Jean Valz

Born in 1746 in the Gard (Gallician?), deceased in 1794 with Nimes (guillotine).

Protesting, farmer and fortunate trader of Nimes and the Camargue, though respected republican and member of an influential family, he was shown under the French revolution of moderantism.

He was condemned to died like Fédéraliste, by the criminal court of the Département of Gard.

He was one of the very last victims of the Terreur.

Biography

Member as of the summer 1790 of the “Club of the Friends of the Constitution” which is then the absolute master of the town of Nimes, of the district and the Département of Gard. Its reign will last until the crushing of the Fédéralisme (of which Jean Valz is in favor).

The Huguenots - whose Jean Valz- take share with the election of the constitutional bishop, while the catholics abstain from, and that quantity of priests flee towards the Ardèche. They are the easy middle-class men who direct the department then. Then, in 1793, the revolution is radicalized and the “mountain” (started from Robespierre) take the top.

The notable ones are disarmed and social antagonisms override religious solidarity and goes until dividing the Protestants.

In spite of the reaction of the Protestant middle-class men and catholics against the popular company and radical middle-class man, the federalistic insurrection is abandoned as of the end 1793.

The Terreur is then very strong with Nimes (much more than elsewhere in province, except in the south, of Marseilles and Toulouse) which imitates Paris in antagonisms of classes. Thus, though well-known in Gard as being republican, Jean Valz, Administrator of city of Nimes (as Louis Mazelet whose great nephew will marry the grand-daughter of Jean Valz), member of the Inspection committee, member of the " Républicaine" company; and also First Administrator of the district of Sommières, is accused of moderantism and Fédéralisme, and is condemned to go up on the scaffold drawn up on the Esplanade of Nimes on Thermidor 1 of Year II - on July 19th 1794 - (with 16 others condemned, all members of the district of Nimes and the departmental council), it was one of the very last victims of the Terreur.

They are in particular denounced by the new First municipal officer (Mayor), Courbis, rejoined with the current of Robespierre.

The text of charge is the following: " Shown to have tried to deteriorate and even to break the unit and the indivisibility of the Republic, to usurp the national authority and to have put all works about it to support the plan of corruption of the citizens, the subversion of the capacities and the public spirit and to have degraded the responsibility nationale".

The true reason of the judgment is simpler: Jean Valz was a Protestant fortunate and influential rejoined with the Fédéralisme.

The Protestant , proportionally with the total population, undergo much more the mode of the Terreur.

That is explained easily: the trade and industry are at that time with Nimes primarily with the hands of reformed (for two essential reasons: it is then one of rare the profession " publique" who their is authorized to exert; persecutions and exiles finally created a network protesting through Europe), and they are especially the traders nîmois who embrace the cause of the Fédéralisme.

N.B. : A relative of Jean Valz becomes the First municipal officer (Mayor) of the town of Nimes less than one year later (Vincent Valz).

Courbis, with the fall of the Terreur, is massacred in a spontaneous rising of the people.

Jean Valz is the father of the astronomer Benjamin Valz and notable the nîmois Charles Isidore Valz. It is also the son-in-law of the naturalist Pierre Baux. His/her beautiful daughter is the sister of David Dombre. Marie Valz, a relationship, repurchased the Convent of the Ursulines at the 19th century to offer it to the Protestants under the denomination of " Small Temple".

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Jean Valz

Biography

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