Louis-Michel le Peletier, marquis de Saint-Fargeau

Louis-Michel le Peletier

Portrait of Le Peletier by François Delpech (1830)
National Convention
for Yonne
In office
20 September 1792 – 20 January 1793
Succeeded by Alexandre Edmé Pierre Villetard
Member of the National Constituent Assembly
In office
9 July 1789 – 5 July 1790
Constituency Paris
Member of the Estates-General
for Nobility
In office
16 May 1789 – 9 July 1789
Constituency Paris
Personal details
Born (1760-05-29)May 29, 1760
Paris, France
Died January 20, 1793(1793-01-20) (aged 32)
Paris, France
Resting place Château de Saint-Fargeau, Burgundy, France
Political party Montagnard
Spouse(s) Marie-Louise Adelaide Joly
Children Suzanne
Profession Lawyer, magistrate
Signature

Louis-Michel le Peletier, Marquis of Saint-Fargeau (sometimes spelled Lepeletier; 29 May 1760 – 20 January 1793) was a French politician and martyr of the French revolution.[1]

Career

Born in Paris, he belonged to a well-known family, his great-grandfather, Michel Robert Le Peletier des Forts, count of Saint-Fargeau, having been Controller-General of Finances.[2] After the death of his title-holding family, Le Peletier gained a vast amount of wealth.

He entered into politics by becoming a lawyer ("avocat") in the employ of the Place du Châtelet, a prison. In 1785 Le Peletier was advanced to avocat-general. In 1789 he was elected to the Parlement of Paris, and in that same year he became a deputy of the noblesse to the States-General.

Initially, he shared the conservative views of the majority of his class, but by degrees his ideas changed and became increasingly radical. On 13 July 1789 he demanded the recall of Necker, whose dismissal by the king had aroused great excitement in Paris. In the Constituent Assembly he moved the abolition of the death penalty, of the galleys and of branding, and the substitution of beheading for hanging. This attitude won him great popularity, and on 21 June 1790 he was made president of the Constituent Assembly.[2] He remained in this position until 5 July 1790.

During the existence of the Legislative Assembly, he was elected President of the General Council for the Yonne département in 1791. He was then elected by this département to become a deputy to the Convention. Here he was in favor of the trial of Louis XVI by the Assembly and was a deciding vote for the death of the king.[2]

Educational Reform

While in the Convention, Le Peletier focused mainly on revolutionary reform of education, promoting a Spartan education. It called for both males and females to be taught in state-run schools and taught revolutionary ideas instead of the customary history, science, mathematics, language and religion. His educational plan was supported by Robespierre and his ideas were borrowed in later schemes, notably by Jules Ferry.

Death and later honors

Louis-Michel Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau, by Garneray, engraved by Alix

On 20 January 1793, the eve of the king's execution, Le Peletier was assassinated in a restaurant in the Palais Royal. His murderer, Philippe Nicolas Marie de Pâris, a member of the Garde du Corps, allegedly plunged a saber that he had hidden under his cloak into Le Peletier's chest. His assassin fled to Normandy, where, on the point of being discovered, he supposedly shot himself in the head. Other sources claim the real murderer fled to England where he died years later.

The Convention honored Louis Michel Le Peletier with a magnificent funeral.[2] His body was displayed in the Place Vendôme beneath the statue of King Louis XIV. Le Peletier was buried in the Panthéon in Paris in 1793. His body was removed by his family on 14 February 1795.

Just a month after the assassination, on 23 February 1793, the Opéra-Comique presented the first of four performances of a musical treatment of his life and death called Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau, ou Le premier martyr de la République française, with a libretto by Auguste-Louis Bertin d'Antilly and music by Frédéric Blasius.[3][4]

The station Saint-Fargeau of the Paris Métro is named for him.

A Sèvres biscuit porcelain bust of Louis Michel Le Peletier is on display in the Château de Vizille, Isère.

On 30 September 1793 the French Navy's ship Séduisant, one of two newly commissioned ships, with 74 guns, over 56 meters in length and 1550 tons in weight, was renamed Peletier. On 30 May 1795, the ship reverted to her original name Séduisant.

Painting by David

Les derniers moments de Michel Lepeletier, an engraving by Anatole Desvoge after the painting by Jacques-Louis David

The painter Jacques-Louis David represented his death in a famous painting, Les Derniers moments de Michel Lepeletier or Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau sur son lit de mort. David described his painting of Le Peletier's face as "Serene, that is because when one dies for one's country, one has nothing with which to reproach oneself." This painting, known only through a drawing made by a pupil of David, is considered by scholars the first official painting of the French Revolution, a rehearsal for David's later achievement The Death of Marat.

Family

Le Peletier had a brother, Felix (1769–1837), well known for his advanced ideas,[2] and a brother Amédée Louis Michel Lepeletier de Saint Fargeau (1770–1845), a noted entomologist. The writer and academician Jean d'Ormesson is descended from his daughter Suzanne le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau.

Le Peletier appears as an antagonist in Assassin's Creed Unity, where he is depicted as a secret member of the Templar Order under Grand Master Francois-Thomas Germain who believes that he is doing what is right for France before what is right for the Templars. He is assassinated by the protagonist Arno Dorian in the Palais-Royale after he votes to have the king executed.

Notes

  1. ↑ LIVESEY, JAMES. "Republicanism." Europe 1789-1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of Industry and Empire, edited by John Merriman and Jay Winter, vol. 4, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006, pp. 1958-1964. Gale Virtual Reference Library, http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRLsw=w&u=miam11506&v=2.1it=r&id=GALE%7CCX3446900702asid=98c2ab49ec52acf19cb3480650c50c44. Accessed 16 Feb. 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Public Domain One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau, Louis Michel". Encyclopædia Britannica. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 464.
  3. ↑ Arthur Pougin, L'Opéra-Comique pendant la Révolution de 1788 à 1801: d'après des documents inédits et les sources les plus authentiques (Paris: Albert Savine, 1890), View at Google Books, 73-4
  4. ↑ Nicole Wild and David Charlton, Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique Paris: répertoire 1762-1972 (Sprimont, Belgium: Editions Mardaga, 2005), 55, 301, 489

Sources

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.