Camille Desmoulins

Lucie Simplice Camille Benoist Desmoulins (March 2, 1760 – April 5, 1794) was a French journalist and politician who played an important role in the French Revolution. He was closely associated with Georges Danton.

Early life

Desmoulins was born at Guise, in Picardy. His father was lieutenant-general of the bailliage of Guise, and through the efforts of a friend obtained a scholarship for his son, who at the age of fourteen left home for Paris, and entered the Collège Louis-le-Grand. In this school, which Maximilien Robespierre and Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron also attended at the time, Desmoulins was an accomplished student. Destined by his father for the law, at the completion of his legal studies he was admitted a lawyer of the parlement of Paris in 1785. However, he had little success, as his approach was judged violent, and his speech was impaired by a serious stammer. This prompted him to turn towards writing and his interest for public affairs, and he gradually prepared himself to become a political orator.

In March 1789 Desmoulins began his political career. Having been nominated deputy from the bailliage of Guise, he arrived in Laon as one of the commissioners for the election of deputies to the States-General summoned by royal edict of January 24. Camille heralded its meeting by his Ode to the States-General. It is, moreover, highly probable that he was the author of a radical pamphlet entitled La Philosophie au peuple français, published in 1788, the text of which is not known.

July 1789

His chances for professional success were by then minimal, and he was living in Paris in extreme poverty; however, he showed enthusiasm for the political changes announced by the meeting of the States-General. As appears from his letters to his father, he watched with excitement the procession of deputies at the Palace of Versailles, and with indignation the events of the latter part of June which followed the closing of the Salle des Menus to the deputies who had named themselves the National Assembly - leading to the Tennis Court Oath. The episode shows the first signs of Desmoulins' siding with the sans-culottes.

The sudden dismissal of Jacques Necker by King Louis XVI was the event which brought Desmoulins to fame. On July 12, 1789 he leapt on a table outside one of the cafés in the garden of the Palais Royal, and announced to the crowd the dismissal of the reformer. Apparently losing his stammer due to the excitement, he addressed the passions of the public, calling "To arms!" and adding:

"This dismissal is the tocsin of the St. Bartholomew of the patriots" (meaning that a massacre of the partisans of reform was under preparation).

Finally, Desmoulins drew two pistols from under his coat, he declared that he would not fall alive into the hands of the police who were watching his movements. He descended embraced by the crowd.

This scene was the beginning of the actual events of the Revolution. Following Desmoulins, they started rioting throughout Paris, procuring arms by force, and, on July 13, it was partly organized as the Parisian militia - which was afterwards to be the National Guard. On July 14, the major event remembered as the storming of the Bastille occurred.

The following day, Desmoulins begun the most publicised phase of his writing career. In May and June 1789 he had written La France libre, which his publisher had refused to print. The taking of the Bastille, however, and the events preceding it, were a sign of changing times, and, on July 18, Desmoulins's work was issued. Considerably in advance of public opinion, it already pronounced in favour of a republic, and—through its elaborate examination of the rights of king, of nobles, of Roman Catholic clergy and of people—it became instantly popular, securing Desmoulins a partnership with Honoré Mirabeau, as well as a slander campaign carried out by Royalist pamphleteers.

Journalism

Arguably exhilarated, he appealed to the lower orders by printing his Discours de ici lanterne aux Parisiens which he headed by a quotation from the Gospel of John, Qui male agit odit lucem ("he that doth evil hateth light" ), used to argue that violence was justified; consequently, Desmoulins was dubbed "Procureur-général de la lanterne" ("The Lanterne Prosecutor").

In November 1789, he began his career as a journalist by the issue of the first number of a weekly publication, Histoire des Révolutions de France et de Brabant, which ceased to appear at the end of July 1791. The publication was extremely popular from its first to its last number - Camille became famous and was no longer poor. The Histoire des Révolutions is a measure of what ideas were in circulation in the revolutionary milieu of Paris, but it has since drawn criticism for its extremely violent tone.

Desmoulins was influenced by the theorists of the Revolution - for some time before the death of Mirabeau, in April 1791, he had begun his collaboration with Georges Danton (his associate for the rest of their lives). In July 1791, he appeared before the Parisian Commune as head of a deputation of petitioners for the deposition of the monarch, at the moment when such a request was dangerous; the gesture enhanced agitation in the city, and the frequent assaults attacks to which Desmoulins had often been subject were followed by a warrant for the arrest of himself and Danton.

