Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne

Jean-Paul Rabaut de Saint-Étienne
240px Etching of Rabaut Saint-Étienne, by Olivier Perrin, engraved by François Voyez (Carnavalet Museum)
10th President of the National Convention
In office 24 January 1793 – 7 February 1793
Preceded by	Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud
Succeeded by	Jean-Jacques Bréard
Deputy to the Estates-General for the Third Estate
Personal details
Born	(1743-11-14)14 November 1743 Nîmes, Kingdom of France
Died	Paris, French First Republic
Nationality	French
Parents	Paul Rabaut
Alma mater	University of Lausanne

Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne (French pronunciation: ​[ʒɑ̃ pɔl ʁabo sɛ̃.t‿etjɛn]; 14 November 1743 – 5 December 1793) was a French Protestant pastor, deputy of the Third Estate to the Estates General of 1789 and then of the Aube department to the National Convention.

Biography

He was born in Nîmes, the son of Paul Rabaut, pastor during the Desert in Bas-Languedoc, and Madeleine Gaidan. His brothers were Jacques Antoine Rabaut-Pommier and Pierre-Antoine Rabaut-Dupuis. He studied theology at the Academy of Geneva from July 1759 to October 17611, and attended the Lausanne Seminary from October 1763 to February 1765. He was ordained pastor in Lausanne on November 11, 1764. He became assistant pastor to his father in Nîmes, in the Basses Cévennes synod.

Rabaut Saint-Étienne strove to obtain legal rights for French Protestants and, to this end, met in Paris with the Marquis de La Fayette and Louis XVI's minister, Malesherbes, who favored legislative change in favor of Protestants. In 1786, Rabaut Saint-Étienne wrote a memoir in support of this demand. His endeavor was crowned with success, and the King promulgated the Edict of Versailles on November 7, 1787. This edict allowed Protestants to regain their civil status without having to convert to Catholicism. While regretting its limitations, Rabaut Saint-Étienne emphasized that "recognition does not exclude hope, it authorizes it".

From 1788, Rabaut Saint-Étienne no longer presented himself as a pastor. He was elected deputy for the Third Estate of the Seneschalty of Nîmes and Beaucaire to the Estates General of 1789. He took the Tennis Court Oath and was appointed commissioner for the conferences. In August 1789, he called for equal rights for Protestants and Jews, exclaiming "But, gentlemen, it's not even tolerance I'm calling for: it's liberty".

He was elected president of the Constituent Assembly from March 15 to 28, 1790, and helped draft the Constitution of 1791. He proposed several decrees concerning the organization of the national guard and the national gendarmerie. The Constituent Assembly having decreed that none of its members could serve in the Legislative Assembly, he devoted himself to writing, penning a Summary of the History of the Revolution.

One of his maxims to the Constituent Assembly will be remembered and reused: "History is not our code". In a letter to the Reformed Churches, he felt that Protestants had a role to play in the Revolution: "to prepare us to become the nation's teachers", "to make instruction flow down to the last individual".

Rabaut Saint-Étienne was elected deputy for Aube at the National Convention. Like his brother, he sits on the Gironde benches. He is elected to the Agriculture Committee. At the end of December 1792, he delivers a speech on education and instruction. He presided over the Convention from January 24 to February 7, 1793. At the trial of Louis XVI, he voted in favor of detention, then banishment in peace, and called for an appeal to the people and a stay of execution. He voted in favor of Marat's impeachment, but was absent from the vote to re-establish the Extraordinary Commission of Twelve.

Rabaut Saint-Étienne was opposed to the Paris Commune. On March 15, he was elected member of the Commission of Six responsible for overseeing the Revolutionary Tribunal. On May 21, he was appointed to the Commission of Twelve, charged with combating plots and conspiracies threatening national representation. On May 28, he issued a report justifying the arrest of the deputy Hébert.

