Jacques Pierre Brissot (; 15 January 1754 – 31 October 1793), also known as Brissot de Warville, was a French journalist, abolitionist, and revolutionary leading the faction of the Girondins (initially called Brissotins) at the National Convention in Paris.
Born in Chartres, Brissot trained as a law clerk, but acquired notoriety as a radical writer and journalist, winning the approval of Voltaire for his writings on the philosophy of law. He collaborated on the Mercure de France and the Courier de l'Europe, which sympathized with the insurgents in the American colonies.
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 an intimate friend of Jean-Paul Marat in the 1780s, but from 1792 they became bitter political 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. Conflicts with Robespierre, who accused him of royalism, eventually brought about his downfall.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 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. At the end of October 1793, he was guillotined along with 28 other Girondins by Charles-Henri Sanson.Sanson Memoirs Vol II p.70
Early life and family
Brissot was born in Chartres, the 13th child of a wealthy traiteur; but nine of his siblings died at infancy.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) 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. 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.New Travels in the United States of America, p. V He decided to "anglicize" his last name by appending "Warville", after Ouarville, where his mother owned property.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) Brissot inherited a substantial amount of livres when his father died. 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. During a month-long stay with the affluent sugar and coffee planter Pierre-Alexandre DuPeyrou, Brissot found himself immersed in intellectual discourse.J.P. Brissot Mémoires (1754-1793), p. XXII 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. 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.New Travels in the United States of America, p. VI, VII Meanwhile, she translated English works, including those by Oliver Goldsmith and Robert Dodsley.
Writer on social causes
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. 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.The innocence of Jacques-Pierre Brissot, p. 850 He was in conflict with Charles Théveneau de Morande. The plan was unsuccessful and Brissot lost his investments. In May he was arrested and put in jail at Gray's Inn Road; a friend paid the printer for the prospectus.New Travels in the United States of America, p. VII 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.The innocence of Jacques-Pierre Brissot, p. 853 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.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) He was influenced by the dissenters Richard Price and Joseph Priestley.
In 1785, Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, an admirer of Britain's Westminster system and constitutional monarchy and the main opponent of France's absolute monarchy, approved Brissot's plan to dispatch the 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. However, 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 the founding of an abolitionist group modeled after the British 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 William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson into French. On his first trip to London, Saint-Georges passed Brissot's request to British abolitionists, who complied by translating their publications into French for his fledgling abolitionist society. Banat assumes Saint-Georges met with them again, 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; the book extoiled the economic benefits to France stemming from the American Revolution and encouraged french emulation of American liberty. 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 the Abbé Sièyes, and then to Amsterdam where they met with Dutch banker Pieter Stadnitski.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=0642292.0035.012Rosendaal, J.G.M.M. (2005) De Nederlandse Revolutie. Vrijheid, volk en vaderland 1783–1799, p. 242, 245. By the end of September they were back in Paris.Perroud, C. (1912) Correspondance et papiers de Brissot, p. XLIV, 161. At some time Stadnitsky decided sent Brissot as an undercover asset scout to Philadelphia.Mémoires de Brissot / avec introduction, notices et notes par M. de Lescure, p. 407
Abolitionists
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 British abolitionists. After returning to Paris on 19 February 1788, he and Clavière founded an abolitionist group known as the Society of the Friends of the Blacks 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."David Andress, 1789: The Threshold of the Modern Age, 87. 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. In 1789 he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Brissot was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1789.
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. 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.
French Revolution