Louis-Michel le Peletier, marquis de Saint-Fargeau (sometimes spelled
Lepeletier or
Lepelletier; 29 May 1760 – 20 January 1793) was a
FrenchFrench people can refer to:* The legal residents and citizens of France, regardless of ancestry. For a legal discussion, see French nationality law.* People whose ancestors lived in France or the area that later became France....
politician.
Born in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, 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 FinancesThe Controller-General of Finances was the name of the minister in charge of finances in France from 1661 to 1791. The position replaced the former position of Superintendent of Finances , which was abolished with the downfall of Nicolas Fouquet.- History :The term "contrôleur général" in...
. After the death of his title holding family, Lepeletier gained a vast amount of wealth.
He entered into politics by becoming an avocat (French term for Lawyer) to the
Place du ChateletThe Place du Châtelet is a public square in Paris, on the right bank of the river Seine, on the borderline between the 1st and 4th arrondissements. It lies at the north end of the Pont au Change, a bridge that connects the Île de la Cité, near the Palais de Justice and the Conciergerie, to the...
, a prison. In 1785 Lepeletier 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-GeneralThe Estates-General of 1789 was the first meeting since 1614 of the French Estates-General, a general assembly representing the French collection of peoples...
.
At this time, he shared the
conservativeConservatism is the diverse political and social philosophy that supports tradition and the status quo, or that calls for a return to the values and society of an earlier age, the status quo ante. However, the term has been used by politicians and political commentators with a variety of meanings...
views of the majority of his class; but by slow degrees his ideas changed and became very advanced. On 13 July 1789 he demanded the recall of
NeckerJacques Necker was a French statesman of Swiss birth and finance minister of Louis XVI, a post he held in the lead-up to the French Revolution in 1789.-Early life:Necker was born in Geneva, Switzerland...
, whose dismissal by the king had aroused great excitement in Paris; and in the
Constituent AssemblyThe National Constituent Assembly was formed from the National Assembly on 9 July 1789, during the first stages of the French Revolution. It dissolved on 30 September 1791 and was succeeded by the Legislative Assembly.-Background:...
he had moved the abolition of the
death penaltyCapital punishment in France existed officially from the Middle Ages until it was abolished in 1981. The last executions took place in 1977, by guillotine, which had been the only legal execution method since the French Revolution. This was the last execution in the then European Community...
, of the galleys and of
brandingHuman branding is the process in which a mark, usually a symbol or ornamental pattern, is burned into the skin of a living person, with the intention that the resulting scar makes it permanent. This is performed using a hot or very cold branding iron...
, and the substitution of
beheadingDecapitation is the separation of the head of an animal from its body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by means of a guillotine...
for
hangingHanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. It hurts a lot. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", although it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would...
. This attitude won him great popularity, and on 21 June 1790 he was made president of the Constituent Assembly. He remained in this position until 5 July 1790.
During the existence of the
Legislative AssemblyDuring the French Revolution, the Legislative Assembly was the legislature of France from October 1 1791 to September 1792. It provided the focus of political debate and revolutionary law-making between the periods of the National Constituent Assembly and of the National Convention.-Background:The...
, he was elected President of the General Council for the
YonneYonne is a French department named after the Yonne River. It is one of the four constituent departments of Bourgogne in eastern France and its prefecture is Auxerre. Its official number is 89....
département in 1791. He was then elected by this
département to become a deputy to the
ConventionDirectory|Directory]], commencing 2 November 1795. Prominent members of the original Convention included Maximilien Robespierre of the Jacobin Club, Jean-Paul Marat , and Georges Danton of the Cordeliers...
. Here he was in favor of the trial of
Louis XVILouis XVI of France ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1774 until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792. Suspended and arrested during the Insurrection of 10 August 1792, he was tried by the National Convention, found guilty of treason, and executed by guillotine on 21...
by the assembly and was a deciding vote for the death of the king.
