Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvray (12 June 1760 – 25 August 1797) was a French novelist, playwright and journalist.
Life
Early life and literary works
Born in
Paris as the son of a
stationer, Louvet became a bookseller's clerk, and first attracted attention with the first part of his novel ''Les Amours du chevalier de Faublas'' (Paris, 1787; English translation illustrated by etchings by
Louis Monzies
Louis Monziès (28 May 1849 – 13 March 1930) was a French painter and etcher. He was the curator of the three Museums of Le Mans for 10 years until his death.
Career
Louis Monziès began to learn painting and etching in Paris in 1871 ...
in 1898); it was followed in 1788 by ''Six semaines de la vie du chevalier de Faublas'' and in 1790 by ''La Fin des amours du chevalier de Faublas''. The heroine, Lodoiska, was modelled on the wife of a jeweller in the
Palais Royal, with whom Louvet had an affair.
She divorced her husband in 1792 and married Louvet in 1793.
His second novel, ''Émilie de Varmont'' (1791), was intended to prove the utility and necessity of
divorce and of the
marriage of priests,
questions raised by the
French Revolution; all his works tended to advocate revolutionary ideals.
He attempted to have one of his unpublished plays, ''L'Anoblié conspirateur'', performed at the
Comédie-Française, and records naïvely that one of its managers, d'Orfeuil, listened to the reading of the first three acts impatiently, exclaiming at last: "''I should need cannon in order to put that piece on the stage''". A sort of
farce
Farce is a comedy that seeks to entertain an audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd, and improbable. Farce is also characterized by heavy use of physical humor; the use of deliberate absurdity o ...
at the expense of the army of the
Royalist ''
émigrés'', ''La Grande Revue des armes noire et blanche'', had, however, better success: it ran for twenty-five nights.
Early activism
Louvet was first brought into notice as a politician by his ''Paris justifié'',
in reply to a truly incendiary pamphlet in which
Jean Joseph Mounier, after the removal of
King Louis XVI from the
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 19 ...
to Paris in October 1789, had attacked the capital (which was still relatively peaceful), and argued that the court should be established elsewhere. This led to Louvet's election to the
Jacobin Club
, logo = JacobinVignette03.jpg
, logo_size = 180px
, logo_caption = Seal of the Jacobin Club (1792–1794)
, motto = "Live free or die"(french: Vivre libre ou mourir)
, successor = Pa ...
, for which, as he wrote bitterly in his ''Memoirs'', the qualifications were then a genuine ''
civisme'' and some talent.
A self-styled ''
philosophe
The ''philosophes'' () were the intellectuals of the 18th-century Enlightenment.Kishlansky, Mark, ''et al.'' ''A Brief History of Western Civilization: The Unfinished Legacy, volume II: Since 1555.'' (5th ed. 2007). Few were primarily philosophe ...
'' and radical revolutionary, Louvet subsequently campaigned against
despotism
Despotism ( el, Δεσποτισμός, ''despotismós'') is a form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute power. Normally, that entity is an individual, the despot; but (as in an autocracy) societies which limit respect and ...
and
reaction, which he identified with the moderate
constitutional monarchy advocated by the
Marquis de la Fayette, the
Abbé Maury
Jean-Sifrein Maury (; 26 June 1746 – 10 May 1817) was a French cardinal, archbishop of Paris, and former bishop of Montefiascone.
Biography
The son of a cobbler, he was born at Valréas in the Comtat-Venaissin, the enclave within France that be ...
, and other disciples of
Niccolò Machiavelli.
Deputy and girondist
On 25 December 1791 he presented at the tribune of the
Legislative Assembly his ''Petition contre les princes'', which would have major influence during the
First French Empire. Elected deputy to the Assembly for the ''
départment
A department (, ) is an administrative or political division in several countries. Departments are the first-level divisions of 11 countries, nine in the Americas and two in Africa. An additional 10 countries use departments as second-level divi ...
'' of
Loiret, he gave his first speech in January 1792.
He attached himself to the
Girondists, whose vague
deism
Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin ''deus'', meaning "god") is the Philosophy, philosophical position and Rationalism, rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that Empirical evi ...
, sentimental
humanitarianism and ardent
republicanism he fully shared, and from March to November 1792 he published, at
Jean Marie Roland
Jean may refer to:
People
* Jean (female given name)
* Jean (male given name)
* Jean (surname)
Fictional characters
* Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character
* Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations
* J ...
's expense, a bi-weekly ''
journal-affiche'', of which the title, ''La Sentinelle'',
proclaimed its mission to open all of Europe to the
Enlightenment
Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to:
Age of Enlightenment
* Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...
at a time when, after the
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...
declaration of war on France and the outbreak of the
French Revolutionary Wars, a schism between the king and his subjects had become obvious.
On 10 August (the
effective fall of the Monarchy), Louvet became editor of the ''
Journal des Débats
The ''Journal des débats'' ( French for: Journal of Debates) was a French newspaper, published between 1789 and 1944 that changed title several times. Created shortly after the first meeting of the Estates-General of 1789, it was, after the ou ...
