François Boissel (1728-1807), philosopher and writer French, is an astonishing historical personality. Lawyer with the Parliament of Paris and Justice of the Peace, archivist then Vice-president of the club of the Jacobins, he is the protestor author of about fifteen works of which the “Catechism of the mankind” which appeared in April 1789 and was a resounding success. Precursor of Communism according to Jaurès, preceding Babeuf and Saint-Simon, pioneer of feminism, ecologist before the hour, he is the “forgotten philosopher” of the French revolution. By which bizarrery of the destiny one of the burning precursors of the socialism (which denounced all at the same time the property, the religion and the marriage!) did it pass to the trap of the History? Why its name appear doesn't in the dictionary whereas theses were written on him in the Sorbonne, Moscow or Tokyo? …

Biography

Born the Merry on April 27th, 1728 with , commune located in the Department of Ardeche and the area the Rhone-Alps, in a family of merchants relatively easy, François Boissel begin his studies at the Oratoriens in Joyeuse to continue them among Jesuits with Viviers. Become lawyer, he exerts some time in Paris, before leaving to join his older brother, captain of dragons in Saint-Domingue. François Boissel is then 25 years old. While at the same time its liveliness oratory seems to promise it with a brilliant career, its Petri idealism of the humanistic ideas of the century of the lights leads it to take positions protestors with the established order in a certain number of businesses which will put a brutal crushing argument at its social life and fashionable in the island. After being itself scrambled with most of notable and growers of the island, like with his brother, it returns to Paris in 1776 to launch out in the writing and the political reflection. Untiring man of law, it emits criticisms constructive with the remarks of Fontenelle, Diderot, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and of course, Rousseau whose social Contract is used as stone of rebound. Excel Rhéteur, Boissel saw by the feather all its passions, channeled in its only will to contribute a intellectual share to the social safeguard of the individual, which it develops with smoothness and much of humanity… At the dawn of the revolutionary upheaval, the still impetuous about sixty (Robespierre will deviate some, considering it “dangerous”!), it publishes its major work “the catechism of the mankind” where it discussion with much of relevance on the obstacles, which it is a question according to him “of eliminating to support the advance of the man in the way of knowledge and autonomy”. He then denounces the private property, the religion and the marriage as the three plagues which afflict humanity in its walk towards freedom. To fight, it is also to fight against the ignorance and the constraint of the Institution. Untiring organizer of the Club of the Jacobins where it will occupy the strategic post of President of the Committee of the Files, he will become vice-president of the Club, chairing and making the official discourse during the transfer of ashes of Rousseau to the the Pantheon the 20 vendémiaire year III (on October 28th, 1794). Boissel dies in Paris in 1807, it has 79 ans.

The Boissel enigma

The life and the work of Boissel raise many questions. Among those, the reasons which will make of him, the forgotten philosopher of the revolution. The writer ardéchois, Pa Courouble, author of the book Boissel Citizen, develop in his conferences a thesis, (certainly argued but which does not remain, for the moment, that an assumption in the formal absence of historical proof) according to which Boissel one would not be forgotten “by chance” of the history, but “unobtrusive” of the history. The ideas of Boissel, which incarnates the exact one opposed political principles that the Empire will implement, its written work, would have been victim of the Napoleonean censure and the wild reprisals which will fall down on the old Jacobins mediums the shortly after the attack of the street Saint-Nicaise (December 24th, 1800).

Bibliography on Boissel

In addition to the thesis of Makoto Takahashi at the university of Tokyo (1983) and the remarkable work of Annie Rosemberg in the Sorbonne (1970), the two authors who without question contributed the most important share to the knowledge of Boissel and fact to his historical recognition are Jean Jaurès (socialist History of the French revolution) and the historian Russian academician Abgar Ioannissian (communist ideas during the French revolution).

AULARD. F: “The Company of the Jacobins”. Volumes 1 to 6. Quantin house. Paris. 1889-1897.

COUROUBLE. P.A: “Boissel Citizen”. Press South. September 2006.

COUROUBLE. P.A: “Breviary of the French revolution”. Press South. November 2006.

GRUNBERG. C: “A contribution to the genesis of modern socialism: François Boissel”. Review n° 47 of political sciences. Leipzig. 1891.

HARTIG & SOBOUL: “For a history of the Utopia in France with XVIIIe”. Company of the Robespierristes studies. 1977.

IOANNISSIAN. A: “communist ideas during the French revolution”. Editions of Progress. Moscow. 1984.

JAURES. J: “Socialist History of the French revolution”. Volumes 5 & 6. Review and annotated by A. Soboul. Social editions. 1973. 7 vol.

LACOUR. J: “Boissel and Malmazet. An uncle, vice-president of the Club of the Jacobins, with the help of his nephew, former lord of Villeneuve de Berg”. Review n° 50 of the Company of the children and friends of Villeneuve de Berg. 1994.

LICHTENBERGER. A: “socialism at the XVIIIe century”. Alcan. 1895.

LICHTENBERGER. A: “socialism and the French revolution”. Alcan. 1899.

MORNET. D: “Intellectual origins of the French revolution”. Armand Colin. Paris. 1933.

ROSEMBERG. A: “Boissel, research on the levelling Utopia at the time of the French revolution”. Control Paris I under the direction of Albert Soboul. 1970.

SAFRONOV. S: “Social Designs of Boissel”. Moscow. 1957.

SAFRONOV. S: “François Boissel, Jacobin and Communist”. Leipzig. 1961.