While in the Convention Lepeletier focused mainly on revolutionary reform for education, his idea was a Spartan education. All the people, male and female, would be taught in state run schools. They would be taught revolutionary ideas instead of the normal; 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 memory
JPG of Louis Michel Le Peletier, Marquis de Saint-Fargeau,:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/image:Louis-Michel Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau p1400538.jpg
In mid January 1793 the Convention was faced with the decision of what to do with the king. A close vote of 361 to 360 deputies and the king was condemned to death by
guillotineThe guillotine was a device used for carrying out executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which a blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the victim's head from their body...
. Lepeletier is rumored to be the deciding factor of this vote. Supposedly Lepeletier was originally for the survival of the king, but Duc d’Orleans the king’s own cousin persuaded him to vote otherwise.
This rumor won him the hatred of the
RoyalistThe House of Bourbon is an important European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty. Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples & Sicily, and Parma...
s and on 20 January 1793, the eve of the execution of the king, he was assassinated in one of the
Palais RoyalThe Palais-Royal, originally called the Palais-Cardinal, is a palace and an associated garden located in the first arrondissement of Paris...
’s restaurants. His murderer, Philippe Nicolas Marie de Pâris, a member of the
Grade du CorpsThe Garde du Corps was the senior formation of the King of France's Household Cavalry within the Maison du Roi.-History:The oldest company in the Garde du Corps was the Company of Scottish Archers, later just the 1st Scottish Company or Garde Écossaise, formed in 1419 from Scots that fought for...
, allegedly plunged a saber that he had hidden under his cloak into the chest of Lepeletier. Edmond Bire wrote the following conversation in his paper, Journal d’un Bourgeois.
“Paris approached Lepeletier, ‘You voted for the death of the king?’ ‘Yes, Monsieur, I voted according to my conscience. What matters you?’ But Paris drawing out his saber from beneath his cloak cried, “Wretch, then you shall vote no more!’ and he plunged his weapon into the body of Lepeletier. So little did the citizens who filled the dinning-room area resent the crime that not a murmur arose, and Paris was allowed to leave the restaurant unmolested.”
His assassin fled to
NormandyNormandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is situated along the English Channel coast of Northern France between Brittany and Picardy and comprises territory in northern France and the Channel Islands.Normandy is divided between French and British...
, where, on the point of being discovered, he supposedly shot himself in the head. Other sources states that this was a set up, the real murderer having fled to England where he died years later. The true reasons of the death of Le Peletier may remain a mystery (related to a plot involving Spain), but the repercutions of his death at the hands of the revolutionaries was minimal. He was quickly presented to the People of France as the FIRST martyr of the French Revolution, and stood as a symbol of liberty and commitment to the Revolution. Also in 1793 the martyr deaths of Marat,Chalier,and Robespierre in 1794.
The Convention honored Louis Michel Le Peletier 9 who wanted to be known as Louis Le Peletier, to distinguish himself from his father, Michel Robert Le Lepetier, with a magnificent funeral, with his body being displayed at
Place VendômePlace Vendôme is a square in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France, located to the north of the Tuileries Gardens and east of the Église de la Madeleine. It is the starting point of the Rue de la Paix. Its regular architecture by Jules Hardouin-Mansart and pedimented screens canted across the...
directly under the statue of King Louis XIV.
The painter
Jacques-Louis DavidJacques-Louis David was a highly influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...
represented his death in a famous painting Lepeletier sur son let demert, which ironically destroyed by his daughter. David described his painting of Lepeletier’s face as being “Serene, that is because when one dies for one’s country, one has nothing with which to reproach oneself.” This statement gave the National Convention a sense of confidence that they had done right in executing the king.
Though missing, this painting (today known by a drawing made by a pupil of David) incarnates an extremely important and symbolic moment in French art history, because it is considered by scholars as the first completed official painting of the French Revolution, a rehearsal in a way of what
The Death of Marat (also by David) would later achieve. The missing painting has recently been interpretated as a revolutionary Saint Sebastian inspired by a roman model, showing the difficulty of erasing traditions in the process of producing new icons for the masses, achieving as well a complex regeneration of the self not only valid for Lepeletier, but for David himself, and making by this means a dream of so many revolutionairs come true : being more Roman than the antique Romans of the Republic, which was an idea Lepeletier pursued through his actions as a man of law.
