Dominique Joseph Garat

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Dominique Joseph Garat (September 8, 1749 - December 9, 1833) was a French writer and politician.

He was born at Bayonne. After a good education under the direction of a relation who was a curé, and a period as an advocate at Bordeaux, he came to Paris, where he obtained introductions to the most distinguished writers of the time, and became a contributor to the Encyclopedie méthodique and the Mercure de France. He gained a reputation by an éloge on Michel de l'Hôpital in 1778, and was afterwards crowned three times by the Académie française for éloges on Suger, Montausier and Fontenelle. In 1785 he was named professor of history at the Lycée, where his lectures were as popular as those of GF Laharpe on literature.

Elected as a deputy to the states-general in 1789, Garat rendered important service to the popular cause by his narrative of the proceedings of the Assembly, in the Journal de Paris. His elder brother, Dominique (1735-1799), with whom he is sometimes confused, was also a deputy to the states-general. Garat's optimism, irresolute character, and indefinite and changeable convictions ensured that he played a lesser part in the great political events of the time, and was made use of by others. Georges Danton named him minister of justice in 1792, and in this capacity entrusted to him what he called the commission affreuse of communicating to King Louis XVI his sentence of death. In 1793 Garat became minister of the interior, in which position he proved quite inefficient. Though himself uncorrupt, he overlooked the most scandalous corruption in his subordinates, and in spite of a detective service which kept him accurately informed of every movement in the capital, he failed to maintain order.

At last, disgusted with the excesses which he had been unable to control, he resigned (August 15, 1793). On October 2 he was arrested for Girondist sympathies but soon released, and he escaped further molestation owing to the friendship of Barras and, more especially, of Robespierre, whose literary pretensions he had been careful to flatter. On the 9th Thermidor, however, he took sides against Robespierre, and on September 12, 1794 he was named by the Convention as a member of the executive committee of public instruction.

In 1798 he was appointed ambassador to Naples, and in the following year he became a member, then president, of the Council of the Ancients. After the revolution of the 18th Brumaire he was chosen a senator by Napoleon and created a count. During the Hundred Days he was a member of the chamber of representatives. In 1803 he was chosen a member of the Institute of France, but after the restoration of Louis XVIII his name was, in 1816, deleted from the list of members. After the revolution of 1830 Garat was named a member of the new Academy of Moral and Political Science. He died at Ustaritz near Bayonne.

His writings display an elegance, grace and variety of style, and rhetorical eloquence; but his grasp of his subject is superficial, and his criticisms are frequently whimsical and inconsistent. His works include, besides those already mentioned, Considerations sur Ia Révolution Française (Paris, 1792); Mémoire sur Ia Revolution, ou exposé de ma conduite (1795); Mémoires sur la vie de M. Suard, sur ses écrits, et sur le XVIII' siècle (1820) éloges on Joubert, Kléber and Desaix; several notices of distinguished persons; and a large number of articles in periodicals.