ¿poux, Aux fruits de l'hymen le plus doux Il a transmis son caractère. PIESKE-PAUL

CLEMENCEAU

IN the days of Louis X I V , toward the end of the seventeenth century, in that part of western France where the old provinces of Anjou and Poitou adjoined, there lived a doctor, a lawyer, a merchant, and a country gentleman. From these four men was descended a great-grandson who studied law, preferred teaching botany, and then became one of the five chief executives of the first constitutional republic of France. The merchant was Jean Reveliere, a seller of cloth, unmarked subject of the king and member of the Catholic Church; the greatgrandson, inheriting his name, was Revelliere-lépeaux, 1 a regicide who turned against the Catholic Church and interested himself in the teachings of the deistic cult of Theophilanthropy. Various branches of the Reveliere family were scattered through the southwestern corner of A n j o u in and near Cholet, an important center for the cloth-making industry. Jean Reveliere, the merchant, lived for many years at Le May-surEvre, nine kilometers north of Cholet, but eventually he retired with his wife and children to Cholet, where at the age of sixty-four he died and was buried, on May 29, 1699, under the porch of Notre-Dame of Cholet.2 The only son and name1 The orthography of the name is discussed in Appendix A, " Revellierelépeaux's Name," infra, pp. 273-274.

* A M L , PR, Notre-Dame de Cholet, 1699, fol. S r. His wife, Renée Besnard, and four of their children, Jean, Renée, Agathe, and Marie, were present at the interment. A daughter Louise, aged twenty-three, died two months later (ibid., 1699, fol. 7 r.), and Agathe, aged thirty, died the following year (ibid., 1700, fol. 1 v.).

15

16

REVELLIERE-LEPEAUX : CITIZEN

DIRECTOR

sake of Jean Reveliere, the merchant, was born at Cholet in 1672 1 and trained for the church, but after having earned the degree of Bachelor of Theology the younger Jean Reveliere decided against taking orders. He chose rather to buy and exercise an office of royal notary at Le May-sur-Evre. In 1707 2 he was married to Charlotte Gourdon at Montigne-surMoine, a village twenty kilometers west of Le May-sur-Evre, but for at least five years thereafter he continued as notary at L e M a y . B y 1 7 1 4 s he had left Le May to establish himself as notary and counselor 4 at Montfaucon-sur-Moine and to live in the hamlet of Pont-du-Moine on the outskirts of his wife's parish of Montigne, just across the river Moine from Montfaucon. Only by courtesy has the title of doctor been bestowed upon Jean Gourdon, of Montigne-sur-Moine, whose daughter Charlotte was married to Jean Reveliere the notary in 1707. Parish registers describe him as apothecary and surgeon, but in a small rural community he may well have played the role of a doctor at times, if he did not entirely replace such a practitioner. Jean Reveliere the merchant had slept in his grave under the porch of Notre-Dame of Cholet for seventeen years before his grandson and namesake was born at Montigne-sur-Moine on January 28, 1716, and baptized as Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Reveliere the same d a y ; ' but Jean Gourdon, the baby's maternal grandfather, lived on in the same village and, perhaps, in the same house until within a few days of the boy's fourth birthday." Although his father, the notary, died before the 1

A M L , PR, Le May-sur-Evre, 1686, fol. 14 r.

* A M L , PR, Montigne-sur-Moine, 1707, fol. 3 v. » A M L , PR, Le May-sur-Evre, 1712, fol. 21 r.; Montigne-sur-Moine, 1714, fol. 5 r. * Notaire, avocat, procureur, in A M L , PR, Montigne-sur-Moine, 1714, fol. s r.; M L L , vol. i, pp. 1-2. SAML,

PR, Montigne-sur-Moine, 1716-1717, fol. 2 r.

• A M L , PR, Montigne-sur-Moine, 1720, fol. 1 v.

