Jean-Jacques_Duval_d'Epremesnil_(1745-1794)

Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil (5 December 174522 April 1794), French magistrate and politician, was born in India at

Pondicherry Pondicherry (), now known as Puducherry ( French: Pondichéry ʊdʊˈtʃɛɹi(listen), on-dicherry, is the capital and the most populous city of the Union Territory of Puducherry in India. The city is in the Puducherry district on the sout ...

, his father being a colleague of

Joseph François Dupleix Joseph Marquis Dupleix (23 January 1697 – 10 November 1763) was Governor-General of French India and rival of Robert Clive. Biography Dupleix was born in Landrecies, on January 23, 1697. His father, François Dupleix, a wealthy ''fermier gé ...

. Returning to France in 1750 he was educated in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

for the

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

, and became in 1775 in the of Paris, where he soon distinguished himself by his zealous defence of its rights against the royal prerogative. He showed bitter enmity to

Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child a ...

in the matter of the diamond necklace, and on 19 November 1787 he was the spokesman of the parlement in demanding the convocation of the states-general. When the court retaliated by an edict depriving the parlement of its functions, Eprémesnil bribed the printers to supply him with a copy before its promulgation, and this he read to the assembled . A royal officer was sent to the palais de justice to arrest Eprémesnil and his chief supporter Goislard de Montsabert, but the (5 May 1788) declared that they were all Eprémesnils, and the arrest was only effected on the next day on the voluntary surrender of the two members. After four months imprisonment on the island of Ste Marguerite, Eprémesnil found himself a popular hero, and was returned to the states-general as deputy of the nobility of the outlying districts of Paris. But with the rapid advance towards revolution his views changed; in his ''Réflexions impartiales ...'' (January 1789) he defended the monarchy, and he led the party among the nobility that refused to meet with the

third estate The estates of the realm, or three estates, were the broad orders of social stratification, social hierarchy used in Christendom (Christian Europe) from the Middle Ages to early modern Europe. Different systems for dividing society members into ...

until summoned to do so by royal command. In the

Constituent Assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...

he opposed every step towards the destruction of the monarchy. After a narrow escape from the fury of the Parisian populace in July 1792 he was imprisoned in the

Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conce ...

, but was set at liberty before the

September Massacres The September Massacres were a series of killings of prisoners in Paris that occurred in 1792, from Sunday, 2 September until Thursday, 6 September, during the French Revolution. Between 1,176 and 1,614 people were killed by ''fédérés'', gua ...

. In September 1793, however, he was arrested at

Le Havre Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very cl ...

, taken to Paris, and denounced to the Convention as an agent of Pitt. He was brought to trial before the

revolutionary tribunal The Revolutionary Tribunal (french: Tribunal révolutionnaire; unofficially Popular Tribunal) was a court instituted by the National Convention during the French Revolution for the trial of political offenders. It eventually became one of the ...

on 21 April 1794, and was

guillotine A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with stocks at th ...

d the next day. D'Eprémesnil's speeches were collected in a small volume in 1823. See also Henri Carré, ''Un Précurseur inconscient de la Révolution'' (Paris, 1897).

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Epremesnil 1745 births 1794 deaths French people executed by guillotine during the French Revolution People from Puducherry district Executed Indian people