Jacques Pierre Brissot

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In February 1788, Brissot founded the anti-slavery Society of the Friends of the Blacks. With the outbreak of the revolution in July 1789, he became one of its most vocal supporters. As a member of the Legislative Assembly, Brissot advocated for war against Austria and other European powers in order to secure France's revolutionary gains, which led to the War of the First Coalition in 1792. He voted against the immediate execution of Louis XVI which made him unpopular with the Montagnards. He was friendly with Jean-Paul Marat, but in 1793 they were the greatest enemies.

On 3 April 1793, Maximilien Robespierre declared in the Convention that the whole war was a prepared game between Dumouriez and Brissot to overthrow the First French Republic.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Conflicts with Robespierre, who accused him of royalism, eventually brought about his downfall.<ref>Wikisource: Œuvres complètes de Maximilien Robespierre. Speech Robespierre against Brissot and the girondins Delivered to the Convention on 10 April 1793 Discours contre Brissot & les girondins</ref> On 8 October, the Convention decided to arrest Brissot. Like Madame Roland and Pétion, Brissot was accused of organising (or taking part in) conspicuous dinners.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> At the end of October 1793, he was guillotined along with 28 other Girondins by Charles-Henri Sanson.<ref>Sanson Memoirs Vol II p.70</ref>

Early life and familyEdit

Brissot was born in Chartres, the 13th child of a wealthy traiteur; but nine of his siblings died at infancy.<ref>Robert C. Darnton, "The Grub Street Style of Revolution: J.-P. Brissot, Police Spy", p. 301 in The Journal of Modern History vol. 40, no. 3 (Sept. 1968)</ref> Alongside his elder brother he was placed under the care of an uncle, residing in the countryside as priest. In 1762 he entered college, studying Latin and developing an admiration for the works of Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. Transitioning to a career path, he began his tenure as a law clerk in 1769, initially in Chartres and later, from 1774, at the Parlement of Paris.<ref name="Encyclopedia Britannica">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Despite his legal aspirations, Brissot found himself embroiled in controversy due to the critical nature of some of his pamphlets, which scrutinized the government and the church. In 1777 Madame du Barry introduced him to Voltaire. In the same year he briefly visited London upon invitation. He relocated to Boulogne-sur-Mer when he was appointed editor of "Courier de l'Europe", a periodical that did not do well and failed.<ref name="America p. V">New Travels in the United States of America, p. V</ref> He decided to "anglicize" his last name by appending "Warville", after Ouarville, where his mother owned property.<ref>Frederick A. de Luna, " The Dean Street Style of Revolution: J.-P. Brissot, Jeune Philosophe ", pp. 162 in: French Historical Studies, Volume 17, No. 1 (Spring 2001)</ref> Brissot inherited a substantial amount of livres when his father died.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In 1780 he moved to Reims to complete his studies.

His initial literary endeavors, including Théorie des lois criminelles (1781) and Bibliothèque philosophique du législateur (1782), delved into the philosophy of law, demonstrating a profound influence of the ethical principles championed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.<ref name="EB1911">{{#if: |

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  }}{{#ifeq:  ||}}</ref> During a month-long stay with the affluent sugar and coffee planter Pierre-Alexandre DuPeyrou, Brissot found himself immersed in intellectual discourse.<ref>J.P. Brissot Mémoires (1754-1793), p. XXII</ref> DuPeyrou, a Suriname native who relocated to Neuchâtel in 1747, had maintained a close relationship with Rousseau, providing financial support and overseeing the publication of his complete works. Brissot sent a summary to Voltaire, who praised his style and energy in a letter. Meanwhile, a law degree hardly charmed him, Brissot was more interested in linguistics and decided to become a journalist.  In June he paid a visit to Clavière in Geneva.<ref name="America p. V"/> In September he married Félicité Dupont, the governess of the Duke of Chartres. Brissot visited London where he got engaged in establishing an Academy of Arts and Sciences; he lived at Newman Street with his wife and younger brother.<ref>New Travels in the United States of America, p. VI, VII</ref><ref name="Encyclopedia Britannica"/> Meanwhile, she translated English works, including those by Oliver Goldsmith and Robert Dodsley.