SON

OF T H E

MAYOR

17

boy was fifteen years old, 1 Jean-Baptiste-Joseph received a g o o d professional education. Perhaps it was Charlotte Gourdon's ambition for her son; it may have been his own desire to receive a more thorough legal training than his father, whose formal studies had followed theology rather than l a w ; o r it is possible that Pierre de Launay, the boy's godfather, himself licencié ès lois* influenced Jean-Baptiste-Joseph and saw that he was carefully prepared. Whatever reason or combination of reasons defined his ambition and sent him through law school, the grandson and namesake of the merchant of L e May-sur-Evre was granted the degree of licence ès lois by the University of Angers in 1740." He chose, then, to live in Angers. There he came to be known as M. de la Revelliere, the first of his family to spell the name consistently with two I's and the first to add the prefix de la.* This modification of name was in conformity with the fashion of the times. B y the middle of the eighteenth century the nobility could no longer assume an exclusive right to the particle, because families of the middle class had found it pleasant to write their names with a prefix and had done so. Revelliere's acceptance o f the mode does suggest, however, that he enjoyed sufficient prestige to prevent the de la from appearing ridiculous. In January, 1749, at the age of thirty-two, Jean-BaptisteJoseph de la Revelliere, bourgeois of the city of Angers, was 1 Jean Reveliere the notary died later than 1724 ( A M L , PR, Montignésur-Moine, 1724, fol. 2 r.) but before March, 1731 (ibid., 1731, fol. 2 r.). 2

¡bid., 1716-1717, fol. 2 r.

» A M L : E 3773; PR, Faveraye, 1781, fol. 2 v.; A V , PR, Saint-JeanBaptiste de Montaigu: 1749, fols. 2 T., 6 r.; 1753, fol. 3 v.; 1756, fol. 9 v . ; 1778, fol. 2 r. ; Mairie de Montaigu, PR, Saint-Jean-Baptiste : 1749, fols. 2 r., 4 v.; 1753, fol. 3 v.; 1756, fol. 9 r.; 1778, fol. 2 r. * The record of his marriage ( A V , PR, Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montaigu, 1749, fol. 2 r.) uses the particle, as do other subsequent records. The earliest instance of his own incorporation of the particle in his signature occurs in 1756 (ibid., 1756, fol. 9 v.). The earliest records of the Reveliere family -furnish rare instances of the use of the double I ( A M L , PR, Le May-surEvre, 1679, fol. 2 r., v.).

MarieCharlotte December 6, 174-9 January 8, l&ZZ. Jean -Baptiste -Louis September ZI,/75/ April 15,1794Louts - MarieAugust Z4-, 1753 March Z7.I8Z4Charles-Joseph September 26, / 756 March JO,1760 August in- Charfes Ju Ilj 4,1760

Augusts, neo

Each circle )n this genealogical fable represents one generation. The maternal genealogy occupies the righi' side of- the diagram and the paternal genealogy the teff side. The subject of this biography, Lou is-Marie, is named, together with his sister and brothers, in the central open space. Dates of birbh and death under each name, and dates of marriages in the connecting divisions, have been taken from contempcrar if parish registers.

SON

OF T H E

MAYOR

19

married to twenty-one-year-old Marie-Anne Maillocheau in the church of Saint John the Baptist in Montaigu, diocese of Luçon, then in the province of Poitou, now in the department of the Vendée.1 Charlotte Gourdon went to Montaigu to be present at her son's wedding. She may well have been pleased with his choice, for the Maillocheau family, although without pretension to noble blood or immense fortune, was one of the oldest and most respected of lower Poitou. The bride's father, Jean Maillocheau, Sieur de la Daunière,2 had died twelve years earlier, but he had left three sons so that the line of landed proprietors of La Daunière, which had continued without a break for generation after generation, was not threatened with extinction. Since she was one of six children, the bride could not hope for a large inheritance, but she brought to her husband the offices of conseiller du roi and juge des traites 3 which had come down from her maternal grandfather. Pierre Blanchet, Sieur de la Bissetière, licencié ès lois.* Jean-Baptiste-Joseph de la Revelliere used to good advantage the professional opportunity that his marriage afforded. He removed to Montaigu and within ten years had been chosen mayor of the town, an office he filled until his death in 1782. As time passed, he added the duties of salorge de Bazoge to his occupations and became influential in the temporal manage1 A V , PR, Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montaigu, 1749, fol. 2 r., v. Information as to his street address in Angers before his marriage is lacking, but this record indicates that he lived in the parish of Saint-Pierre. 2

