Pierre Gaspard Chaumette | |
|---|---|
 Pierre Gaspard Anaxagore Chaumette | |
| Born | 24 May 1763 |
| Died | 13 April 1794(1794-04-13) (aged 30) |
| Alma mater | University of Paris |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Botany Politics |
Pierre Gaspard Anaxagore Chaumette (French pronunciation:[pjɛʁɡaspaʁanaksaɡɔʁʃomɛt]; 24 May 1763 – 13 April 1794) was a French politician of theRevolutionary period who served as the president of theParis Commune and played a leading role in the establishment of theReign of Terror. He was a leader of the radicalHébertistes of the revolution, an ardent critic of Christianity who was one of the leaders of thedechristianization of France. His radical positions resulted in his alienation fromMaximilien Robespierre, and he was arrested and executed.
Chaumette was born inNevers, France, on 24 May 1763 into a family of shoemakers who wanted him to enter the Church. However, he did not have avocation and instead sought his fortune as acabin boy. After only reaching the rank ofhelmsman, he returned to Nevers to study his main interests,botany and science.[1] He also studied surgery and made a long voyage in the company of an English doctor, serving as his secretary. He then became surgeon at theFrères de la charité inMoulins.[2] Chaumette studiedmedicine at theUniversity of Paris in 1790, but gave up his career in medicine at the start of the Revolution. Chaumette began his political career as member of theJacobin Club editing the progressiveRevolutions de Paris journal from 1790.[3] His oratory skills proved him a valuable spokesperson of theCordelier Club, and more importantly, thesans-culotte movement in theParis sections.
In August 1792, Chaumette became the Chief Procurator of theCommune of Paris. As member of the Commune during theinsurrection of 10 August 1792, he was delegated to visit the prisons, with full power to arrest suspects. On 31 October 1792, he was elected President of the Commune and was re-elected in the Municipal on 2 December of that same year.
His conduct, oratorical talent, and the fact that his private life was considered beyond reproach, all made him influential, and he was elected president of the Commune, defending the municipality at the bar of theNational Convention on 31 October 1792. Re-elected in the municipal elections of 2 December 1792, he was soon given the functions ofprocureur of the Commune, and contributed with success to the enrollments of volunteers in the army by his appeals to the population ofParis. Chaumette held strong anti-monarchy views. He led a deputation from the Commune and argued before the National Convention that failing to punish Louis XVI for his crimes was causing high prices and the fall of theassignat.[4] Further, Chaumette held a strong opinion about the fate ofLouis XVI after his fall. He was greatly outspoken in his demand for the king's blood. Chaumette's thesis was that as long as Louis XVI went unpunished prices would remain high, and shortages and the profiteering that created them, which he assumed to be the work of the royalists, would go unchecked.[5]
Chaumette was also a leading and vocal opponent of theGirondins. He was one of the instigators oftheir downfall in mid-1793. Chaumette andJacques Hébert acted as prosecutors on behalf of the Tribunal which tried the Girondists in October 1793.[6]
Chaumette made a leading contribution to establishing theReign of Terror. In early September 1793 there was fear and unrest in Paris over prices, food shortages, war and fears of a royalist betrayal. On 4 September Hebert appealed to the sections to join the Commune in petitioning the National Convention with radical demands.[7] The next day, led by Chaumette and the mayor of Paris,Pache, crowds of citizens filled the Convention.[8] Chaumette stood up on a table to declare that "we now have open war between the rich and the poor" and urged the immediate mobilisation of the revolutionary army to go into the countryside, seize food supplies from hoarders and exact punishments on them.[9] Robespierre was presiding over the Convention's sessions that day, and Chaumette's demands, together with the shock of the recent betrayal of Toulon to the British, prompted the Convention to decree that 'Terror will be the order of the day'.[10]
Despite his social radicalism in other regards, Chaumette was a virulent opponent of women's participation in the Revolution. He believed women had to remain excluded from all involvement in public life, instead devoting themselves to thehousehold. During a November 1793 meeting of the Commune, he harshly chastized a group of female attendees: "Since when is it permitted to renounce one's sex? (...) Is it for women to make motions? Is it for women to put themselves at the head of our armies?" He further cautioned the women by reminding them of the recently executedMadame Roland andOlympe de Gouges, describing such politically active women as "haughty", "denatured" and "shameless".[11][12]
Chaumette is considered one of the ultra-radicalenragés of the French Revolution. He demanded the formation of aRevolutionary Army which was to "force avarice and greed to yield up the riches of the earth" in order to redistribute wealth, and feed troops and the urban populations.[13] However, he is much more known today for his role in thedechristianization movement. Chaumette was an ardent critic of Christianity, which he considered "ridiculous ideas"[14] that "have been very helpful to [legitimize] despotism."[15] His views were heavily influenced byatheist andmaterialist writersPaul d'Holbach,Denis Diderot andJean Meslier. Chaumette saw religion as a relic of superstitious eras that did not reflect the intellectual achievements of theAge of Enlightenment. Indeed, for Chaumette, "church and counterrevolution were one and the same."[16] Thus, he proceeded to pressure several priests and bishops into abjuring their positions.