Writer on social causesEdit

In the preface of Théorie des lois criminelles, a plea for penal reform, Brissot explains that he submitted an outline of the book to Voltaire and quotes his answer from 13 April 1778. Brissot had a falling out with Catholicism, and wrote about his disagreements with the church's hierarchical system.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Brissot became known as a writer and journalist who was engaged on the Mercure de France, the Courier de l'Europe and other facilitating the distribution of libelles. Devoted to the cause of humanity, he proposed a plan for the collaboration of all European intellectuals. His newspaper Journal du Lycée de Londres, was to be the organ of this commercial enterprise starting at Pall Mall in January 1784.<ref>The innocence of Jacques-Pierre Brissot, p. 850</ref> He was in conflict with Charles Théveneau de Morande. The plan was unsuccessful and Brissot lost his investments.<ref name="EB1911"/> In May he was arrested and put in jail at Gray's Inn Road; a friend paid the printer for the prospectus.<ref>New Travels in the United States of America, p. VII</ref> Soon after his return to Paris, Brissot was on the charge of having published a pornographic pamphlet Passe-temps de Toinette against the queen of France Marie Antoinette. The pamphlet was considered extremely provocative as it was perceived as opposing the queen. On 12 July Brissot was imprisoned in the Bastille but was released after two months as he was not the author.<ref>The innocence of Jacques-Pierre Brissot, p. 853</ref><ref name="Encyclopedia Britannica"/><ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He read Confessions six times and a popular account of the New World, Letters of an American Farmer by Jean de Crèvecoeur.

After gaining release, Brissot returned to pamphleteering, most notably his 1785 open letter to emperor Joseph II of Austria, Seconde lettre d'un défenseur du peuple a l'Empereur Joseph II, sur son règlement concernant, et principalement sur la révolte des Valaques, which supported the right of subjects to revolt against the misrule of a monarch (in Bulgaria). Because of the controversy, this generated, he went to London for a time.<ref>Léonore Loft, "The Transylvanian Peasant Uprising of 1784, Brissot and the Right to Revolt: A Research Note", pp. 209–218 in: French Historical Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring, 1991)</ref> He was influenced by the dissenters Richard Price and Joseph Priestley.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1785, the Duc d'Orléans, admirer of the British parliamentary system and the constitutional monarchy, the main opposition to the French absolute monarchy, approved Brissot's plan to dispatch the fencer Chevalier de Saint-Georges to London. He believed it was a way to ensure the Regent-in-waiting's support of Philippe as the future "Regent" of France. But Brissot had a secret agenda as well. He considered Saint-Georges, a "man of color", the ideal person to contact his fellow abolitionists in London and ask their advice about Brissot's plans for Les Amis des Noirs (Friends of the Blacks) modeled on the English Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. It is supposed Saint Georges delivered Brissot's request to translate the publications of the abolitionists MPs William Wilberforce, John Wilkes, and Reverend Thomas Clarkson into French. On his first trip Saint-Georges passed Brissot's request to the British abolitionists, they complied by translating their publications into French for his fledgling Société des amis des Noirs. Banat assumes Saint-Georges met with them again,Template:Sfn but Adam Hochschild in Bury the Chains did not find any trace of this.

In collaboration with Clavière, Brissot published De la France et des Etats-Unis ou de l'importance de la révolution de l'Amérique pour le bonheur de la France, an important advocacy of possible economic benefits to France stemming from the American Revolution.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In summer 1787 he and Clavière visited Utrecht, then a "democratic eldorado" to study the resistance against the House of Orange and Habsburg. Just before the Prussian invasion of Holland they travelled to Rotterdam, where they met Abbé Sièyes, and then to Amsterdam where they met with a Dutch banker Pieter Stadnitski.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Jourdan, A. (2007). "The 'alien origins' of the French Revolution: American, Scottish, Genevan, and Dutch influences". Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History, 35, 185–205. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dodidx?c=wsfh;idno=0642292.0035.012</ref><ref>Rosendaal, J.G.M.M. (2005) De Nederlandse Revolutie. Vrijheid, volk en vaderland 1783–1799, p. 242, 245.</ref> By the end of September they were back in Paris.<ref>Perroud, C. (1912) Correspondance et papiers de Brissot, p. XLIV, 161.</ref> At some time Stadnitsky decided sent Brissot as an undercover asset scout to Philadelphia.<ref>Mémoires de Brissot / avec introduction, notices et notes par M. de Lescure, p. 407</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Riley 1982">Template:Cite journal</ref>

AbolitionistsEdit

File:Paris - 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 rue d'Amboise.JPG

