Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux (24 August 1753 – 24 March 1824) was a deputy to the

National Convention The National Convention (french: link=no, Convention nationale) was the parliament of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for the rest of its existence during the French Revolution, following the two-year Nation ...

during the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

. He later served as a prominent leader of the

French Directory The Directory (also called Directorate, ) was the governing five-member committee in the French First Republic from 2 November 1795 until 9 November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire and replaced b ...

Life

He was born at Montaigu (

Vendée Vendée (; br, Vande) is a department in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France, on the Atlantic coast. In 2019, it had a population of 685,442.

), the son of J. B. de la Révellière. He adopted the name Lépeaux from a small property belonging to his family, and he was known locally as M. de Lépeaux. He studied law at

Angers Angers (, , ) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Anjou until the French Revolution. The inhabitants of both the city and the pr ...

and

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. Si ...

, being called to the

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar ( ...

in 1775. A deputy to the Estates-General of 1789, he returned at the close of the session to Angers, where with his school-friends J. B. Leclerc and Urbain-René Pilastre he sat on the council of

Maine-et-Loire Maine-et-Loire () is a department in the Loire Valley in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France. It is named after the two rivers, Maine and the Loire. It borders Mayenne and Sarthe to the north, Loire-Atlantique to the west, Indre-et ...

, and had to deal with the first Vendéen outbreaks. In 1792 he was returned by the ''

département In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. Ninety ...

'' to the Convention, and on 19 November he proposed the famous decree by which France offered protection to foreign nations in their struggle for liberty. Although La Révellière-Lépeaux voted for the death of

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

, he was not in general agreement with the extremists. He was proscribed with the

Girondins The Girondins ( , ), or Girondists, were members of a loosely knit political faction during the French Revolution. From 1791 to 1793, the Girondins were active in the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention. Together with the Montagnard ...

in 1793, and remained in hiding until the revolt of

9 Thermidor The Coup d'état of 9 Thermidor or the Fall of Maximilien Robespierre refers to the series of events beginning with Maximilien Robespierre's address to the National Convention on 8 Thermidor Year II (26 July 1794), his arrest the next day, and ...

(27 July 1794). After serving on the commission to prepare the initiation of the new constitution he became in July 1795 president of the Assembly, and shortly afterwards a 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 ...

. His name stood first on the list of directors elected, and he became president of the Directory. Of his colleagues he was in alliance with Jean-François Rewbell and to a lesser degree with

Barras Barras may refer to: Places * Barras, Cumbria, England * Barras, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France * Barras, Piauí, Brazil * Duas Barras, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil * Sete Barras, São Paulo, Brazil Other uses * Barras (surname) * Barras (market ...

, but the greatest of his fellow-directors,

Lazare Carnot Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, Count Carnot (; 13 May 1753 – 2 August 1823) was a French mathematician, physicist and politician. He was known as the "Organizer of Victory" in the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. Education and early ...

, was the object of his undying hatred. His policy was marked by a bitter hostility to the

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

religion, which he proposed to supplant as a civilizing agent by

theophilanthropy The Theophilanthropists ("Friends of God and Man") were a Deistic sect, formed in France during the later part of the French Revolution. Origins Thomas Paine, together with other disciples of Rousseau and Robespierre, set up a new religion, in ...

, a new religion invented by the English deist David Williams. The credit of the ''coup d'état'' of 18 Fructidor (4 September 1797), by which the allied directors made themselves supreme, La Révellière-Lépeaux arrogated to himself in his ''Mémoires'', which in this as in other matters must be read with caution. Compelled to resign by the

Coup of 30 Prairial Year VII The Coup of 30 Prairial Year VII (''Coup d'État du 30 prairial an VII''), also known as the Revenge of the Councils (''revanche des conseils'') was a bloodless coup in France that occurred on 18 June 1799—30 Prairial Year VII by the French R ...

(18 June 1799), he lived in retirement in the country, and took no further part in public affairs even after his return to Paris ten years later. 196403

Notes

References

* * The ''Mémoires'' of La Révellière-Lépeaux were edited by R. D. D'Angers (Paris, 3 vols., 1895). See also E. Charavay, ''La Révellière-Lépeaux et ses mémoires'' (1895) and Albert Meynier, ''Un Représentant de la bourgeoisie angevine'' (1905).

External links

* Louis-Marie de La Revellière-Lépeaux papers. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. {{DEFAULTSORT:La Revelliere-Lepeaux, Louis Marie De 1753 births 1824 deaths 18th-century French lawyers People from Vendée Directeurs of the First French Republic Members of the Council of Five Hundred People on the Committee of Public Safety Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery French deists