'', and, both as a journalist and deputy in the
National Convention, made himself conspicuous by his attacks on
Maximilien Robespierre,
Jean-Paul Marat
Jean-Paul Marat (; born Mara; 24 May 1743 – 13 July 1793) was a French political theorist, physician, and scientist. A journalist and politician during the French Revolution, he was a vigorous defender of the ''sans-culottes'', a radical ...
and the other
Montagnards,
whom he later claimed he would have succeeded in bringing to justice in after the
September Massacres were it not for the poor support he received from the Girondist leaders. On 29 October he accused Robespierre of creating a personality cult, governing the Paris "Conseil General" and paying the "Septembriseurs". Marat was accused of being asocial, establishing a dictatorship and as an
agent
Agent may refer to:
Espionage, investigation, and law
*, spies or intelligence officers
* Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another
** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...
of England. He denounced Robespierre as "''a Royalist''", and other Montagnards as crypto-
Orléanists. Robespierre was taken by surprise and had to be defended by Danton.
[R. Scurr (2006) Fatal Purity. Robespierre and the French Revolution, p. ?] In November he published his speech under the name ''A Maximilien Robespierre et à ses royalistes (accusation)''. Louvet admitted the preferred
Pétion de Villeneuve as friend. It is probable, however, that his attack and gauche (?)
libel
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
contributed to the Girondist downfall (as well as his own).
His courageous attitude at the king's trial, when he supported the
appeal to the people
Appeal to the People or An Appeal to the People was a document written by communists in Shōwa era Imperial Japan in Fuchu Prison. It was issued after their release on October 10, 1945, a month after the Surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945.
...
over the outright
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
,
added to hostility towards his party. Nonetheless, he defended the Girondists to the last moment, displaying an incriminating courage. After the crisis of 31 May 1793, when
François Hanriot and the ''
sans-culottes'' stormed the Convention, he joined his defeated faction in their flight from Paris. His wife Lodoiska, who had actively cooperated in his campaigns, was also placed in danger by the developments.
Thermidor and directory
After the onset of the
Thermidorian Reaction
The Thermidorian Reaction (french: Réaction thermidorienne or ''Convention thermidorienne'', "Thermidorian Convention") is the common term, in the historiography of the French Revolution, for the period between the ousting of Maximilien Robespie ...
and the fall of Robespierre (27 July 1794), he was recalled to the Convention, when he was instrumental in bringing
Jean-Baptiste Carrier and the others responsible for the
drownings at Nantes to justice. His influence became considerable: he was elected a member of the Committee of the Constitution, president of the Assembly, and member of the
Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety (french: link=no, Comité de salut public) was a committee of the National Convention which formed the provisional government and war cabinet during the Reign of Terror, a violent phase of the French Revolution. S ...
, against the overgrown power of which he had in earlier days protested.
His conflict with the Montagnards had not made him reactionary: he attacked the ''
Jeunesse dorée
Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern Engl ...
'', and was regarded by many as a pillar of
Jacobinism. ''La Sentinelle'' reappeared, under his auspices, preaching union among republicans. Under the
Directory
Directory may refer to:
* Directory (computing), or folder, a file system structure in which to store computer files
* Directory (OpenVMS command)
* Directory service, a software application for organizing information about a computer network's u ...
(1795) he was elected a member of the
Council of Five Hundred, of which he was secretary, and also a member of the
Institut de France.
Meanwhile, he had returned to his trade and set up a bookseller's shop in the Palais Royal. But, in spite of the fact that he had once more denounced the Jacobins in ''La Sentinelle'', he had come to be seen as a major enemy by the ''Jeunesse dorée''.
His shop was attacked by the young men with cries of ''À bas la Loupe, à bas la belle Ledoiska, à bas les gardes du corps de Louvet!'' ("Down with the She-Wolf, down with beautiful Ledoiska, down with Louvet's bodyguards!"); he and his wife were insulted in the streets and the theatres: ''À bas les Louvets et les Louvetants!'' ("Down with the Louvets and the Louvetants!" - a reference to his guards, based on the antiquated senses of the verb ''louveter''), and he was compelled to leave Paris. The Directory appointed him to the
consulship at
Palermo
Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...
, in the
Kingdom of Naples
The Kingdom of Naples ( la, Regnum Neapolitanum; it, Regno di Napoli; nap, Regno 'e Napule), also known as the Kingdom of Sicily, was a state that ruled the part of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States between 1282 and 1816. It was ...
, but he died before taking up his post.
Louvet's ''Memoirs''
In 1795 Louvet published a portion of his ''Memoirs'' under the title of ''Quelques notices pour l'histoire et le récit de mes perils depuis le 31 mai 1793''. They were mainly written in the various hiding-places in which Louvet took refuge, and they give a vivid picture of the sufferings of the exiled Girondists. They form a major document for the study of the psychology of the Revolution, as they give insight into the Louvet's own states of mind and political choices. The first complete edition of the ''Mémoires de Louvet de Couvray'', edited, with preface, notes and tables, by
François Victor Alphonse Aulard, was published in Paris in 1889.
References
*
External links
Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrayon
data.bnf.fr
*
Books by Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvray at Project GutenbergFull text of ''Quelques notices pour l'histoire et le récit de mes perils depuis le 31 mai 1793''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Louvet de Couvray, Jean-Baptiste
1760 births
1797 deaths
Writers from Paris
Deputies to the French National Convention
Members of the Council of Five Hundred
18th-century French diplomats
18th-century French dramatists and playwrights
French memoirists
18th-century French novelists
18th-century French journalists
Newspaper editors of the French Revolution
French booksellers
People on the Committee of Public Safety
Presidents of the National Convention
French erotica writers
18th-century deaths from tuberculosis
18th-century essayists
Tuberculosis deaths in France
18th-century memoirists