SOBOUL. A: “historical Dictionary of the French revolution”. PUF.1989.

TAKAHASHI. M: “François Boissel and his principles of the equality in 1789”. Thesis under the direction of Albert Soboul. Tokyo. 1983.

VOLGUINE. V: “History of the socialist ideas”. Moscow. 1928.

VOLGUINE. V: “Predecessors of contemporary socialism”. Moscow. 1928.

VOLGUINE. V: “Development of the social thought in France at the XVIIIe century”. Moscow. Editions of Progress. 1958.

WALTER. G: “History of the Jacobins”. Aimery-Somogy. 1946

The work of Boissel in some books

Boissel was an untiring writer, to diffuse his books always was for him a means of influencing the course of the events. All its written work was not transmitted to us. The majority of written works of Boissel are consultable at the National library of France or the Public records. In these last one can in particular consult the many documents, letters and correspondences seized by Convention during the arrest and the imprisonment of Boissel and which constitute a mine of information for the researcher. See the detailed bibliographies of Boissel in the chapter “Library” of the site Boissel Citizen

Speech against the public constraints. Published in 1786. Boissel gives its ideas on the man and the company. In this treaty “of urban ecology” before the letter, Boissel analyzes the problems of town plannings, circulation, pollution, insalubrity and harmful effects of the town of Paris. It makes proposals of which some will be implemented by Haussmann hundred years later. He denounces for the first time the abuses the private property.

With the General states from France assembled in Versailles, and with all the nations enlightened of Europe. May 1789. Outline a communist society project before the letter. A society project treated on a hierarchical basis conceived for the happiness of all humanity.

The catechism of mankind. Paris. April-July 1789. Develop an indictment against the “three plagues of humanity”. It presents from now on the property like the absolute evil of the company, at the origin of the wars. The religion like “an institution established by the strong spirits attacks to dominate and order the weak spirits”. in the name of a divinity whom they manufactured. Denounce the marriage by which “the women live in the slavery and under the tyranny of the men”!

The civic code of France or the Torch of freedom. P.Debray. June 1790. Propose a plan of construction of France with its political program and social, it promotes the idea of a popular and democratic State of which it defines the constitution.

Talks of the Gerard father. April 1793. It works out, for the first time in the history of the Revolution, a detailed program of revolutionary government which will become in fact, one year later, the plan of the dictatorship jacobine whose introduction will save the republic.

The regency of Pitt. 1795. One of the strongest lampoons against Convention thermidorienne. Boissel exposes its designs on the economic policy of France

Speech on the origin of the governments, follow-up of a philosophical test on the base of the religious opinions. Debray Paris. 1799. Boissel passes all the ideas that it expressed in the “Catechism of mankind” to the screen of the revolution. It denounces a fourth plague of humanity there: money, and its corollary, the speculation.

Quotations of Boissel

“The man was born to work with the happiness of his similar. ” The catechism of mankind. April 1789

“The happiness of the man is fruit of his education.” The civic code of France. November 1790

“After being itself suitable and divided the grounds, the men imagined to adapt and to share also the women. In order to have children to succeed their property. ” The Catechism of Mankind. April 1789

“By the division and the land ownership, by the marriage and the property of the women, the men could not better arrange themselves to degrade, harm and destroy the ones the others. ” The Catechism of the Humani Kind. April 1789

“The right of the property is worst values founders for our civil society! The property is not truth, but the false base of the company, it is the first usurper, the first robber of the rights of nature and the universe”. The Catechism of Mankind. April 1789

“In truth I say it to you, it is the direction of the property which is the original sin on ground, it is the disease which infected humanity and caused all its misfortunes”. The Catechism of the Humai Kind. April 1789

“Nature did not give birth to us armed with daggers. It either did not order us to be the torturers of our similar”. The catechism of mankind. April 1789

“Thus Let us start by choking this monstrous and abominable institution of the right to the war while renonçant with the property, i.e. with this primitive need to dominate”. The catechism of mankind. April 1789

“The policy is art to compensate the weakness of the body by the force of the spirit. And the law as for it, does not have an other function only to ensure the social maintenance of the human rights. ” The catechism of mankind. April 1789

“In my opinion the woman is higher than the man. ” The catechism of mankind. April 1789

“The woman is the mother of mankind, it is it which carries and generates humanity. It is in our connection, which is the Master of the Universe with regard to very whole creation”. The catechism of mankind. April 1789

“It is well in the heart of a mother that nature and its author threw the true ones and more solid bases of any human society: love”. The catechism of mankind. April 1789

“It is in the woman that the Universe placed the means of operating the happiness of our destiny present”. The catechism of mankind. April 1789

“The religion is an institution established originally by the strong spirits to dominate and order the weak spirits”. The catechism of mankind. April 1789

“All the religions are only inventions of the man impostor, transmitted and perpetuated by the ignorance and the credulity of the greatest number”. The catechism of mankind. April 1789

“It is in the heart of a mother that nature and its author threw the true ones and more solid bases of any human society: love”. The catechism of mankind. April 1789

External bonds

Culture and Inheritance in Joyeusain Country

Boissel is celebrated in its commune of birth, Joyeuse in Ardeche, in particular by the Association CPPJ which revives its character at the time of his traditional dramatized guided visits.

Ring François Boissel

Association created to celebrate the bicentenary of its death. Very complete site which was created by Pierre-Antoine Courouble. It allows in particular a reading on line of seven original works of Boissel.

Catalog National library of France To type Boissel François and to notch " contains the mots".

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