Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve

Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve (Chartres, 1756 – Saint-Émilion, 1794) was a French revolutionary.

Biography

Son of a Chartres procurator; He qualified as a lawyer in 1778, tried to make a name for himself in literature and wrote Sur les moyens de prévenir l’ infanticide (“about the means of preventing infanticide”).

He was elected member, for Chartres, of the States General. He was one of the leaders of the Jacobins, belonging to the left of the Constituent Assembly. After the flight of the royal family in June 1791, he was one of those in charge, along with Antoine Barnave and Charles César de Fay, Count of Latour-Maubourg, of bringing them back to Paris. A constitutional monarchist, he was elected mayor of Paris in November 1791 to the detriment of Bailly.

Due to his weakness and lack of reaction, he facilitated the anti-monarchist demonstration of June 20, 1792 carried out against Louis XVI.

Elected deputy of Eure-et-Loire in the National Convention, he became the first president on September 20, 1792, confronting Robespierre and allying himself with the Girondists, from whom he was expelled on June 2, 1793. He tried to revolt in Normandy against the National Convention, but failed.

Once his arrest was ordered, he managed to escape and take refuge in Bordeaux, in the south of France. He hanged himself in the Catol Forest on June 18, 1794.