Danton briefly left Paris, while Desmoulins chose to remain, and even made occasional appearances at the Jacobin Club. Upon the failure of this attempt of his opponents, Desmoulins published a pamphlet, Jean Pierre Brissot démasqué, which contained violent attacks. It had its origins in a conflict between the two, and was followed in 1793 by a Fragment de l'histoire secrète de la Révolution (or Histoire des Brissotins), in which the party of the Gironde, and especially Brissot, were subject to a populist attack.

National Convention and clash with Robespierre

Desmoulins took an active part on insurrection of the 10th of August that marked the attack of Parisians on the Tuileries Palace, and became secretary to Danton when the latter became Justice Minister. On September 8 he was elected one of the deputies for Paris to the National Convention - where he nonetheless was much less successful than as a journalist, and never occupied the foreground. He affiliated with The Mountain, and voted for the Republic and the execution of the king. Camille Desmoulins became close to Robespierre, and the Fragment de l'histoire secrète de la Révolution was very likely inspired by the latter. The success of the pamphlet—which did a lot to help install the Reign of Terror and condemn the Gironde leaders to the guillotine—proved alarming for both Danton and its author.

In December 1793 was issued the first number of the Vieux Cordelier, which was at first directed against the Hébertists (and approved of by Robespierre), but which soon formulated Danton's idea of a Committee of clemency. This caused Robespierre to turn against Desmoulins, and to take advantage of the popular indignation roused against the Hébertists to send them to death. He and Louis de Saint-Just then turned their attention to both the Enragés (Jacques Roux's faction) and the Indulgents (—the name given by Robespierre to the Cordeliers).

On January 7, 1794, Robespierre, who on a former occasion had defended Camille when in danger at the hands of the National Convention, in addressing the Jacobin Club did not recommend the expulsion of Desmoulins, but the burning of certain numbers of the Vieux Cordelier. Desmoulins replied using a quote from Jean-Jacques Rousseau (who was widely perceived as the intellectual authority for all revolutionary gestures): "burning is not answering". The implied insult led to a bitter conflict. By the end of March, the Hébertists had been guillotined, while the other side - Danton, Desmoulins and other leaders of the moderates - were placed under arrest.

Trial and execution

On March 31, the warrant of arrest was signed and executed, and on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of April the trial took place before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and was marked by impressive scenes. On being asked his age, Desmoulins replied:

"I am thirty-three, the age of the "sans-culotte" Jesus, a critical age for every patriot" (this was false; he was in fact thirty-four).

The accused were prevented from defending themselves; a decree of the Convention denied them the right of speech. This, together with the false report of a spy (who charged Desmoulins' wife with conspiring for the escape of her husband and the "ruin of the Republic"), Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville obtained a death sentence after threatening the jury. The verdict was passed in absence of the accused, and their execution was appointed for the same day. Desmoulins struggled before his death, allegedly tearing his clothes to shreds. Of the group of fifteen guillotined together (also including Marie Jean Hérault de Séchelles, François Joseph Westermann, and Pierre Philippeaux), Desmoulins died third, and Danton last.

Family

On December 29 1790 Camille had married Lucile Duplessis, and among the witnesses of the ceremony are observed the names of Brissot, Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve and Robespierre. The only child of the marriage, Horace Camille, was born on July 6, 1792. Two days afterwards Desmoulins brought it into notice by appearing with it before the Commune to demand "the formal statement of the civil estate of his son". Horace was pensioned by the French government, and died in Haiti in 1825.

Lucile was arrested a few days after her husband, and condemned to the guillotine on the basis of false charges. She displayed coolness and courage on the day of her death (April 13, 1794).

References

The Britannica gives the following references:''

J. Charette, Œuvres de Camille Desmoulins avec une étude biographique ... etc. (Paris, 1874), and Camille Desmoulins, Lucile Desmoulins, étude sur les Dantonistes (Paris, 1875; Eng. trans., London, 1876)
François Victor Alphonse Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Legislative et de la Convention (Paris, 1905, 2nd ed.)
G. Lemâitre, "La Maison de Camille Desmoulins" (Le Temps, March 25, 1899).