Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac

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Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac
Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac

Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac (September 10, 1755 - January 13, 1841) was a French politician and journalist, one of the most notorious members of the National Convention during the French Revolution.

Contents

[edit] Early career

He was born at Tarbes in Gascony. The name Barère de Vieuzac, by which he continued to call himself long after the renunciation of feudal rights on the Day of August 4, came from a small fief belonging to his father, a lawyer at Vieuzac. Barère’s father, Jean Barère was a procurator and a lawyer. His grandfather, Bertrand Barère was a priest, doctor of theology, and vicar. Barère’s mother, Jeanne-Catherine Marrast was of old nobility.[1] When Barère and his siblings were of age, his brother, Jean-Pierre became a priest. When Barère was a child, he went to a parish school.[2] After finishing school, Barère attended a college before he began his career in revolutionary politics. He began to practice as a lawyer at the parlement of Toulouse in 1770, and soon earned a reputation as an orator, while his fame as an essayist led to his election as a member of the Academy of Floral Games of Toulouse in 1788.

He married at the age of thirty. Four years later (1789), he was elected deputy by the estates of Bigorre to the Estates-General - he had made his first visit to Paris in the preceding year. Barère de Vieuzac at first belonged to the constitutional party, but he was less known as a speaker in the National Constituent Assembly than as a journalist. His paper, the Point du Jour, according to François Victor Alphonse Aulard, owed its reputation not so much to its own qualities as to the fact that the painter Jacques-Louis David, in his sketch of the Tennis Court Oath, showed Barère kneeling in the corner and writing a report of the proceedings for posterity.

[edit] With the Girondists and The Mountain

After the flight of the king to Varennes, Barère joined the republican party and the Feuillants, although he continued to keep in touch with the Duke of Orléans, whose natural daughter, Pamela, he tutored. After the Constituent Assembly ended its session, he was nominated one of the judges of the newly instituted Cour de cassation from October 1791 to September 1792.

Even though Barère was States-General in 1789 and judge of Constituent Assembly in 1791,[3] his real career didn’t begin until 1792, when he was elected a member of the National Convention.[4] He also became a member of the Committee of Public Safety in 1793.[5] It turned out that Barère was extremely useful in reporting to the Convention the plans of the Committee.[6] His career took off when he presided over the trial of King Louis XVI. Barère was the presiding officer in the National Convention and he was the one who questioned the king.[7] Barère voted to execute King Louis XVI. In 1792, he was elected to the National Convention for the département of the Hautes-Pyrénées. At the trial of King Louis XVI, he voted with The Mountain for the king's execution "without appeal and without delay". He closed his speech with a memorable sentence: “the tree of liberty grows only when watered by the blood of tyrants.”[8]

Appointed to the Committee of Public Safety on April 7, 1793, he became involved in foreign affairs, and joined Robespierre's faction, the Jacobin Club, playing an important part in the second Committee of Public Safety after 17 July 1793. He voted for the death of the Girondists at the beginning of the Reign of Terror. He consequently became active in the power struggles between The Mountain and others, and became mediator to all.

After the execution of King Louis XVI, Barère began publicly speaking of his new found faith in ‘la religion de la patrie’.[9] He wanted everyone to have faith in the fatherland. He called for the people of the Republic to be good citizens and to have virtue. Barère focused on four aspects about ‘la religion de la patrie’; 1) the belief that a citizen would be consecrated to the fatherland at birth, 2) the citizen should then come to love the fatherland, 3) the Republic would teach the people virtues, 4) the fatherland would be the teacher to all.[10] Barère went on to state that “the Republic leaves the guidance of your first years to your parents, but as soon as your intelligence is developed, it proudly claims the rights that it holds over you. You are born for the Republic and not for the pride or the despotism of families.”[11] He also said that since citizens were born of the Republic, they should love it above anything else.[12] He reasoned that eventually the love for the fatherland would become a passion in everyone and this is how the people of the Republic would be united.[13]

Barère also urged further issues of nationalism and patriotism. He said, “I was a revolutionary. I am a constitutional citizen.”[14] He pushed for freedom of press, speech, and thought. He confessed in a new found faith, “la religion de la patrie.”[15] Barère felt that nationalism was founded by immeasurable emotions that could only be awakened by participating in national activities such as public events, festivals, and through education.[16] He believed in unity through “diversity and compromise.”[17]