Clavière and Brissot lived at 10 rue d'Amboise in 1789.<ref>Roster of Membership in the Society of Friends of Blacks, 1789," LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY: EXPLORING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, accessed June 13, 2023, https://revolution.chnm.org/d/339</ref>

On a second visit to London, accompanied by Charles-Louis Ducrest, the brother of Madame de Genlis, he became acquainted with some of the leading abolitionists. After returning to Paris on 19 February 1788, he and Clavière founded an anti-slavery group known as Society of the Friends of the Blacks (Société des amis des Noirs) and was their secretary. In 1788, Choderlos de Laclos, who replaced Brissot as Philippe's chief of staff, intensified Brissot's campaign to promote Philippe as an alternative to the monarchy.

As an agent of the newly formed society, Brissot travelled to the United States from June 1788 to January 1789 to visit abolitionists there. The country had gained independence several years before but was still a slave state. He also met with members of the constitutional convention in Philadelphia to find out what he could about the domestic debt of the United States and researching investment opportunities in Scioto Company. Brissot launched a plan to promote emigration to the United States. At one point, he was interested in emigrating to America with his family. Thomas Jefferson, the American ambassador in Paris when he returned, was familiar enough with him to note, "Warville is returned charmed with our country. He is going to carry his wife and children to settle there."<ref name="ReferenceA">David Andress, 1789: The Threshold of the Modern Age, 87.</ref> However, such an emigration never happened. In 1789 he published a pamphlet arguing that French deputies owed any black Frenchman and any enslaved people in the French colonies their "sacred rights" as much as any white man.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In 1789 he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.<ref name=AAAS>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Brissot was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1789.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

He was president of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks during 1790 and 1791. The rising ferment of revolution engaged Brissot in schemes for progress through political journalism that would make him a household name.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> In 1791 he published his Nouveau Voyage dans les États-Unis de l'Amérique septentrionale (3 vol.). Brissot believed that American ideals could help improve the French government. In 1791, Brissot along with Marquis de Condorcet, Thomas Paine, and Étienne Dumont created a newspaper promoting republicanism titled Le Républicain.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

French RevolutionEdit

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Portrait de Brissot

From the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, Brissot became one of its most vocal supporters. He edited the Patriote français from 1789 to 1793 and took a prominent part in politics.<ref>Christopher Hibbert, The Days of the French Revolution, p. 137.</ref> Famous for his speeches at the Jacobin Club, he was elected a member of the municipality of Paris, then of the Legislative Assembly. He witnessed at the marriage of Camille and Lucile Desmoulins in December 1790, together with Pétion de Villeneuve and Robespierre.<ref>Jean-Joseph Gaume (1856) La Révolution, recherches historiques, Quatrième partie, Paris, Gaume frères, pp. 136–37</ref><ref name=False_Friends>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Champ de Mars Massacre involvementEdit

Leading up to this event, France was in political turmoil following the attempted escape of King Louis XVI and his family. The escape attempt heightened tensions and divisions within French society, particularly among the Third Estate. Brissot, a leading republican in the Girondin faction and a leading voice of the republican movement, was involved in drafting a petition demanding the removal of King Louis XVI. He along with other members managed to get approximately 6,000 signatures for the petition they circulated on 17 July 1791, during the gathering at the Champ de Mars. This petition, backed by the Cordeliers Club and other parties, argued that the king, by attempting to flee, had effectively abdicated his throne. The petition called for a national referendum on the future of the monarchy and was essentially a republican manifesto.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1791 Robespierre persuaded the Jacobin clubs not to support the petition by Danton and Brissot.Template:Sfn

Foreign policyEdit

News of the Declaration of Pillnitz (27 August 1791) reached France shortly before the convening of the new Legislative Assembly, which Brissot rapidly came to dominate. The declaration was from Austria and Prussia, warning the people of France not to harm Louis XVI or these nations would "militarily intervene" in the politics of France. Threatened by the declaration, Brissot rallied the support of the Assembly, which subsequently declared war on Austria on 20 April 1792. They wanted to fortify and secure the revolution.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> This decision was initially disastrous as the French armies were crushed during the first engagements, leading to a major increase in political tensions within the country.

