Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier

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Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier
Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier

Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier (July 17, 1736December 14, 1828) was a French politician of the French Revolution.

[edit] Early career

Son of a wealthy family in Pamiers, he served in the army of the king Louis XV, taking part in the Seven Years' War and the Battle of Rossbach on November 5, 1757. Upon his return to France, Vadier became a magistrate in Pamiers. Appointed as deputy to the Third State in the Estates-General of France for the County of Foix (in 1789), he took part in the creation of the new institutions, especially in the new Ariège département.

He left his office as representative in the National Constituent Assembly of the Republic (September 1791), and, one year later, (September 3, 1792), was elected to the National Convention, and voted in favor of Louis XVI' execution (sans appel ni sursis - without appeal or delay); January 17, 1793). A Montagnard, Vadier opposed to the Girondists, and was named member of the Committee of General Security (September 14, 1793), becoming its President soon after.

[edit] Role in Terror and conspiracies

In this capacity, he was one of the principle actors of the Reign of Terror, and played an important role in the denounciations and the guillotining of Fabre d'Églantine, François Chabot, Georges Danton, and finally Maximilien Robespierre (preparing the way for the Thermidorian Reaction). He used false charges against Catherine Théot to ridicule Robespierre's mysticism and the Cult of the Supreme Being, also hinting to the Convention that Théot's prophecies were being used in order to replace the collective body with Robespierre's own dictatorship.

After the Reaction, Vadier was transported together with Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne and Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois to French Guiana, but was amnestied by the Directory, and later (April 1796) took part in the failed Conspiracy of the Equals. Acquitted by the courts, he nonetheless remained in prison in Cherbourg until 1799. Placed under house arrest in Paris, a deputy during Napoleon's Hundred Days, he was compelled to go into exile in Brussels after the Second Restoration, and died in Brussels.

[edit] References

  • Dussert, Gilles (1989). Vadier, le grand inquisiteur, 1736-1828. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. ISBN 2-11-080951-5 (soft) or ISBN # 2110810386 (hard). 
Available at The Library of Congress, Washington DC DC146.V2 D87 1989; The British Library, London HMNTS YA.1990.b.1993; The University of California Library, Berkeley DC146.V2.D8 1989.
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