Chaumette organized a Festival of Reason on 10 November 1793, which boasted aGoddess of Reason, portrayed by an actress, on an elevated platform in theNotre Dame Cathedral.[17] He was such a passionate opponent of Christianity that in December 1792, he even publicly changed his name from Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette toAnaxagoras Chaumette,[18] explaining: "I was formerly called Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette because mygod-father believed in the saints. Since the revolution I have taken the name of a saint who was hanged for his republican principles."[19] It has been suggested byDaniel Guérin that his criticism was also influenced by the Church's stance on homosexual relations.[20][page needed]
Chaumette's ultra-radical ideas on the economy, society and religion set him at odds withMaximilien Robespierre, the powerful circle around him and other "moderate"Montagnards. Soon, official opinion began to turn against Chaumette and the like-mindedHébertists. In September 1793, Robespierre, who was aDeist, made a speech denouncing dechristianisation as aristocratic and immoral.[21]Fabre d'Églantine, himself under suspicion, produced a report for theCommittee of Public Safety, alleging Chaumette's involvement in an anti-government plot, revealed byChabot, although Chabot had never named Chaumette himself.[22]
In the early spring of 1794, Chaumette increasingly became target of allegations that he was a counterrevolutionary. Hébert and his associates planned an armed uprising to overthrow Robespierre, but Chaumette, along with fellow sans-culotte leaderFrançois Hanriot, refused to take part.[23] When theHébertists were arrested on 4 March, Chaumette was originally spared, but on 13 March he too was arrested.[24] The other Hébertists were executed with their leader Jacques Hébert on 24 March 1794, but Chaumette was held in prison until found guilty of taking part in the prison plot atLuxembourg Palace. He was sentenced to death on the morning of 13 April and guillotined that same afternoon. Also executed was his unlikely group of co-conspirators includingLucile Desmoulins, wife of the recently executedCamille Desmoulins,Françoise Hebert, wife of the recently executed Hébert,Gobel, former Bishop of Paris,Arthur Dillon and an assortment of other prisoners of various types.[25]
Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette's legacy mainly consists of his ultra-radical philosophies that were regarded as excessive even by his colleagues.[26]
In 1790 Chaumette reviewed the work ofLouis Claude de Saint-Martin, a French Catholic philosopher wishing for atheocratic society in which the most devout people would guide the rest of the population. The review provides a substantiated outline of Chaumette's philosophies. He criticizes Saint-Martin's ideal due to its similarity to France'sfeudal order before the Revolution in which the rule of the monarch was legitimized by thedivine right of kings. The review soon develops into a much broader attack on religion. Chaumette calls all Christians "enemies of reason",[27] and their ideas "ridiculous."[28] He wonders "over whom to get more embarrassed; him who believes he can deceive humans in the eighteenth century with such farces or him who has the weakness to let himself be deceived."[29]
The review also criticizes the very notion of free will as a construct that authorizes Christianity to proscribe "unmoral" actions. Chaumette emphasizes a greater reliance on our instincts and a greater embracing of the apparent world, instead of Christianity's concern with the afterlife. In his philosophy, he is rather critical of human beings stating that "everyone knows that humans are nothing more than what education makes of them; [...and thus] if one wants them just, one must furnish them with notions of fairness, not ideas from seventh heaven [...] because the sources of all of human's grief are ignorance and superstition."[30]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 17.| International | |
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