During the Legislative Assembly, Brissot's knowledge of foreign affairs enabled him as a member of the diplomatic committee to control much of France's foreign policy during this time. Brissot was a key figure in the declaration of war against Leopold II, the Habsburg monarchy, the Dutch Republic, and the Kingdom of Great Britain on 1 February 1793. It was also Brissot who characterized these wars as part of revolutionary propaganda.<ref>Thomas Lalevée, "National Pride and Republican grandezza: Brissot's New Language for International Politics in the French Revolution", French History and Civilisation (Vol. 6), 2015, pp. 66–82.</ref><ref name="EB1911"/>

On 26 March 1792, Guadet accused Robespierre of superstition, relying on divine providence.Template:Sfn Shortly after Robespierre was accused by Brissot and Guadet of trying to become the idol of the people.<ref>V. Aulard (1892) Jacobins, III, p. 526</ref> Being against the war Robespierre was also accused of acting as a secret agent for the "Austrian Committee".Template:Sfn The Girondins planned strategies to out-maneuver Robespierre's influence among the Jacobins.Template:Sfn On 27 April, as part of his speech responding to the accusations by Brissot and Guadet against him, he threatened to leave the Jacobins, claiming he preferred to continue his mission as an ordinary citizen.<ref>Hervé Leuwers (2014) Robespierre, p. 211</ref>

On 17 May, Robespierre released the first issue of his weekly periodical {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (The Defender of the Constitution). In this publication, he criticized Brissot and expressed his skepticism over the war movement.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfn

ElectionEdit

File:Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville.jpg

Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville

In August 1792 Brissot urged the preservation of the constitution, advocating against both the dethronement of the king and the election of a new assembly.Template:Sfn Robespierre was no longer willing to cooperate with Brissot, who promoted the Duke of Brunswick, and Roland. On Sunday morning 2 September the members of the Commune, gathering in the town hall to proceed the election of deputies to the National Convention, decided to maintain their seats and have Rolland and Brissot arrested.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfn

In Paris suspected Girondin and Feuillant candidates were boycotted; Robespierre made sure Brissot (and his fellow Brissotins Pétion and Condorcet) could not be elected in Paris.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Mayor Pétion de Villeneuve, ("Roi Pétion") finally rallied to Brissot.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Brissot refrained from further visits to the Jacobin club. Madame Roland wrote to a friend: "We are under the knife of Robespierre and Marat, those who would agitate the people."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In September 1792 he was elected deputy in the National Convention.<ref name="EB1911"/> where he represented Eure-et-Loir.<ref name="Encyclopedia Britannica"/> On 24 October 1792, Brissot published another pamphlet,<ref>J. P. Brissot, député à la Convention Nationale, à tous les républicains de France</ref> in which he declared the need for a coup against anarchists and the decentralized, populist element of the French Revolution, going so far as to demand the abolition of the Paris Commune.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In December he published an account on the trial of the King.<ref>Au peuple souverain; sur le procès de Louis Seize. Par un républicain</ref> In March 1793, Robespierre was convinced Brissot and Dumouriez wanted to overthrow the First French Republic.<ref>Journal des débats et des décrets, 3 avril 1793</ref> Dumouriez's defection on the next day changed the course of the events for the Brissotins. On 6 April the Committee of Public Safety was installed; Philippe Égalité was arrested. Robespierre accused Brissot, Isnard, Vergniaud, Guadet and Gensonné as infidel deputies.<ref name="I. Davidson, p. 157">I. Davidson, p. 157</ref>

Arrest and executionEdit

On 6 April 1793 the Committee of Public Safety was installed on the proposal of Maximin Isnard, supported by Georges Danton. The Committee was composed of nine deputies from the Plaine and the Dantonists, but no Girondins or Robespierrists.<ref>Davidson, I, p. 155–156.</ref> As one of the first acts of the Committee, Marat, president of the Jacobin club, called for the expulsion of twenty-two Girondins. Robespierre, who was not elected, was pessimistic about the prospects of parliamentary action and told the Jacobins that it was necessary to raise an army of Sans-culottes to defend Paris and arrest infidel deputies, naming and accusing Brissot, Isnard, Vergniaud, Guadet and Gensonné.<ref name="I. Davidson, p. 157"/>

The end of Brissot appeared in sight when, on 26 May 1793, Brissot authored "To His Constituents", in which he demanded the guillotining of "the anarchists", and tried to rouse the middle classes to resist the decentralized departments, which had not taken the lead from Robespierre but rather from The Mountain and largely local organizers and agitators.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Brissot was condemned and then escaped from Paris, going to Normandy and Brittany, where he and other Girondists, such as Pétion, Gaudet, Barbaroux, Louvet, Buzot, and Lanjuinais, had planned to organize Counter-Revolutionary Vendée Uprising.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Here Brissot had seized the delegates of the convention, having them arrested, but the uprising was short-lived, as the masses marched through the streets and overthrew Brissot and his clique.