He was denounced by Marat in his newspaper Le Publiciste de la République française. At the end of June 2, he was placed under arrest, but escaped from his Paris home. He was declared a traitor to his country. He took refuge with a Catholic compatriot, Étienne Peyssac, clerk in the Bureau des Subsistances. Discovered or betrayed, he was arrested with his brother and guillotined on Frimaire 15, Year II (December 5, 1793).

See also

• Protestantism in France

Works

• Manuel des malades ou Recueil de lectures édifiantes à l'usage des malades, des vieillards et des infirmes (1773; 1821)
• Le Vieux Cévenol ou anecdotes de la vie d'Ambroise Borély (1784)
• Le Roi doit modifier les loix portées contre les protestans. Démonstration. Avantage que la France tirerait de cette modification (1784)
• Lettres à Monsieur Bailly sur l'histoire primitive de la Grèce (1787)
• Prenez-y garde, ou avis à toutes les assemblées d’élection, qui seront convoquées pour nommer les représentants des trois ordres aux États-Généraux; précédé d’une observation importante pour les Normands (1789)
• Projet du préliminaire de la constitution françoise (1789)
• Réflexions sur la division nouvelle du Royaume, et sur les priviléges & les assemblées des provinces d'etats (1789)
• Discours de M. Rabaud de St. Étienne, dont l'impression a été ordonné par l'Assemblée nationale pour être envoyée dans toutes les provinces du royaume (1790)
• Précis de l' Histoire de la Révolution française (1791)
• Projet d'éducation nationale (1792)
• Almanach historique de la Révolution française pour l'année 1792 (1792)

References

Borello, Céline (2013). Du Désert au Royaume : parole publique et écriture protestante (1765-1788). Paris: Honoré Champion.

Borello, Céline (2014). "Les sources d'une altérité religieuse en révolution: Rabaut Saint-Étienne ou la radicalisation des représentations protestantes," Annales historiques de la Révolution française, No. 378,‎ pp. 29–49.

Cabanel, Patrick (2001). "Rabaut-Saint-Etienne, du religieux au politique," Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire du protestantisme français, Vol. CXLVII, pp. 113–24.

Clarke, Jack Alden (1957). "The Pastors of the Desert on the Eve of the French Revolution," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, pp. 113–19.

Clarke, Jack Alden (1958). "A Protestant Philosophe at the Constituent Assembly," The Historian, Vol. XX, No. 3, pp. 290–304.

Dupont, André (1989). Rabaut Saint-Étienne, 1743-1793: un protestant défenseur de la liberté religieuse. Genève: Labor et Fides.

Lods, Armand (1893). Essai sur la vie de Rabaut Saint-Étienne, pasteur à Nîmes, membre de l’Assemblée constituante et de la Convention nationale (1743-1793). Paris: Fischbacher.

Perronet Thompson, E. (1890). "A French Protestant during the Revolution: Rabaut Saint-Étienne," The Gentlemans Magazine, Vol. CCLXVIII, pp. 281–301.

Poland, Burdette C. (1957). French Protestantism and the French Revolution: A Study in Church and State, Thought and Religion, 1685–1815. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Poujol, Jacques (1989a). "Monsieur Rabaut de Saint-Étienne saisi par la Révolution," Autres Temps, No. 22, pp. 29–43.

Poujol, Jacques (1989b). "Le changement d'image des protestants: pendant la Révolution," Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français, Vol. CXXXV, pp. 501–43.

Puaux, Frank (1882). "Un Mémoire Inédit de Rabaut Saint-Étienne," Bulletin historique et littéraire, Vol. XXXI, No. 6, pp. 337–48.

Read, Charles (1884). "Rulhière et Rabaut Saint-Étienne," Bulletin historique et littéraire, Vol. XXXIII, No. 5, pp. 213–27.

Tackett, Timothy (1997). Becoming a Revolutionary: The Deputies of the French National Assembly and the Emergence of a Revolutionary Culture (1789-1790). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

External links

• Works by Rabaut de Saint-Étienne at Gallica
• Works by Rabaut de Saint-Étienne at Biodiversity Heritage Library