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Eulogius Schneider
Eulogius Schneider was German, but that did not stop him from taking an active part in the French Revolution. For a time, he ruled like a provincial dictator on the French side of the Rhine – as a preacher at Strasbourg Cathedral, mayor of Haguenau, and public prosecutor at the Alsatian Revolutionary Tribunal. He was not squeamish about demanding death sentences. Yet his love of self-display proved fatal to the butcher of Strasbourg. Immediately after celebrating his pompous wedding, the Convention’s representatives Saint-Just and Lebas had him arrested. For four hours, he had to endure the December cold in the marketplace of Strasbourg – tied to the very guillotine that had carried out his many death sentences. Four months later, his own head fell on the Place de la Révolution in Paris.
1756 - 1794
- October 20, 1756 · Born in Wipfeld on the Main as Johann Georg Schneider, son of a winegrower and his wife.
- April 1777 · Entered the Franciscan Order in Bamberg, taking the religious name Eulogius.
- 1780 · Ordained as a priest in Salzburg.
- 1786 · Court preacher at the Württemberg court under Duke Carl Eugen. His sympathy for Enlightenment ideas led to conflicts.
- 1789 · Schneider becomes professor of literature and fine arts at the University of Bonn, where his lectures are highly successful. Among his students is Ludwig van Beethoven.
- 1791 · After publishing an Enlightenment-minded text, Schneider loses his professorship. He flees to Strasbourg, by then a refuge for many German émigrés, and obtains a post as vicar at the cathedral. He joins the radical Jacobins of Alsace.
- July 3, 1792 · First issue of the journal Argos, in which he calls for the execution of Louis XVI.
- September 14, 1792 · Provisional mayor of Haguenau (until December 1793).
- February 19, 1793 · Public prosecutor at the criminal court of the Bas-Rhin department.
- October 29, 1793 · Public prosecutor at the Revolutionary Tribunal of Alsace. He is responsible for more than thirty death sentences.
- December 14, 1793 · Eulogius Schneider is arrested shortly after his marriage to Sara Stamm.
- December 15, 1793 · He is displayed before the people on Strasbourg’s parade ground (today Place Kléber) as an enemy of the Revolution, bound to the guillotine.
- April 1, 1794 · Death sentence and execution in Paris.
Quotes
Persevere, fight, work until the tree of liberty, watered with the blood of our heroes, spreads its branches far and wide, so that all the nations of the earth may find rest in its shade.
From a sermon by Eulogius Schneider, 1791
Let us not believe in cosmopolitan charlatans and let us rely only on ourselves.
Saint-Just and Lebas, from Strasbourg to Robespierre, December 14, 1793
It is impossible to be more indulgent toward the enemies of the Republic than by putting me to death.
The last words of Eulogius Schneider
Le Moniteur
Primdi, 21 Germinal, l'an 2 de la République Française une et indivisible
Eulogius Schneider, bound to the guillotine on the Parade Square in Strasbourg, December 15, 1793
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