Pierre Gaspard Chaumette facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Pierre Gaspard Anaxagore Chaumette
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Pierre Gaspard Anaxagore Chaumette
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| Born | 24 May 1763 |
| Died | 13 April 1794 (aged 30) |
| Nationality | French |
| Alma mater | University of Paris |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Botany Politics |
Pierre Gaspard Anaxagore Chaumette (born May 24, 1763 – died April 13, 1794) was an important French politician during the French Revolution. He was the leader of the Paris Commune, a powerful local government in Paris. Chaumette played a big part in starting the Reign of Terror, a time when many people were arrested and executed. He was known for his extreme ideas, especially his strong dislike of Christianity. These strong views eventually led to disagreements with Maximilien Robespierre, another powerful leader, and Chaumette was arrested and executed.
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Pierre Chaumette's Early Life and Career
Pierre Chaumette was born in Nevers, France, on May 24, 1763. His family were shoemakers and wanted him to become a priest. However, he was not interested in a church career. Instead, he decided to become a sailor, working as a cabin boy. He only reached the rank of helmsman, which is a person who steers a ship.
After his time at sea, Chaumette returned to Nevers. He wanted to study botany (the study of plants) and science. He also studied surgery and traveled with an English doctor, working as his secretary. Later, he became a surgeon at a hospital in Moulins. In 1790, he studied medicine at the University of Paris. But when the French Revolution began, he stopped his medical career to focus on politics.
Joining the Revolution
Chaumette started his political journey as a member of the Jacobin Club, a famous political group. From 1790, he helped edit a newspaper called Revolutions de Paris. He was a great speaker, which made him a valuable voice for the Cordelier Club and the sans-culotte movement. The sans-culottes were ordinary working-class people who supported the revolution.
In August 1792, Chaumette became the Chief Prosecutor of the Commune of Paris. This was the local government of Paris. During a big uprising on August 10, 1792, he was given the power to visit prisons and arrest people he suspected of being against the revolution. On October 31, 1792, he was chosen as the President of the Commune. He was re-elected on December 2 of the same year.
Leading the Paris Commune
Chaumette's strong leadership and good speaking skills made him very influential. People also respected his private life. He was elected president of the Commune and defended its actions to the National Convention, which was France's main governing body. He was re-elected and soon became the procureur (a type of public prosecutor) of the Commune. He helped encourage many people in Paris to join the army.
Views on the Monarchy
Chaumette strongly disliked the monarchy. He believed that King Louis XVI should be punished for his actions. He told the National Convention that if the king was not punished, prices would stay high, and there would be shortages of goods. He thought that royalists (people who supported the king) were causing these problems. Chaumette was very clear that he wanted the king to be executed.
Against the Girondists
Chaumette was also a strong opponent of the Girondists, another political group during the revolution. He helped lead the attacks on the Girondists on May 31 and June 2, 1793. Later, in October 1793, Chaumette and Jacques Hébert acted as prosecutors in the trial that condemned the Girondists.
Starting the Reign of Terror
Chaumette played a key role in starting the Reign of Terror. In September 1793, people in Paris were worried about high prices, food shortages, and the ongoing war. On September 4, Hébert called for people to join the Commune in asking the National Convention for radical changes. The next day, crowds led by Chaumette and the mayor of Paris, Pache, filled the Convention.
Chaumette stood on a table and declared that there was "open war between the rich and the poor." He demanded that a revolutionary army be sent into the countryside to take food from those who were hoarding it and punish them. Maximilien Robespierre was leading the Convention that day. Chaumette's demands, along with the recent news that Toulon had been betrayed to the British, led the Convention to declare that "Terror will be the order of the day." This marked the official beginning of the Reign of Terror.
Chaumette's Role in Dechristianization
Chaumette is known as one of the most extreme leaders of the French Revolution. He wanted a Revolutionary Army to force rich people to share their wealth. This wealth would then be used to feed soldiers and city dwellers.
However, he is most famous for his part in the movement to remove Christianity from France. Chaumette strongly criticized Christianity, calling its ideas "ridiculous" and saying they helped "legitimize despotism" (unfair rule by a single person). His ideas were influenced by writers who believed in atheism (not believing in God) and materialism (believing that only matter exists). Chaumette thought religion was an old superstition that did not fit with the new ideas of the Age of Enlightenment. For him, the church and those against the revolution were the same thing.
He pressured many priests and bishops to give up their religious positions. Chaumette even organized a "Festival of Reason" on November 10, 1793. During this event, an actress played the "Goddess of Reason" on a platform in the Notre Dame Cathedral. He was so against Christianity that in December 1792, he publicly changed his name from Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette to Anaxagoras Chaumette. He explained that he took the name of a saint who was executed for his republican beliefs.
Chaumette's Downfall
Chaumette's very extreme ideas about the economy, society, and religion caused problems with Maximilien Robespierre and his powerful group. Soon, official opinion started to turn against Chaumette and other leaders like the Hébertists. In September 1793, Robespierre gave a speech saying that dechristianization was wrong and immoral.
Fabre d'Églantine, who was also under suspicion, accused Chaumette of being involved in a plot against the government. This accusation came from a report he made for the Committee of Public Safety.
In early 1794, people increasingly accused Chaumette of being against the revolution. Hébert and his friends planned an armed uprising to overthrow Robespierre. However, Chaumette, along with another sans-culotte leader named François Hanriot, refused to join. When the Hébertists were arrested on March 4, Chaumette was initially spared. But on March 13, he was arrested too.
The other Hébertists were executed with their leader, Jacques Hébert, on March 24, 1794. Chaumette, however, was kept in prison. He was later found guilty of being part of a prison plot at Luxembourg Palace. He was sentenced to death on the morning of April 13 and executed by guillotine that same afternoon. Other people executed with him included Lucile Desmoulins (wife of the recently executed Camille Desmoulins), Françoise Hebert (wife of the recently executed Hébert), and Gobel (the former Bishop of Paris).
Chaumette's Radical Ideas
Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette is remembered for his very extreme ideas. Even other leaders of the revolution thought his views were too much. His beliefs about religion, especially that it was useless, were not liked by Robespierre, who believed in a form of deism (belief in a God who created the universe but does not interfere). These strong beliefs ultimately led to Chaumette's execution.
Chaumette's Criticism of Religion
In 1790, Chaumette wrote a review of the work of Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, a French philosopher who wanted a society ruled by the most religious people. Chaumette's review clearly showed his own ideas. He criticized Saint-Martin's vision because it was too similar to France's old system, the feudal order, where the king's power came from a "divine right" (meaning God gave him the right to rule).
His review quickly turned into a broader attack on religion. Chaumette called all Christians "enemies of reason" and their ideas "ridiculous." He wondered who was more embarrassing: "him who believes he can deceive humans in the eighteenth century with such farces or him who has the weakness to let himself be deceived." He also criticized the idea of "free will," saying it was a concept that allowed Christianity to forbid certain actions.
Chaumette believed that humans are largely shaped by their education. He stated that "everyone knows that humans are nothing more than what education makes of them." He argued that "if one wants them just, one must furnish them with notions of fairness, not ideas from seventh heaven." He believed that "the sources of all of human's grief are ignorance and superstition."
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Pierre Gaspard Anaxagore Chaumette
See also
In Spanish: Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette para niños