In 1793 and 1794, Barère spoke of his doctrine 1) the teaching of national patriotism through an organized system of universal education; 2) the national widespread of patriotic devotion; 3) the concept that one owed his nation his services.[18] Barère also stated that one could serve the nation by giving his labor, wealth, counsel, strength, and/or blood. Therefore, all sexes and ages could serve the fatherland.[19] He outlined his new faith in the fatherland, which replaced the national state religion, Catholicism.[20] Barère was trying to make nationalism a religion. Besides being concerned for the fatherland, Barère believed in universal elementary education. He was the one who influenced what children in American schools now do today; that is say the pledge of allegiance, alphabet, and know the multiplication table.[21] Barère believed that the fatherland could educate all.

[edit] Thermidor, prison, and later life

After his 1793 and 1794 speeches on nationalism, patriotism, and education, the counter-revolution and White Terror up surged in 1795. Robespierre was put on trial in 1794 along with two others, Vadier and St. Just. Barère provided defense speeches for Vadier and St. Just, so they would be prepared on what to say at their trial.[22] He also tried to help Robespierre on his speech, so he wouldn’t be executed, but Robespierre was too virtuous. The National Convention asked Robespierre to identify others who were terrorists. Robespierre identified Billaud, Collot, d’Herbois, and Barère as terrorists.[23] After Barère found out Robespierre condemned him as a terrorist, Barère pointed his finger at Robespierre to have him executed. Barère was the first to condemn Robespierre,[24] so he, himself would live.

Barere was also known to have attacked Maximilien Robespierre by calling him "a pygmy who should not be set on a pedestal". The Thermidorian Reaction (July 27, 1794 after some initial hesitation, he drew up the report outlawing Robespierre.