File:Banquet des Girondins.jpg

The Last Meal of the Girondins (François Flameng, Template:Circa) — the body of Charles Éléonor Dufriche-Valazé, who stabbed himself in the courtroom, is in the foreground.

File:La fournée des Girondins 10-11-1793.jpg

Execution of Brissot, 31 October 1793 = 10 Brumaire, l'an II

On 28 May a weak Robespierre excused himself twice for his physical condition but attacked in particular Brissot of royalism. He referred to 25 July 1792 where their points of view split.<ref>Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, 30 mai 1793, p. 3</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In late May 1793, the Montagnards in the convention, meeting in the Salle du Manège, called for the removal of the Commission of Twelve. The convention was further radicalized by the call for the removal and arrest of Brissot and the entire Girondin faction made by the sans-culottes in the Parisian National Guard, which had armed with cannons and surrounded the convention.<ref>David Andress, The Terror, p. 175.</ref> When the refusal of the convention to make such a hasty decision was delivered to the National Guard, François Hanriot, its leader, replied: "Tell your stupid president that he and his Assembly are doomed and that if within one hour he doesn't deliver to me the twenty-two, I'm going to blast it!"<ref>David Andress, The Terror, p. 176.</ref> Under this threat of violence, the Convention capitulated and on 2 June 1793, Brissot and the other Girondins were arrested.<ref>David Andress, The Terror, p. 382.</ref>

Brissot was one of the first Girondins to escape but was also one of the first captured. Passing through his hometown Chartres on his way to the city of Caen, the centre of anti-revolutionary forces in Normandy, he was caught travelling with false papers on 10 June and taken back to Paris.<ref>David Andress, The Terror, p. 180.</ref> On 3 October, the trial of Brissot and the Girondins began. They were charged with being "agents of the counter-revolution and the foreign powers, especially Britain."<ref>David Andress, The Terror, p. 228.</ref> Brissot, who conducted his own defence, attacked point by point the absurdities of the charges against him and his fellow Girondins.

On 8 October the Convention decided to arrest Brissot and the Girondins. Robespierre called for the dissolution of the Convention; he believed they would be admired by posterity. Pierre-Joseph Cambon replied that was not his intention; applause followed and the session was closed.<ref name="auto10">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

He was unsuccessful, and on 30 October the death sentence was delivered to Brissot and the 21 other Girondins.<ref>Samson, Memoirs, Vol II p. 70</ref><ref>David Andress, The Terror, p. 229.</ref> The next day, the convicted men were taken by tumbrel to the guillotine, singing La Marseillaise as they travelled, and embracing the role of martyred patriots.<ref>David Andress, The Terror, p. 230.</ref> Brissot was executed on 31 October 1793 at age 39. His corpse was buried in the Madeleine cemetery or the Chapelle expiatoire alongside his guillotined associates.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The Chevalier de Saint-Georges was suspected of having been friendly with Marie-Antoinette, Brissot, and Philippe Égalité, executed in the following weeks.<ref>Benjamin Warlop (2022) Le Chevalier de Saint-George</ref> In early December, 73 Girondins were allowed to take their seats back in the Convention.<ref>The Jacobin Clubs in the French Revolution, 1793-1795 by Michael L. Kennedy, p. 270</ref>

Spying allegationsEdit

Robespierre and Marat were among those who accused Brissot of various kinds of counterrevolutionary activity, such as, Orléanism, "federalism", being in the pay of Great Britain, having failed to vote for the immediate death of the former king, and having been a collaborator with General Dumouriez, widely considered a traitor following his April 5 defection to the Austrians.<ref>Frederick A. de Luna, "The Dean Street Style of Revolution: J.-P. Brissot, Jeune Philosophe", p. 178 in: French Historical Studies, Volume 17, No. 1 (Spring 2001)</ref>

