Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles
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Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles (September 20, 1759 – April 5, 1794) was a French politician during the time of the French Revolution.
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[edit] Origins and early career
Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles was born in Paris in a noble and well-known family. His grandfather was René Hérault, who had served as Lieutenant General of Police of Paris (i.e. head of the Paris Police) between 1725 and 1739. His great-grandfather was Jean Moreau de Séchelles (1690-1760), who had served as Controller-General of Finances (i.e. France's Finance Minister) between 1754 and 1756 and had given his name to the Seychelles archipelago. Jean Moreau de Séchelles's daughter, Hélène Moreau de Séchelles (1715-1798), was the second wife of René Hérault.
Most authors, however, consider that René Hérault was not the actual biological grandfather of Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles. His real biological grandfather was Louis Georges Érasme de Contades (1704-1793), Marshal of France, who had an affair with Hélène Moreau de Séchelles during her marriage to René Hérault. Hélène Moreau de Séchelles gave birth to a son in 1737, Jean-Baptiste Martin Hérault de Séchelles, the father or Marie-Jean, who died at the Battle of Minden in 1759 where Contades was commanding the French army. Contades took care of Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles after the early death of his father. He had arranged to marry his illegitimate son Jean-Baptiste Martin Hérault de Séchelles to his wife's niece, and so he could present himself in society as the "uncle" of Marie-Jean.
Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles was also the first cousin of the famous Duchess of Polignac, the friend and confident of Queen Marie Antoinette. The Duchess of Polignac, hated by revolutionary crowds, was the daughter of Jeanne Charlotte Hérault (1726-1753 or 1756), herself the daughter of René Hérault and his first wife. Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles was thus a relative of the powerful but hated Polignac family. Finally, he was also the nephew of Claude-Henri Feydeau de Marville, Lieutenant General of Police of Paris between 1739 and 1747, who had married Marie-Jean's aunt, the second daughter of René Hérault and his first wife.
Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles made his debut as a lawyer at the Châtelet of Paris, the city's civil and criminal court. At the age of only 20, he became King's Advocate (a position similar to Advocate General) at the Châtelet with the help of his cousin the Duchess of Polignac and delivered some noted speeches. The Polignac entourage presented him to the queen who pushed his appointment as Advocate General at the prestigious Parlement of Paris. His legal occupation did not prevent him from devoting himself to literature, and after 1789 he published an account of a visit he had made to the Comte de Buffon at Montbard, a slightly ironic account which annonces the journalistic interview.
Despite his upbringing, Hérault became a champion of the Revolution, and took part in the storming of the Bastille in July 1789. On December 8, 1789, he was appointed judge of the court of the Ier arrondissement in the département of Paris. From the end of January to April 1791, Hérault was absent on a mission in Alsace, where he had been sent to restore order. On his return he was appointed Commissaire du Roi in the Cour de cassation.
[edit] Legislative Assembly and initial missions
He was elected as a deputy for Paris to the Legislative Assembly, where he moved towards the extreme left, and a member of several committees (during his time as a member of the diplomatic committee, he presented a memorable report demanding that the nation should be declared to be in danger - June 11, 1793).
After the riots of August 10 (1792), he co-operated with Georges Danton, one of the organizers of this rising, and, on September 2, was appointed president of the Legislative Assembly.
In 1792, he was elected to the legislative assembly and then the National Convention as deputy for the département of Seine-et-Oise, and was sent on a mission to organize the new département of Mont Blanc. He was thus absent during the trial of King Louis XVI, but he made it known that he approved of his execution.
[edit] 1793-1794
On his return to Paris, Hérault was several times president of the Convention, notably on June 2, 1793, the occasion of the attack on the Girondins (when he unsuccessfully pleaded for the troops to retreat), and on August 10, 1793, on which was celebrated the passing of the Acte constitutionnel (called "of The Mountain"); Hérault, as president of the Convention, had to make several speeches. He became with Louis de Saint-Just one of the redactors of the 1793 constitution, which indirectly led to the death of the Marquis de Condorcet, after having rejected the one drawn up by him; his own project, which in fact differed very little from that of Condorcet, was passed but never applied.
As a member of the Reign of Terror's Committee of Public Safety, Hérault was chiefly concerned with diplomacy, and from October to December 1793 he was employed on a diplomatic and military mission in Alsace. This mission made him an object of suspicion to the other members of the Committee, especially to Maximilien Robespierre, who as a deist and a follower of the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, resented Hérault and other followers of Denis Diderot's naturalism. Hérault was accused of treason, and after being tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal, was condemned at the same time as Danton, François Joseph Westermann, Camille Desmoulins, and Pierre Philippeaux. They were guillotined on the same day (16th Germinal in the year II).
[edit] References
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. In turn, it gives the following references:
- Voyage a Montbard, published by F.A. Aulard (Paris, 1890).
- F.A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Legislative el de la Convention, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1906).
- J Claretie, Camille Desmoulins, Étude sur les Dantonistes (Paris, 1875).
- Dr Robinet, Le Procés des Dantonistes (Paris, 1879).
- "Hérault de Séchelles, sa premiere mission en Alsace" in the review La Revolution Française, tome 22.
- Ernest Daudet, Le Roman d'un conventionnel. Hérault de Séchelles et les dames de Bellegarde (904).
- Hérault de Séchelles, ed. E. Dard, Œuvres littéraires (Paris, 1907).
