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Jean Théophile Victor Leclerc (French pronunciation:[ʒɑ̃teɔfilviktɔʁləklɛʁ]), a.k.a.Jean-Theophilus Leclerc andTheophilus Leclerc d'Oze (1771–1820[1]), was a radical French revolutionary, publicist, and soldier. AfterJean-Paul Marat was assassinated, Leclerc assumed his mantle.
Leclerc was the son of a civil engineer and joined theNational Guard inClermont-Ferrand at the outbreak of revolution in 1789.[2] He then went toMartinique as a merchant's agent. However, his militant pro-revolutionary stance brought him into conflict with the planter aristocracy, who soon expelled him for revolutionary propaganda in 1791.[2] He returned to metropolitan France and joined the 1st battalion ofMorbihan in which he served until February 1792, when he left for Paris to defend seventeen grenadiers accused, in Martinique, of being revolutionaries. He successfully defended them in front of theJacobin Club and therevolutionary national assembly. On April first that year he made a speech before the Jacobin Club calling for the execution of KingLouis XVI and QueenMarie Antoinette.[citation needed]
Leclerc returned to his military duties with theArmy of the Rhine, and was sent on an unsuccessful spy mission across theRhine in southwest Germany. It seems that he was betrayed by Dietrich, the mayor ofStrasbourg. In November 1792, he fought at theBattle of Jemappes. In February 1793 he was transferred to the General Staff of the newly restructuredArmy of the Alps, inLyon. It was there that he joined theClub Central and he was sent to Paris as a special deputy from Lyon.[citation needed]
Leclerc took an extremely radical revolutionary position, even being expelled from theJacobin Club for being too radical. He was a founding member ofLes enragés (literally "the Angry Ones") who opposed Jacobian leniency. In 1793, he marriedPauline Léon, who together withClaire Lacombe had founded theSociété des républicaines révolutionnaires, a radical and revolutionary feminist organization which was banned the following year. He and his wife published a broadsheet calledL'Ami du peuple par Leclerc starting in 1793, which advocated a radical purging of the army, the creation of a revolutionary army made up exclusively of the partisans of theReign of Terror, and the execution of all the suspected anti-revolutionaries. His publishing activities ceased with his arrest in April 1794. After his release in August 1794, he and his wife maintained a low profile until his death in 1820.[citation needed]
