Lanjuinais, Jean-Denis, count

(1753-1827)

   political figure

   Born in Rennes, where he was an attorney, Jean-Denis, count Lanjuinais, was a deputy for the Third Estate to the estates general in 1789. With isaac le chapelier, he helped to found the Breton Club, which soon became the jacobin club (1789), and he played a role in the reforms put forth by the National Constituent Assembly (civil and clerical constitutions, secularization of the civil state) during the revolution of 1789. In the Convention, he took a position against the Montagnards and was proscribed with the girondins (1793). During the Thermidorian Convention, he worked on the development of the Constitution of the Year III (1795). Deputy for Ille-et-Vilaine, senator (1800), and opposed to the consulate for life and the Empire, he was nonetheless made a count (1808). A supporter of the abdication of napoléon i, Jean-Denis, count Lanjuinais became a member of the Chamber of Peers under the Restoration.