Brissot, Jacques-Pierre

(1754-1793)

   journalist, political figure

   Known also as Brissot de Warville, Jacques-Pierre Brissot, a leading figure of the French revolution of 1789, was born in Chartres. After having served in the procurator's offices in Paris, he threw himself into political writing, affirming himself as a partisan of the new revolutionary ideas of the time. He traveled to England, where he collaborated on the editing of the Courrier de l'Europe, to Holland, and to the united states, where he became interested in the problems of race and racism. Upon his return to France, he founded the newspaper Le Patriote français and an antislavery group, the societé des amis des Noirs. A member of the Jacobin Club (see jacobins) at the beginning of the Revolution, he called for the proclamation of a republic after the flight of the king to Varennes (June 20-21, 1791). He also helped to write the petition that was brought to the Champ-de-Mars (July 17, 1791). Elected deputy to the Legislative Assembly, he sat with the Left and, being one of the leaders of the girondins (sometimes identified as "Brissotin"), took a firm stand in favor of a declaration of war against Austria. Reelected to the Convention, he vehemently opposed the montagnards and, most particularly, maximilien Robespierre. Proscribed along with the other Girondin leaders (June 2, 1793), he succeeded in fleeing but was arrested at Moulins, tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal, and guillotined. Besides his Mémoires (published 1830), Brissot left a work on criminology (Théorie des lois criminelles, 1781) and a political study entitled De la France et des États-Unis (1787).