Baron Jean de Batz

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Baron Jean de Batz, who was born on January 26, 1754 at Goutz-les-Tartas (Gers), Biscay, who died on January 10, 1822 at the castle of Chadieu near Vic-le-Comte (Puy-de-Dome), was a businessman and a French royalist.

[edit] Life

Under the Constituent Assembly, his reputation as a financier commended him to be elected to the liquidation committee, which was responsible for clearing public accounts. At the same time, he became a secret adviser to Louis XVI, receiving large sums of secret funds. After the day on August 10, 1792, he tried to escape the king. On January 21, 1793, he tried in vain to push the crowd, boulevard de Bonne Nouvelle, to the issue during his visit. Turning then in the semi-hiding under multiple aliases, he continues to speculate on the national property and supplies of war, attending both leaders of the Paris Commune as conventional as Chabot, Basire, Julien de Toulouse or Delaunay Angers or Swiss and German bankers, including Austrian banker Junius Frey and his brother, Brussels Proli, Gusman Spanish, Portuguese. After the discovery of the case of the liquidation of the French India Company, the high committee and the public security committee generally regarded as the leader of a vast conspiracy aimed at delivering the queen, corrupt deputies to pit against the revolutionary government and promote the Counter-revolution using the excesses of the ultra-revolutionaries, including dechristianization. Thus, on March 14, 1794, were guillotined Hébertistes with Clootz, Pereira and Proli. Then, on April 5, Danton and his friends are executed with Chabot, Basire, the abbot of Espagnac, Gusman and brothers Frey. Baron eludes officers of the committees, but sees his relatives and most of its relations arrested. Thus, on June 17, among the sixty convicted of red shirts, twenty have proven links with the baron. Exited hiding after the 9-Thermidor, it is intermingled with royalist insurrection of 13 vendémiaire an IV (October 25, 1795. After the coup d'etat of 18 V fructidor year, finding refuge in Auvergne, where he bought a castle. When discovered, he was arrested, but escaped during his transfer to Lyon and happening in Switzerland. Revenue in Paris under the consulate, he gets to be removed from the list of emigrants and abandon political activism to address its field, in the Auvergne. Under the Restoration, he was awarded the rank of maréchal de camp and the cross of St. Louis for its services, as well as the military commander of the Cantal, which is removed after the Hundred Days. Secluded within its sphere of Chadieu he died January 10, 1822

[edit] Literary Representations

  • Jean de Batz is the hero of a series of novels by Juliette Benzoni, the game of love and death.
  • The Baron de Batz appears a few of The Scarlet Pimpernel series of books by Baroness Orczy, playing the most prominent role in Eldorado.
  • There is literature through the same figure of the double agent, a supporter of the monarchy (he belongs at the time of the revolution, a network of agents royalists as there then both in the country and Europe) then even he is pretending to be a staunch Republican. By its activity and its pseudo revolutionary activity, it will send many revolutionaries to the guillotine by making just pretending to be anti-revolutionaries.

[edit] Sources

  • Roger Dupuy, « Jean, baron de Batz », in albert Soboul (dir.), Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française, Paris, PUF, 1989 (rééd. Quadrige, 2005, p. 96-97)
  • Noëlle Destremau, Le baron de Batz un étonnant Conspirateur, Nouvelles Editions Latines.
  • G. Lenotre, Le baron de Batz, Librairie académique Perrin et Cie
  • Baron de Batz, La vie et les conspirations de Jean, Baron de Batz, 1754-1793, - Les conspirations et la fin de Jean, Baron de Batz, 1793-1822, Calmann-Lévy, 1910-1911.
  • fr: Jean de Batz