Louis Legendre
Louis Legendre(French pronunciation:[lwiləʒɑ̃dʁ];22 May 1752 – 13 December 1797) was a French politician of theRevolution period.
Early activities[edit]
Born atVersailles,he was keeping a butcher's shop inSaint Germain,Paris,by 1789. He was an ardent supporter of the ideas of the Revolution and a leader of theStorming of the Bastille;a close friend ofGeorges Danton,Legendre was a member of theJacobin Club,and one of the founders of the club of theCordeliers.In spite of hisdictionproblems and lack of education, he became a notedorator.
He was present in the crowd that demanded the removal ofKingLouis XVIonChamp de Marsin July 1791 (and during the subsequent massacre ordered byJean Sylvain Bailly). Louis Legendre also took part in the10 August attackon theTuileries Palace(1792).
It was alleged that the day before the execution, on 20 January, he made a motion in the tribune of the Jacobins that the body of the ex-king be divided into 84 pieces so that one could send one to each of the 84 departments of the Republic.[1]
Convention and Terror[edit]
Deputy for theSeinedépartementto theNational Convention,he joined the non-affiliated group led byJean-Paul Marat,and voted for theexecutionof Louis XVI. He was sent on missions toLyon(in February 1793, before the town revolted) and to theSeine-Inférieure(from August to October 1793). Upon his return from Lyon, he was singled out as a moderate by the Jacobins, but became an adversary of theGirondistsafter clashes withCount Lanjuinais- as a member of theCommittee of General Securityduring theReign of Terror,he contributed to the downfall of the group; he was excluded by the Cordeliers afterJacques Hébertaccused him of favoringMaximilien Robespierre.
WithLouis LouchetandJean-François Delacroix,he was again on mission toRouen,and was accused by Hébert of supporting theRoyalists.Legendre also supported Danton in early March 1794, but ultimately sided with Robespierre after the latter threatened him with theguillotine.
Reaction and Directory[edit]
From that moment until July, he remained inactive. On 27 July, the start of theThermidorian Reaction,Legendre, after having signed his name on the list of speakers, would have askedJacques-Alexis Thuriot de la Rosière(one of theputschleaders): "Strike my name off. I shall see how this turns out".As Robespierre's fall seemed inevitable, Legendre sided with the Reaction, and led troops againstputschesof Jacobins andCharles Pichegru(1795).
He was elected president of the convention, and helped bring about theimpeachmentofJean-Baptiste Carrier,the perpetrator of mass executions by drowning (noyades) of royalist sympathizers. He was subsequently elected a member of theCouncil of Ancients.During theFrench Directory,Legendre was elected to theCouncil of Five Hundred,but was already suffering fromdementia.
Mistaken identity[edit]
For two centuries, until the recent discovery of the error in 2005, books, paintings and articles have incorrectly printed a side-view portrait of Louis Legendre as that of the French mathematicianAdrien-Marie Legendre(1752–1833). The error arose from the fact that the sketch was labelled simply "Legendre". The error was only corrected when an 1820 book containing the sketches of seventy-three famous French mathematicians was discovered in 2008.[2]
References[edit]
- ^assemblee-nationale.fr,French National Assembly,On prétendit que la veille de l'exécution, le 20 janvier, il fit à la tribune des Jacobins la motion que le corps de l'ex-roi fût divisé en 84 morceaux afin qu'on pût en envoyer un à chacun des 84 départements de la République.
- ^abDuren, Peter (December 2019)."Changing Faces: The mistaken portriate of Legendre"(PDF).Notice of the AMS.Retrieved29 February2020.
Additional sources[edit]
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911). "Legendre, Louis".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 376.In turn, it cites as reference:
- François Victor Alphonse Aulard,Les Orateurs de la Legislative et de la Convention(2nd ed., Paris, 1906, 2 vols.), and "Correspondance de Legendre"in theHistoire politique de la Révolution française(vol. xl., 1901).
- Duren, Peter (December 2009)."Changing Faces: The Mistaken Portrait of Legendre"(PDF).Notices of the AMS.56(11): 1440–1443, 1455.