Brissot's activities after the siege of the Bastille have been closely studied. While enthusiasts and apologists consider Brissot to be an idealist and unblemished, philosophe revolutionary, his detractors have challenged his credibility and moral character. They have repeated contemporary allegations that during the mid-1780s, he defrauded his business partner, was involved in the production and dissemination of libelles – pornographic and otherwise – and spied for the police.<ref name="Simon Burrows 2003 pp. 843-871">Simon Burrows, "The Innocence of Jacques-Pierre Brissot," The Historical Journal vol. 46 (2003), pp. 843–871.</ref> The accusations were led by Jean-Paul Marat, Camille Desmoulins, Maximilien Robespierre, and above all the notorious scandal-monger, extortioner, and perjurer Charles Théveneau de Morande, whose hatred, Brissot asserted, 'was the torment of my life'. Brissot was accused of organizing (or taking part in) conspicuous dinners.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 1968 historian Robert Darnton affirmed some of these accounts,<ref>Robert C. Darnton, "The Grub Street Style of Revolution: J.-P. Brissot, Police Spy", The Journal of Modern History vol. 40, no. 3 (Sept. 1968), p. 301.</ref> and reaffirmed them in the 1980s, holding Brissot up as a case-study in the understanding of the difficult circumstances many philosophes encountered attempting to support themselves by their writing.<ref>Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime, Harvard University Press, 1982, pp. 49–68.</ref> Brissot's life and thinking are so well documented, from his early age through to his execution, many historians have examined him as a representative figure displaying the Enlightenment attitudes that drove many of the leading French revolutionaries. Thus, he undoubtedly exemplified the beliefs of many supporters of the Revolution. Darnton sees him in this way, but also argued that he was intimately tangled in the business of "Grub Street", the scrappy world of publishing for profit in the eighteenth century, which was essential to the spread of Enlightenment ideas. Thus, Darnton explores his relationship to his business partners, to the libellistes who wrote scandalous accusations against the crown and other leading figures, and to the police, arguing that based on suggestive evidence it is probable that when Brissot fell on hard financial times in the mid-1780s he agreed to operate as a police spy. Historian Frederick Luna has argued that the letters and memoirs from which Darnton drew his information were written fifteen years after his supposed employment and that the timeline does not work out because Brissot was documented as having left Paris as soon as he was released from the Bastille (where he was held on suspicion of writing libelles) and therefore could not have talked with the police as alleged.<ref>Frederick A. Luna, "Interpreting Brissot", The Dean Street Style of Revolution, pp. 159–190.</ref> More convincing still is the work of historian Simon Burrows who, drawing on the Brissot papers (deposited in the Archives Nationales in 1982), comprehensively engages each of Darnton's speculations demonstrating that Brissot's financial problems were not evidence of fraud, that while – like many others – he traded in books and may have transported libelles, there is no evidence that he wrote them, and that while like many others he collected and collated general information on contemporary opinion in France for royal officials, there is no evidence that he operated as a paid police spy. As Burrows further notes, Darnton has progressively retreated from his earlier speculations, and he argues Brissot's behaviour in the 1780s and after, while it demonstrates his willingness to compromise with authority to advance his career, also demonstrates him to be "a committed philosophe and reformer, keen to avoid unnecessary entanglements in illegal activities, who despite his political radicalism, aspired to advise the regime and serve like-minded patrons."<ref name="Simon Burrows 2003 pp. 843-871"/>

LegacyEdit

Through his writings, Brissot made important contributions to "pre-revolutionary and revolutionary ideology in France".<ref>Loft, p. 209.</ref> His early works on legislation, his many pamphlets, speeches in the Legislative Assembly and the convention, demonstrated dedication to the principles of the French Revolution. Brissot's idea of a fair, democratic society, with universal suffrage, living in moral as well as political freedom, foreshadowed many modern liberationist ideologies.<ref>Leonore Loft, Passion, Politics, and Philosophie : Rediscovering J.-P. Brissot, (2001)</ref>

Brissot was also very interested in science. He was a strong disciple of Sextus Empiricus and applied those theories to modern science at the time in order to make knowledge well known about the enlightenment of Ethos.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The varying actions of Brissot in the 1780s also helped create a key understanding of how the Enlightenment Republic of letters was transformed into a revolutionary Republic of Letters.<ref>Denna Goodman, "Conclusion", pp. 73 in: The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French enlightenment, (1994)</ref>

The Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition, remarked: "Brissot was quick, eager, impetuous, and a man of wide knowledge. However, he was indecisive, and not qualified to struggle against the fierce energies roused by the events of the Revolution."<ref name="Encyclopedia Britannica" /> Brissot's stance on the King's execution and the war with Austria, and his moderate views on the Revolution intensified the friction between the Girondins and Montagnards, who allied themselves with disaffected sans-culottes. Brissot ultimately attempted to rein in the violence and excesses of the Revolution by calling for the reinstatement of the constitutional monarchy that had been established by the French Constitution of 1791, a ploy that landed on deaf ears.

