Jacques Pierre Brissot

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Jacques Pierre Brissot (January 15, 1754 – October 31, 1793), who assumed the name of de Warville, was a leading member of the Girondist movement during the French Revolution. Some sources give his name as Jean Pierre Brissot.

[edit] Biography

Brissot was born at Chartres, where his father was an inn-keeper. He received an education, and entered the office of a lawyer at Paris. His first works, Théorie des lois criminelles (1781) and Bibliothèque philosophique du législateur (1782), dealt with philosophy of law topics, and showed the deep influence of ethical precepts theoretised by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The first work was dedicated to Voltaire, and was received by the latter with much interest.

Brissot became known as a writer, and was engaged on the Mercure de France, on the Courrier de l'Europe, and on other papers. Devoted to the cause of humanity, he proposed a plan for the collaboration of all European intellectuals, and started in London a paper, Journal du Lycée de Londres, which was to be the organ of their views. The plan was unsuccessful, and soon after his return to Paris Brissot was placed in the Bastille on the charge of having published a work against the government.

He obtained his release after four months, and again devoted himself to pamphleteering, but was forced to retire for a time to London. On this second visit he became acquainted with some of the leading Abolitionists, and founded later in Paris an anti-slavery group Society of the Friends of the Blacks, of which he was president during 1790 and 1791. As an agent of this society he paid a visit to the United States in 1788, and in 1791, and subsequently published his Nouveau Voyage dans les États-Unis de l'Amérique septentrionale (3 vols.).

From the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789, Brissot became one of its most vocal supporters. He edited the Patriote français from 1789 to 1793, and took a prominent part in politics. Upon the demolition of the Bastille, the keys to the fortress were presented to him. Famous for his speeches at the Jacobin Club, he was elected a member of the municipality of Paris, then of the Legislative Assembly, and later of the National Convention.

During the Legislative Assembly, Brissot's knowledge of foreign affairs enabled him as member of the diplomatic committee practically directing the foreign policy of France, and the declaration of war against Leopold II and the Habsburg Monarchy on April 20, 1792, and that against the Kingdom of Great Britain on February 1, 1793, were largely due to him. It was also Brissot who gave these wars the character of revolutionary propaganda. He was in many ways the leading spirit of the Girondists, who were also known as Brissotins.

The Encyclopedia Britannica 11th edition, remarked that: "Of the Girondists, Vergniaud was the better orator, but Brissot was quick, eager, impetuous, and a man of wide knowledge. However, he was indecisive, and not qualified to struggle against the fierce energies roused by the events of the Revolution".

His party was defeated by the opposition of The Mountain. Sentence of arrest was passed against the leading members of it on June 2, 1793; Brissot attempted to escape in disguise, but was arrested at Moulins. After a trial during which his demeanour was quiet and dignified, Brissot and several other Girondists were guillotined in Paris.

[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:
  • Mémoires de Brissot, sur ses contemporains et la Révolution française, pub. by his sons, with notes by F. de Montroi (1830)
  • François Victor Alphonse Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Legislative et de la Convention (1905) and Les Portraits littéraires a la fin du XVIII' siècle, pendant la Révolution (1883).
  • Helena Williams, Souvenirs de la Révolution française (1827)