La Daunière is the name of a property situated on the Petite-Maine river, in the present-day commune of Saint-Georges, canton of Montaigu, department of the Vendée. 8 The juge des traites settled disputes arising over the payment of internal duties on goods passing from province to province ; cf. Marcel Marion, Dictionnaire des institutions de la France aux XVIIe et XVIII' siècles (Paris, 1923), pp. 538-540. Conseiller du roi was probably an honorary title; cf. ibid., pp. 138-139-

* Mairie de Montaigu, PR, Saint-Jean-Barptiste de Montaigu, 1690, 1720. A M L , E 3773-

20

REVELLIERE-LEPEAUX : CITIZEN

DIRECTOR

ment

of

Baptist. 1

the

church

of

Saint

John

the

Official

records o f the administration o f M o n t a i g u b e f o r e the decade o f 1 7 9 0 have been destroyed. A short paragraph in the memoirs o f his second son, L o u i s - M a r i e , seems to be the only s u r v i v i n g account o f J e a n de la Revelliere, M a y o r o f

Mon-

taigu: M y father was generally recognized to be a man of merit; he was strictly honest, faithful to his word, and endowed with a keen sense of delicacy. Although he had made a good academic record, he did not possess a wide general knowledge ; he was, none the less, by the sole force of his personality, decidedly above the level of his time and of his fellow citizens. His disposition was affectionate, his character forceful ; he was a person of contrasts, deeply melancholy, or unreservedly gay. H e was very polite and at the same time very stubborn. A s mayor of Montaigu for twenty-five or thirty years, he administered the town firmly and justly. 2 M a r i e - A n n e Maillocheau, as her son remembered her, had a great deal of native intelligence ; she was infinitely kind and helpful. Unfortunately, she had, up to a certain point, the faults of women who have received a limited education and who have spent their life in the idleness of small towns; she was talkative and liked to gossip. In spite of these shortcomings, she was an agreeable companion; her Poitevin frankness and her generous nature made everyone fond of her, and her perfect conduct might well serve as a model to all women. Respectful daughter, faithful wife, she wa? also the most tender of mothers; like my father, she was concerned only with the well-being of her children. Like 1 The salorge was collector of the salt tax. The word Bozoge probably refers to the district of jurisdiction, perhaps to be identified as the presentday Bazoges-en-Paillers, commune and village in the canton of Saint-Fulgent, on the southeastern border of the canton of Montaigu. Marguiller en exercise and fabriqueur en charge de cette paroisse are the terms used to describe his offices in connection with the church; cf. A V , PR, Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montaigu, 10 février, 1777, and 14 février, 1778. 3 M L L , vol. i, p. 3; B N , M S S fr., Nouvelles Acquisitions, 21562, pp. 13-14. This translation and similar ones are the author's.