WorksEdit

File:Brissot de Warville, Jacques-Pierre – Bibliotheque philosophique du législateur, du politique, du jurisconsulte, 1782 – BEIC 14185061.jpg

Bibliothèque philosophique du Législateur, du Politique, du Jurisconsulte, 1782

Recherches philosophiques sur le droit de propriété considéré dans la nature, pour servir de premier chapitre à la "Théorie des lois" de M. Linguet, Paris, 1780, 128 p., in-8°.
Bibliothèque philosophique du Législateur, du Politique et du Jurisconsulte, Berlin et Paris, 1782–1786, 10 vol. in-8°.
Moyens d'adoucir la rigueur des lois pénales en France sans nuire à la sécurité publique, Discours couronné par l'Académie de Châlons-sur-Marne en 1780, Châlons, 1781, in-8°.
Théorie des lois criminelles, Paris, 1781, 2 vol. in-8°.
De la Vérité des Méditations sur les moyens de parvenir à la vérité dans toutes les connaissances humaines, Neufchâtel et Paris, 1782, in-8°.
Discours sur la nécessité de maintenir le décret rendu le 13 mai 1791, en faveur des hommes de couleur libres, prononcé le 12 septembre 1791, à la séance de la Société des Amis de la Constitution, séante aux jacobins.
Discours sur la nécessité politique de révoquer le décret du 24 septembre 1791, pour mettre fin aux troubles de Saint Domingue; prononcé à l'Assemblée nationale, le 2 mars 1792. Par J.P. Brissot, député du département de Paris, Paris : De l'Imprimerie du patriote françois, 1792.
Correspondance universelle sur ce qui intéresse le bonheur de l'homme et de la société, Londres et Neufchâtel, 1783, 2 vol. in-8°.
Journal du Lycée de Londres, ou Tableau des sciences et des arts en Angleterre, Londres et Paris, 1784.
Tableau de la situation actuelle des Anglais dans les Indes orientales, et Tableau de l'Inde en général, ibid., 1784, in-8°.
L'Autorité législative de Rome anéantie, Paris, 1785, in-8°, réimprimé sous le titre : Rome jugée, l'autorité du pape anéantie, pour servir de réponse aux bulles passées, nouvelles et futures du pape, ibid., 1731, m-g.
Examen critique des voyages dans l'Amérique septentrionale, de M. le marquis de Chatellux, ou Lettre à M. le marquis de Chatellux, dans laquelle on réfute principalement ses opinions sur les quakers, sur les nègres, sur le peuple et sur l'homme, par J.-P. Brissot de Warville, Londres, 1786, in-8°.
Discours sur la Rareté du numéraire, et sur les moyens d'y remédier, 1790, in-8°.
Mémoire sur les Noirs de l'Amérique septentrionale, 1790, in-8°.
Voyage aux États-Unis, 1791.
De la France et des Etats-Unis; ou Vlmportance de la Revolution de VAmerique pour le Bon- heur de la Fran, 1787

His Mémoires and his Testament politique (4 vol.) were published in 1829–1832 by his sons with François Mongin de Montrol:

Mémoires de Brissot... sur ses contemporains, et la révolution française; publ. par son fils; notes et éclaircissements hist. par M.F. de Montrol, 1830–1832; Vol. I (1830); Vol. II (1830); Vol. III (1832); Vol. IV (1832).

NotesEdit

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SourcesEdit

External linksEdit

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Full text online versions of pamphlets written by Jacques Pierre Brissot from the Ball State University Digital Media Repository

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Jacques Pierre Brissot

Contents

Early life and familyEdit

Writer on social causesEdit

AbolitionistsEdit

French RevolutionEdit

Champ de Mars Massacre involvementEdit

Foreign policyEdit

ElectionEdit

Arrest and executionEdit

Spying allegationsEdit

LegacyEdit

WorksEdit

See alsoEdit

NotesEdit

SourcesEdit

Further readingEdit

External linksEdit