Jean Antoine Rossignol

Jean Antoine Rossignol , (born the November 7th 1759 with Paris - died the April 27th 1802 with Anjouan, an island of the archipelago of the the Comoros) was a general of the French revolution.

Biography

“I was born from a poor family. Late my father was Bourguignon. He came to Paris and, after a few years, he sought to marry. He thus became acquainted with my mother and they married. Of the five children whom they had, three boys and two girls, I was the last”. Thus start the Mémoires of Jean Antoine Rossignol, published in 1820 per Victor Barrucand.

In 1774, at fourteen years, after three years of training as workman Goldsmith, Nightingale, full with illusions and wanting to be its own Master, share in province. Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Niort are the stages of this initiatory voyage, which quickly makes him regret having left Paris, where it returns at the end of six months.

In front of the difficulty of finding work, it engages in the army under the Ancien Mode. The August 13rd 1775, it integrates into Dunkirk the regiment of infantry Royal-Roussillon.

When the Révolution bursts, Jean Antoine Rossignol is in Paris. “The July 12th 89 I did not know anything the Revolution, and I did not suspect in any manner of all that one could try”, it in its Mémoires notes.

Winner of the Bastille (July 14th 1789), it takes part in the revolutionary days of the June 20th and the August 10th 1792 (it is perhaps him which cut down Galiot Mandat of Grancey on August 10th).

Lieutenant-colonel of gendarmerie in 1793, Brigadier general in the Vendée, under the protection of the general Charles Philippe Ronsin, it is named general-in-chief of the Armée with the West the July 27th 1793. He devotes himself to many plunderings and gains some successes. He is relieved the August 23rd 1793 by Léonard Bourdon and Philippe Charles Aimé Goupilleau de Montaigu, he nevertheless is defended by Georges Danton and is restored the August 28th 1793 by the Convention, supported by Robespierre and Hébert with the Club of the Jacobins in September 1793. He becomes then general-in-chief of the three armies of Brest, the West and Cherbourg the November 12th 1793 (22 brumaire year II). He is several times restored in spite of his many failures and a notorious incapacity.

Nightingale, general, are accused of impéritie. The plan which he proposed to lawyers of the council of war of Saumur was described as absurdity by virtuous and the not very clear-sighted Philippeaux and by the warriors of the Armée with Mainz interested in the circumstance. Nightingale insists and shows that the project which it supports is the only one that one can carry out. The votes are also divided. “I see what it is, known as in Rossignol substance, the plan is indisputable, and it is me which obstructs you; eh well, I withdraw myself: one should not lower our great decision until personal competitions; I agree to be used under the orders as Canclaux, to put an end to any quarrel, if Canclaux wants to order the walk which is essential”.

This beautiful movement did not decide anybody and Nightingale, while abstaining from taking share with the second vote, made it possible its presumptuous contradictors to triumph in theory, but in theory only, because revolving walk that they had conceived had as as result the delays that one knows and the glorious defeat of Mayençais themselves.

One could believe that the plan of Nightingale, this ignorant general, was not better, but we have on this point an authority of some value, that of Napoleon i which, judging remotely the operations of the Vendean war, declares that the only party to be taken to the Council of Saumur was to go directly and masses some, and Napoleon remade in some lines the plan suggested by Rossignol.

The control of the general Nightingale in the Vendée, like that of all the generals hebertists, was badly appreciated by historians who judged passions by far. The opinion of the general Turreau consigned in its “ Memories to be used for the history of the Vendée ”, is more close to the truth and the interior reasons which governed the destiny of the Rossignol general.

Finally relieved by the Committee of Public Hello, in April 1794, following dissensions with Billaud-Game preserve (at the time of the mission of the mountain deputy with Saint-Malo), it was withdrawn with Orleans, returning in the civil life. Imprisoned a few days after Thermidor, it was compromised in the conspiracy of Equal the, but managed to be cleared before the High court of Vendôme. It served without conviction the Directoire while continuing, seems it, a clandestine popular militancy in its native suburb.

After the attack of the Holy Street Nicaise, Bonaparte made use of the occasion to get rid of him. Nightingale was imprisoned, trailed prison in prison, and was condemned to the deportation with the Seychelles in 1801, with other Jacobins, then transferred to the the Comoros. Nightingale died in Anjouan in 1802. But the people refused to accept dead of his hero: it seemed that it was the suicide of the Suburb. Nightingale thus survived itself in the memories, and it gave an opinion in the legend with a bad novel in four volumes: “ the Robinson of the Suburb Saint-Anthony ”.

Random links: