Jacques Guillaume Simonneau

Jacques Guillaume Simonneau or Simonneau or even Simonneau de Preslin was born the January 14th 1740 with Étampes and he is assassinated the March 3rd 1792 in his birthplace.

Small industrialist, mayor of Étampes since 1791, Jacques Guillaume Simonneau is victim of what resembles a riot frumentaire, the March 3rd 1792, a few months before the Journée of August 10th, 1792 and the Massacres of September. He receives blows of stick, wounded of two rifle shots, and is mortally struck of a blow of saber by a rider of his escort, wanting to make him release his reins in order to flee. Its body undergoes insults. Shocked the legislative Assemblée pays an imposing homage to him by specifying that this mayor wanted just to defend the law, but after this drama, violence will spread and two of its assassins will be slackened.

Its family

The great-grandfather of Jacques Guillaume Simonneau de Preslin, Jacques Simonneau, is merchant with Châtres, beside Arpajon, but his/her grandfather, Etienne Simonneau (1680-1745), is officer in the king (wardrobe) and dies in Étampes. The parents of Jacques Guillaume Simonneau de Preslin, Pierre and Marie Leclerc are of the middle-class men, neither immensely rich person, nor anoblis. Admittedly, one of his/her brothers, Pierre Etienne is to advise of the king, lieutenant particular to the baillage of Étampes, but an estimate of its office to the royal baillage with Étampes at November 17th, 1771 specifies that it is worth only 7.200 books. He is married with Marie-Anne Proux of the River, which is the girl of a First clerk of the Navy, person in charge of the office of the colonies, and aunt of Madam Agathe de Rambaud. Jacques Guillaume Simonneau has three children, two wire and a girl.

Biography

Its life before the March 3rd 1792

With Stamps, like everywhere, of the registers of grievances are written and the deputies elected for the General states of 1789, where they are not distinguished particularly. In spite of an increasingly difficult daily life, the calm reign and Étampois follow the Parisian events by far. Simonneau is tanner with Étampes, having more than sixty workmen to his orders, and it is cherished them all like a good father . It is in favor of the reforms of 89 and is elected mayor of the locality at the time of the elections of 1791. Simonneau is characterized by his justice and his firmness to make carry out the laws . Simonneau is one of the member Société of the friends of the constitution or Club of the Jacobins.

Nevertheless since the end of the Years 1790 a climate of insecurity, particularly felt in rural environment, settles. The obsession of the Food shortage S and Famine S re-appears in the campaigns of revolutionary France. They are difficult years. Part of the rural populations are pushed on the roads, reduced to the begging and the armed robbery. The principal affected regions are the Picardy, the Normandy, the Île-de-France.

France under the Old mode already knew these riots frumentaires, which had with misery. But in 1792, as the value of the Assignat starts to fall and that harvests are very bad, the price of the products of great need increases much more quickly than the wages. The Législative proclaims the martial law. Jacques Guillaume Simonneau tries to make it apply and to protect the peasants and the merchants from Étampes. Because, of the seditious bands several thousands of men armed in any case, having at their head of the municipal officers, who walk of liking or force, traverse the departments close to Paris and arbitrarily tax the food products on the markets .

the business Simonneau

Saturday, March 3, 1792, day of the murder, twelve or fifteen men enter at five o'clock in the morning Boissy-under-Saint-Yon, with four miles of Étampes, coming from the surroundings of Montlhéry and Ferté-Went It. They there beat the general one, awake the priest, and sound the alarm bell. Frightened inhabitants, and the municipal ones being run, these foreigners proclaim their project of going to Étampes to make tax the price of corn. While the municipal ones went to deliberate in the common house, the instigators threatened, if one balances to follow them, to even set fire to the city per hour…. and one put oneself at their continuation. Even operation and even success on all the road, to the town of Stamps, where the enlarged troop appears around seven hours of the morning…

On the market of Stamps seven hours of agitations and tumult lead the mayor to react. Simonneau goes to the common house, preparing himself to turn over with the municipality on the place of the market, in spite of the opposition and the authorities of his friends. He asks, for the last time, with the officer who orders the detachment made up of 80 men of the 18th regiment of cavalry, above Berri:

- If him, officer, it could count on its troop , with what the officer answered: - As on myself. .

The day before this officer had required cartridges and the mayor had made some to him give, what displeased with the troop . The writer of the universal Moniteur notices that the cartridges had been distributed the day before. That wants to say that the elected officials and the soldiers prepared certainly with riots with Étampes.

The remarks of the officer, who however is with the current that its men refuse to take along of the charged snap hooks, reassure Simonneau. He goes on the market only with this escort and some elected officials. Around sixteen hours, the detachment of cavalry, having the mayor and the municipality in his center, advance on the place of the market, and there is not only one rider which has a snap hook.

Arrived on the place of the Saint-Gilles market, the detachment having always in its center the mayor and the municipality, is turned by the people. This one known as with the rioters:

- My life is with you, you can kill me; but I will not miss with my duty; the law defends me what you require of me .

As he does not want to oblige the peasants and the merchants to decrease the price of their corn and the bread, he is struck several blows of sticks in the middle of the soldiers. And then, the first and the second rifle shot are drawn on the mayor from Étampes. The 80 soldiers flee. There remain only two riders, and the unhappy mayor expiring, who seizes the support of the horses, while shouting:

- has me! my friends!

One of these riders is released by a blow from saber which cuts down the arm of the mayor already expiring. The prosecutor of the commune, Sédillon, is seriously wounded. The made murder, the withdrawn troop, the scélérats remained Masters of the place. More than twenty rifle shots are drawn on the corpse from the unfortunate mayor , and all the horrors of Cannibals were exerted on its disfigured and palpitating remainders . The fifteen scélérats having made ravel their troop with the sound of the drum on the corpse, only object of their plot, are withdrawn and leave Étampes, drum beating, while shouting: Lives the nation! .

The writer of the universal Moniteur will wonder about this drama. By testimonys of its readers, he will learn that the leaders before arriving at the market went to drink with three quarters of mile of Étampes, in a village which one calls Saint-Michel. There, they were enivrés, and by paying a rather large expenditure, they let see quantity of assignats. This fact is undeniable. Other notices essential: while on the market the rioters massacred the mayor to obtain cheap corn, several of the leaders were presented in corn chandlers, requiring that it be sold to them with 24 books. One of the merchants, Mr. Hamony, theirs offered itself to 22 books and only one bag did not sell any. No merchant is not plundered on the Saint-Gilles market… one did not remove a corn grain, as at the time of a normal riot frumentaire. The mayor is killed with rifle shot and not instruments of tilling. However will no serious investigation make it possible to know to know for which reason or for which act this March 3rd, 1792 these twelve or fifteen men?

National ceremony

The murder finds a great repercussion in all France.

The National guard complains with the municipality about Paris about the scandal about its silence. She asks legislative Assemblée that the memory of the Simonneau mayor is devoted by a public festival. This wish is also that of the popular Sociétés. The legislative Assemblée sees as a Simonneau a martyr of Freedom and Fidelity with the Law.

Antoine Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy, appointed of the department of Paris to the legislative Assemblée makes issue on May 12th, 1792, in spite of a sharp opposition of the left, a festival to honor the memory with Jacques Guillaume Simonneau.

The legislative Assemblée makes celebrate in its memory a Fête of the Law , on June 3rd, 1792, with Paris. She wants to decree a monument to him on the Saint-Gilles place, where he was assassinated.

Other cities organize funeral services. With Blois, it is the abbot Gregoire which is the author of the speech that he pronounces in the cathedral.

Jean-Charles Jumel pronounces L ' Funeral oration of Jacques Guillaume Simonneau, mayor of Prints martyr of the law, on March 29th, with the solemn service celebrated in the church cathedral of Tulle .

To Paris, a lugubrious and touching music, two hundred and thousand spectators, the gendarmerie with foot, the sixty battalions of the national guard, a stone model of the Bastille, delegations of the forty-eight sections of the capital, go preceded by a bearing flag for inscription Indivisibles, the representatives of the various courts, the brave men citizens who defended it, of the groups of old men, children, women… of the deputies… five regiments of troops of line or hunters, that of the Swiss guards, pay homage to him. Even the David painter composed a gigantic work of art.

This procession goes to the field of the Federation by the boulevards, the place Louis XV and the bridge Louis XVI.

The funeral ceremony in the honor of Jacques Guillaume Simonneau, mayor of Stamps, on June 3rd 1792 takes place in the church of the Madeleine, who is not yet completely finished.

Sunday June 3rd 1792, at the time a national ceremony, devoted to the respect of the law one hangs to the vaults the Pantheon of Paris the tri-colored scarf of the mayor of Étampes, Jacques Guillaume Simonneau, died on March 3rd, 1792, victim of its devotion to the Fatherland.

The judgment of the culprits

A judgment is given to Versailles, on July 22nd, 1792. He condemns to the capital punishment named the Gerard Henri, former gamekeeper with Étampes, and Gabriel Donkey, carter with Étampes, former police officer. In this judgment it is known as that these two individuals would be carried out with Étampes, on the Saint-Gilles place and would be led to the scaffold vêtus of a red shirt ; but the events of the Revolution precipitating, condemned, protected by Robespierre, will not be guillotines.

national guards Marseilles and Parisian directed by Claude Baker-The Heir known as Baker American , will remain with Étampes and will release the prisoners. Its men are the authors of the Massacres of September 9th, 1792 in Versailles.

The opinion of the French

The extent of the festivals and the participation of the people and the elected officials in these imposing festivals show that the majority of the French reject this assassination. Of course with the Palate of Tileries, the 700 close relations of the royal family worry some. Madam de Tourzel in her Mémoires will write: France was delivered in all its provinces to the most dreadful armed robberies. Wood were devastated, the plundered attics, the circulation of the grains stopped by peasants, who, under pretext of the fear of food shortage, refused to let them leave the province where they abounded to feed those which missed some, though they had paid them in advance. The rich person owners were not any more in safety against plunderings; all announced a prompt dissolution. Simonneau, mayor of Stamps having wanted to be opposed to these excesses, was assassinated by these furious, which chopped in parts a farmer of the surroundings .

Like all the rich person, it is suspected of being a monopolizer and of supporting the speculation. But work of its trade makes remain more than thirty families and him and them his do not act of anything like speculators. After its death, his/her son will leave his studies to put at the head commercial of his/her father, less to increase his already sufficient fortune to have a happy existence, but in the intention supporting a commercial firm useful to a great number of hard families. It is the first consolation which this worthy young man will be able to give to his sizeable mother His wife is a good citizen , like her husband and his son, she will refuse the important pecuniary compensations that the president of the National Assembly offers to him for his children. public fortune must be held for the people without resources.

The charges against Simonneau in March 1792 are badly perceived.