Unfortunately, Barère was still questioned on the grounds of being a terrorist. Before Barère was sentenced to prison, “Carnot defended him on the ground that [Barère] was hardly worse than himself.”[25] However, the defense proved ineffective. Nonetheless, in Germinal of the year III (March 21 to April 4, 1795), the leaders of Thermidor decreed the arrest of Barère and his colleagues in the Reign of Terror, Jean Marie Collot d'Herbois and Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne. He was imprisoned on Oléron, on his way for transportation to French Guiana. Barère was sentenced to prison for his betrayal of King Louis XVI (by voting to execute him), for being a traitor to France, and for being a terrorist. While Barère was in prison, he was very depressed and wrote his own epitaph because he thought he was going to die. Barère was in prison for two years before the National Convention decided they were going to retry him for death by the guillotine. When Barère found out that he was being retried, someone helped him escape[26] from prison and went to Bourdeaux, where he lived in hiding for several years. In 1795, he was elected to the Directory's Council of Five Hundred, but was not allowed to take his seat. Barère eventually returned to France and served Napoleon. Under the First Empire, he was used as a secret agent by Napoleon I, for whom he carried on a diplomatic correspondence. Some time after, Napoleon placed Barère back in prison. Barère escaped again and this time went to live in Belgium until 1830.[27] Barere became a member of the Chamber of Deputies during the Hundred Days, Barère de Vieuzac acted as a Royalist later in 1815, but, on the final restoration of the Bourbons, he was banished for life from France as a regicide, and then withdrew to Brussels. He returned to France and served the next two kings until his death on January 13, 1841. He was the last surviving member of the Committee of Public Safety when he died.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Gershoy, Leo. Bertrand Barère: A Reluctant Terrorist. (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1962), 4.
  2. ^ Gershoy, Leo. Bertrand Barère: A Reluctant Terrorist. (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1962), 8.
  3. ^ Gershoy, Leo. Bertrand Barère: A Reluctant Terrorist. (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1962), 113.
  4. ^ Lee, Guy Carleton. Book Orators of Modern Europe. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1902), 151.
  5. ^ Gershoy, Leo. Bertrand Barère: A Reluctant Terrorist. (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1962), 156.
  6. ^ Lee, Guy Carleton. Book Orators of Modern Europe. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1902), 151.
  7. ^ Paley, Morton D. Apocalypse and Millennium in English Romantic Poetry. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 98.
  8. ^ Brookhiser, Richard. What Would the Founders Do? Our Questions Their Answers. (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 207.
  9. ^ Gershoy, Leo. “Barère, Champion of Nationalism in the French Revolution,” Political Science Quarterly Volume 42 No. 3 (Sept. 1927): 425.
  10. ^ Gershoy, Leo. “Barère, Champion of Nationalism in the French Revolution,” Political Science Quarterly Volume 42 No. 3 (Sept. 1927): 427.
  11. ^ Gershoy, Leo. “Barère, Champion of Nationalism in the French Revolution,” Political Science Quarterly Volume 42 No. 3 (Sept. 1927): 427.
  12. ^ Gershoy, Leo. “Barère, Champion of Nationalism in the French Revolution,” Political Science Quarterly Volume 42 No. 3 (Sept. 1927): 427.
  13. ^ Gershoy, Leo. “Barère, Champion of Nationalism in the French Revolution,” Political Science Quarterly Volume 42 No. 3 (Sept. 1927): 427.
  14. ^ Gershoy, Leo. “Barère, Champion of Nationalism in the French Revolution,” Political Science Quarterly Volume 42 No. 3 (Sept. 1927): 425.
  15. ^ Gershoy, Leo. “Barère, Champion of Nationalism in the French Revolution,” Political Science Quarterly Volume 42 No. 3 (Sept. 1927): 425.
  16. ^ Gershoy, Leo. “Barère, Champion of Nationalism in the French Revolution,” Political Science Quarterly Volume 42 No. 3 (Sept. 1927): 426.
  17. ^ Gershoy, Leo. “Barère, Champion of Nationalism in the French Revolution,” Political Science Quarterly Volume 42 No. 3 (Sept. 1927): 426.
  18. ^ Gershoy, Leo. “Barère, Champion of Nationalism in the French Revolution,” Political Science Quarterly Volume 42 No. 3 (Sept. 1927): 422.
  19. ^ Gershoy, Leo. “Barère, Champion of Nationalism in the French Revolution,” Political Science Quarterly Volume 42 No. 3 (Sept. 1927): 429.
  20. ^ Gershoy, Leo. “Barère, Champion of Nationalism in the French Revolution,” Political Science Quarterly Volume 42 No. 3 (Sept. 1927): 427.
  21. ^ Gershoy, Leo. “Barère, Champion of Nationalism in the French Revolution,” Political Science Quarterly Volume 42 No. 3 (Sept. 1927): 425.
  22. ^ Dalberg-Acton, John Emerich Edward. Lectures on the French Revolution. (London: Macmillan and Company, 1920), 295.
  23. ^ Dalberg-Acton, John Emerich Edward. Lectures on the French Revolution. (London: Macmillan and Company, 1920), 335.
  24. ^ Dalberg-Acton, John Emerich Edward. Lectures on the French Revolution. (London: Macmillan and Company, 1920), 133.
  25. ^ Dalberg-Acton, John Emerich Edward. Lectures on the French Revolution. (London: Macmillan and Company, 1920), 270.
  26. ^ Gershoy, Leo. Bertrand Barère: A Reluctant Terrorist. (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1962), 290. In Barère’s diary, he would not give up the source that helped him escape from prison, for fear that it would bring his friend’s death.
  27. ^ Lee, Guy Carleton. Book Orators of Modern Europe. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1902), 151.
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
  • Paley, Morton D. Apocalypse and Millennium in English Romantic Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. 91-153.
  • Lee, Guy Carleton. Book Orators of Modern Europe. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1902. 151-152.
  • Gershoy, Leo. “Barère, Champion of Nationalism in the French Revolution.” Political Science Quarterly Volume 42 No.3 (Sept. 1927): 419-430.
  • Gershoy, Leo. Bertrand Barère: A Reluctant Terrorist. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1962. 1-402.
  • Brookhiser, Richard. What Would the Founders Do? Our Questions Their Answers. New York: Basic Books, 2006. 207.
  • Dalberg-Acton, John Emerich Edward. Lectures on the French Revolution. London: Macmillan and Company, 1920. 84-289.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.