Georges Couthon

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Georges Auguste Couthon (December 22, 1755 - July 28, 1794) was a French politician and lawyer of the Revolutionary period.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early activities 1.2 Deputy 1.3 Lyon 1.4 Leadership of the Convention and Thermidor 2 References

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early activities

Born in Orcet (a village in Puy-de-Dôme), he studied law, and qualified as a lawyer in Clermont in 1785. Viewed as an honest and charitable man, Couthon had poor health and both legs were paralysed; he was confined to a wheelchair and also rode on the backs of people carrying him.

On December 11 1786, Couthon was initiated as a Freemason at the Lodge Saint Maurice in Clermont.

In 1787, he became a member of the provincial assembly of Auvergne.

On the outbreak of the Revolution, Couthon, as a member of the municipality of Clermont-Ferrand, published his L'Aristocrate converti, in which he revealed himself as a liberal and a champion of constitutional monarchy.

[edit] Deputy

Becoming very popular, he was appointed president of the tribunal of Clermont in 1791, and in September of the same year was elected deputy to the Legislative Assembly. His views had meanwhile been radicalized by the attempted flight of King Louis XVI, and he became hostile to the House of Bourbon. During a visit to Flanders, where he was treating his health, he met and befriended Charles François Dumouriez.

In September 1792 Couthon was elected to the National Convention, and at the trial of the king voted for the death sentence without appeal. He hesitated for a time as to which party he should join, but finally decided for The Mountain and the inner group formed around Maximilien Robespierre - with whom he shared many opinions, especially on religious topics (see Cult of the Supreme Being). He was the first to demand the arrest of the proscribed Girondists.

[edit] Lyon

On May 30, 1793 he became a member of the Committee of Public Safety, and in August was sent as one of the commissioners of the Convention attached to the French Revolutionary Army before the anti-revolutionary Lyon. Wishing to accelerate the progress of the besieging force, he decreed a levée en masse in the département of Puy-de-Dôme, gathered an army of 60,000 men, and commanded them himself on the way to Lyon.

When the city was taken, on October 9, 1793, although the Convention ordered its destruction, Couthon did not carry out the decree, and showed moderation in the punishment of the rebels. The Republican atrocities began after Couthon was replaced, on November 3, 1793, by Jean Marie Collot d'Herbois.

[edit] Leadership of the Convention and Thermidor

Couthon returned to Paris, and on December 21 was elected president of the Convention. He contributed to the prosecution of the Hébertists, and was responsible for the Law of 22 Prairial, which in the case of trials before the Revolutionary Tribunal deprived the accused of the aid of counsel or of witnesses for their defence, on the pretext of shortening the proceedings.

During the crisis preceding the Thermidorian Reaction, Couthon showed considerable courage, giving up a journey to Auvergne in order, as he wrote, that be might either die or triumph with Robespierre and liberty. Arrested with Robespierre and Louis de Saint-Just, his colleagues in the triumvirate of the Reign of Terror, and subjected to numerous assaults and insults, he was guillotined alongside Robespierre.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, in turn, gives the following references:
  • Francisque Mége, Correspondance de Couthon … suivie de l'Aristocrate converti, comédie en deux actes de Couthon, Paris: 1872.
  • Nouveaux Documents sur Georges Couthon, Clermont-Ferrand: 1890.
  • F. A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Legislative et de la Convention, (Paris, 1885-1886), ii. 425-443.
• R.R. Palmer, 12 Who Ruled:The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution , Princeton U. Press, 1970(reprint)