SON

OF

THE

MAYOR

21

Madame Primose, of the charming story of the Vicar of Wakefield, she prided herself on making excellent cordials and delicious preserves ; my mother, with her currant and cherry wines and her vanity in seeing her children well dressed, had many traits in common with Madame Primrose. 1 Five children were born to Jean-Baptiste-Joseph de la Revelliere and Marie-Anne Maillocheau, the eldest a daughter and then four sons. The two youngest sons died in 1760, leaving only three children, Marie-Charlotte, Jean-Baptiste-Louis, and Louis-Marie. 2 In the meantime, the unmarried sister of the mayor had left Montigné-sur-Moine after their mother's death and come to Montaigu, where she lived with her brother's family and helped care for Marie-Charlotte who was her niece, godchild, and namesake. 3 F r o m this aunt the children learned to read and write, but as soon as the two boys were old enough they went every day to study Latin with Father Payraudeau, curé of the parish Saint Nicholas of Montaigu. 4 T h e lessons with Father Payraudeau proved a grave mistake. T h e boys were not always models of perfection, the curé was sometimes ill-tempered, and difficulties were settled by the rod. In the end, Louis-Marie suffered more deeply than his elder brother ; he had been frail since infancy; more than once there had been a question whether or not he would survive early childhood, but when 1

M L L , vol. i, pp. 3-4. B N , M S S fr., Nouvelles Acquisitions, 21562, p. 14.

2

Mairie de Montaigu, P R , Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montaigu, 1749-1760.

a Charlotte Gourdon, widow of Jean Reveliere the notary, died on November 4, 1749, at Montigné-sur-Moine and was buried the following day in the cemetery of Notre-Dame de Montfaucon-sur-Moine ( A M L , P R , NotreDame de Montfaucon, 1749, fol- 5 v.). Marie-Charlotte Revelliere was present at the baptism of her niece and godchild at Montaigu on December 10, 1749 ( A V , PR, Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montaigu, 1749, fol. 6 r., v . ) . She died at Montaigu in her brother's home on November 11, 1774, and was buried the next day (ibid., 1774, fol. 9 r. ; M L L , vol. i, pp. 2, 9).

* G. Mignen, Paroisses, églises et cures, Montaigu "Bas-Poitou" (La Roche-sur-Yon, 1900), p. 183. Pierre-Alexis Payraudeau was in charge of the parish of Saint Nicholas from 1746 to 1779.

22

REVELLIERE-LEPEAUX : CITIZEN

DIRECTOR

year a f t e r year passed without catastrophe his father and mother took courage. The mayor, fearing that the unusual amount of attention and pampering which Louis-Marie received as an ailing and youngest child would make him a moral weakling, subjected him to severe physical discipline. He was slowly " hardened " to exposure in all kinds of weather and to a great deal of exercise in the open air. Whether Mayor de la Revelliere welcomed Father Payraudeau's methods as an aid to the development of strong character for his sons or was a little careless in supervising what actually went on during their days of study away from home, Louis-Marie was ten years old and Jean-Baptiste twelve before their father realized that both his sons were being miserably intimidated and that Louis-Marie was developing a curvature of the spine, which made him a hunchback. Once convinced that his choice of tutor was unfortunate, the mayor acted with energy and promptness. The elder son was immediately sent away to a preparatory school for boys at Beaupréau in Anjou, a town of about eighteen hundred inhabitants, 1 northeast from Montaigu. Louis-Marie was removed from the charge of Father Payraudeau to the more kindly supervision and instruction of Father Séguillon. For three years longer he remained at home. He grew more robust, but it became apparent that his back would not recover from 1 Célestin Port, Dictionnaire historique, géographique et biographique Maine-et-Loire (Paris, 3 vols., 1874-1878), vol. i, p. 258.

Illustration

on opposite

de

page

Page from the parish register of Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montaigu, 1753, recording Revelliere-lepeaux's birth and baptism, reproduced with the permission of M. Maxime Delahet, mayor of Montaigu. M. Delahet was so kind as to take the register from Montaigu to Paris to be photographed. This birth registration is probably in the handwriting of Revelliere-lepeaux's own father, whereas the duplicate kept in the Archives de la Vendee, though contemporary, is a copy.

'm^

• .v.*

¿o I **

i ' o y / ^

;f ¿«.it.. mn,jtJ;

'

"

j

i:f

fämvavtLt-'

e

? t ; « tus-f

/

*

-

1

fc/^tfj,.