Pierre-André Coffinhal-Dubail (French pronunciation:[pjɛʁɑ̃dʁekɔfinaldybaj]), known asJean-Baptiste Coffinhal (French pronunciation:[ʒɑ̃batistkɔfinal]), (7 November 1762 inVic-sur-Cère – 6 August 1794 inParis (18Thermidor Year II)) was a lawyer,French revolutionary, member of the General Council of theParis commune and a judge of theRevolutionary Tribunal.
Pierre-André Coffinhal-Dubail[1] was the youngest of the six sons of Annet-Joseph Coffinhal (Pailherols 22 September 1705 -Vic-sur-Cère 6 December 1767), a lawyer in the bailiwick ofVic-sur-Cère, and Françoise Dunoyer, who were married inAurillac on 18 May 1745.[2] He came from a long-established bourgeois family, which possessed wealth and authority already greater than that of the local nobility into which it was assimilating.
Two of his older brothers, Jean-Baptiste (Raulhac 1 April 1746 -Aurillac 13 June 1818)[3][4] and Joseph (Vic-sur-Cère 12 April 1757 - 1 September 1841)[5] studied law. Jean-Baptiste followed his father as lawyer in the bailiwick and bought a number ofbiens nationaux sold to the criminal court where his brother Joseph worked during theFrench Revolution. Joseph later worked at theCour de cassation and wasennobled by Napoleon, taking the title Baron Dunoyer and becoming a State Councillor. In fact after the Revolution both Jean-Baptiste and Joseph secured permission to change their name to that of their mother in order to dissociate themselves from their brother.[6]
Coffinhal himself began by studying medicine like his older brother Pierre but soon gave it up. He went toParis, where he found a position as a clerk in a prosecutor's office.[7]
He was enthusiastic about the French Revolution and took an active part in the political life of the city. He was an elector for the Section de l'Île-Saint-Louis (renamed Section de la Fraternité in 1792) for the1791 French legislative election and in the elections the following year for theConvention. He was then appointed police commissioner for this Section. A member of theJacobin club, he took part in thestorming of the Tuileries palace in August 1792 and became a judge in the special criminal court set up shortly afterward on 17 August. At some point he followed the minor fashion for adopting classical names (e.g.Gracchus Babeuf,Anacharsis Cloots) and took to calling himselfMucius Scaevola Coffinhal.[8]
When theRevolutionary Tribunal was set up on 10 March 1793, he was named as one of its judges and thereby became a friend ofFouquier-Tinville.[9] Politically close toMaximilien Robespierre, he behaved with a zeal and an intransigence that bred a deep hatred among his enemies, along with his tendency for misplaced witticisms.[10]
A year after the Revolutionary Tribunal was established, Coffinhal presided at the trial ofJacques-René Hébert and theHébertistes (March 1794), for which as well as directing the proceedings he was responsible for editing the official report. Produced in collaboration with three colleagues, his account bore little resemblance to the actual exchanges of the trial. In 1795, the discovery of various documents relating to the direction of trials over which he had presided proved that he had suppressed and altered much of the evidence, as his fellow-judge Féral had claimed in evidence on 9Vendemiaire Year III (30 September 1794).[11]
He also presided at the trial ofAntoine Lavoisier and theFarmers General. It was during the course of this trial when he is said to have uttered the famous response to the appeal from Lavoisier's wife that he should be reprieved in order to pursue his scientific research: 'La République n'a pas besoin de savants ni de chimistes' ('The Republic has no need of scientists or chemists.')[note 1][note 2][note 3]
On 11 June 1794, the Tribunal was reorganized, and Coffinhal was made one of its three vice-presidents.[12] Six weeks later he presided over the trial of those accused in theLuxembourg Conspiracy and condemned the poetAndre Chenier, only three days before theThermidorian reaction which brought him down.[13]
During the evening of9 Thermidor (27 July 1794) Coffinhal, together with 8 or 10,000 men from thesections and a company of artillery, succeeded in bringingHanriot from theCommittee of General Security to theHôtel de Ville, Paris.[14][15] The Convention then declared all the insurgents to be outlaws.[16][17] After midnight the forces of the Convention stormed the building. Some accounts say that Coffinhal pushed the drunken Hanriot out of a window, shouting 'You fool! It is your cowardice that has lost us!'[18] According toErnest Hamel thus was one of the many legends spread byBarère.[19] Coffinhal managed to escape and made his way along the banks of the Seine to theÎle des Cygnes where boatmen from his home region ofCantal concealed him. Eventually hunger forced him to break cover, and on 5 August he made for the house of his mistress Mme Nègre in therue Montorgueil, but she refused to take him in. He came across someone who owed him money, who agreed to hide him, and then went straight to the police to denounce him.[20][21] Nine days after his initial escape Coffinhal was arrested, totally exhausted.
The Revolutionary Tribunal itself had been suspended by this time, and he was condemned to death on 18 Thermidor (6 August 1794) by the criminal tribunal of the département, based on simple identification. The same day, thetumbrel took him on his own from the Conciergerie to thePlace de Grève where he was guillotined. It is said that as he mounted the scaffold, the jeering crowd yelled at him the phrase he had used so much when presiding at the Revolutionary Tribunal - 'Coffinhal, tu n'as pas la parole!' ('Coffinhal, it's not your turn to speak!').[22] He was the 55th person executed under thepurges of theThermidorian reaction.
After his execution, an inventory was drawn up of his possessions, which included a cellar of 237 bottles of wine, with 300 empty bottles, and an additional full barrel, amounting to 225 litres of wine all told.[23][better source needed]
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