Link to painting: http://repeinture.com
Le Peletier was buried in the
PanthéonThe Panthéon is a building in the Latin Quarter in Paris, France. It was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve, but after many changes now combines liturgical functions with its role as a famous burial place...
in Paris in 1793. Other heroes of the French Revolution that were buried there were: Marat, Chalier, Robespierre, Rousseau, Voltaire, Mirabeau, Beaurepaire, His body was removed by his family on 14 February 1795.
The station
Saint-FargeauSaint-Fargeau is a station of the Paris Métro, serving Line 3bis. It was opened on 27 November 1921 when Line 3 was extended from Gambetta to Porte des Lilas...
of the
Paris MétroThe Paris Métro or Métropolitain is the rapid transit system in Paris. It is a symbol of the city, notable for its station architecture, influenced by Art Nouveau. It has 16 lines, mostly underground, and a total length of 214 km . There are 300 stations...
is named after him.
He was elected to the Parliament of Paris, and a Deputy to the State General. In 1790 he was President of the Constituent Assembly. In 1791 he was President of the General Counsel for the Yonne department, then a Deputy to the Convention. A beautiful Sèvres bust of Louis Michel Le Peletier is on display in the Chateau De Vizelle, Isere.(Image is on the French version of Wikipedia on Michel Louis Le Peletier. ( p1400338.jpg )
Louis Michel Le Peletier who was France's last "Prevot des Marchands" (Provost of Merchants) between 1784-1789. Nine years later, posthumously, on 30 Sept 1793 the French ship "Seduisant" one of two newly commissioned Ships of the line" of the French Navy, with 74 guns, over 56 meters in length and 1550 tons in weight, was renamed Peletier, in honor and memory of Louis Michel Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau, who had been assassinated 20 Jan 1793, on the eve of the execution of King Louis XVI. For reasons unknown, but obviously due to his powerful enemies that succeeded in his assination, on 30 May 1795, the ship reverted back to her original name "Seduisant". 6 months later, on 16 December 1795,an unknown accident caused the Seduisant to sink, claiming 1150 crew and soldier lives, while they were leaving Brest for the Expedition D'lrlande.
Louis Michel Lepeleter, Marquis de Saint Fargeau, who had renounced his title, was an important political figure during the same French Revolutionary period as General Lafayette, who had renounced his Marquis title in 1790. The last projects Le Peletier, worked on in 1793, was his attempt to abolish the death penalty, in an attempt to diffuse the volatility of violence, and then with the assistance of Maximillian Robespiere, the passing of his Education Project, by the Commission of Six, where Primary Education was to be made available and to be paid out of public funding, largely from the rich. However 6 months after his death it was abolished.
J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles) has a beautiful painting of Suzanne Le Peletier, his daughter, by Jacques-Louis David, when she was 22yrs old. Suzanne became a national celebrity at the tender age age of eleven, after the assassination of her father, the first French revolutionary war hero, Louis Michel Le Peletier, the Marquis de Saint Fargeau. Suzanne was officially adopted by the French Nation and given the title "Daughter of the State."
Link to her painting by Jacques-Louis David,at the J.P.Getty museum.
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artobjectdetails?artobj=112575
Family
Le Peletier had a brother, Felix (1769-1837), well known for his advanced ideas. Another brother was
Amédée Louis Michel Lepeletier de Saint FargeauAmédée Louis Michel le Peletier, comte de Saint-Fargeau , also spelled Lepeletier or Lepelletier, was a French entomologist, and specialist in the Hymenoptera....
(1770-1845),
entomologistEntomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...
. His daughter, Suzanne Louise, was the first "adopted child" of the French nation. She is the ancestor of the writer and academician Jean d'Ormesson.