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

Pondicherry Pondicherry, officially known as Puducherry, is the Capital city, capital and most populous city of the Puducherry (union territory), Union Territory of Puducherry in India. The city is in the Puducherry district on the southeast coast of Indi ...

, his father being a colleague of

Joseph François Dupleix Joseph Marquis Dupleix (; Unknown – 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 gén� ...

. Returning to France in 1750 he was educated in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

for the

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

, 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 (; ; Maria Antonia Josefa Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last List of French royal consorts, queen of France before the French Revolution and the establishment of the French First Republic. She was the ...

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 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. He narrowly escaped the fury of the Parisian populace on 17 July 1792 when he was attacked by a mob near the Palais Royale. After being rescued by his business partner, Scotsman

William Playfair William Playfair (22 September 1759 – 11 February 1823) was a Scottish engineer and political economist. The founder of graphical methods of statistics, Playfair invented several types of diagrams: in 1786 he introduced the line, area and ...

, he was taken into custody by

Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve (; 3 January 1756 – 18 June 1794) was a French writer and politician who served as the second mayor of Paris, from 1791 to 1792, and the first regular president of the National Convention in 1792. During the ...

, mayor of Paris, and 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 co ...

, but was set at liberty before the

September Massacres The September Massacres were a series of killings and summary executions of prisoners in Paris that occurred in 1792 from 2 September to 6 September during the French Revolution. Between 1,176 and 1,614 people were killed by ''sans-culottes'' ...

.William Playfair, ''Thoughts on the Present State of French Politics'' London: Stockdale 1793 https://archive.org/details/thoughtsonprese00lloygoog/page/n27/mode/2up In September 1793, however, he was again arrested, this time at

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, 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 (; unofficially Popular Tribunal) was a court instituted by the National Convention during the French Revolution for the trial of political offenders. In October 1793, it became one of the most powerful engines of ...

on 21 April 1794, and was

guillotine A guillotine ( ) is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by Decapitation, beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secur ...

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