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Nonidi 19 Frimaire An CCXXXIV |
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Alexis Vadier
In Year II of the Republic, Vadier, then fifty-eight, was regarded as an old man among the deputies of the Convention – yet despite his age he remained one of the most determined revolutionaries. A radical Montagnard, he sat on the Committee of General Security, at the levers of power. Robespierre, who held a similar position on the Committee of Public Safety, was his sworn enemy. A convinced atheist, Vadier saw him as a ridiculous hypocrite who in truth aspired to dictatorship. In the days leading up to 9 Thermidor, Vadier was especially active. His strategy was to target the vanity of the Incorruptible through veiled denunciations and calculated jibes. His tactics succeeded: Robespierre fell. In the aftermath, Vadier was imprisoned several times for holding fast to his republican convictions. And even at the age of eighty he was banished from France as a former king-slayer
.
1736 - 1828
- July 17, 1736 · Marc Guillaume Alexis Vadier is born in Pamiers (Ariège), the son of well-to-do parents.
- 1753 · He enters the army and becomes a lieutenant.
- November 1757 · After taking part in the Battle of Rossbach, Vadier ends his military career. He begins studying law and later becomes a councillor at the court in Pamiers.
- April 1789 · Vadier is elected deputy of the Third Estate for Pamiers to the Estates-General.
- September 1792 · Elected deputy for the département of Ariège to the National Convention.
- September 14, 1793 · Vadier becomes a member of the Committee of General Security.
- June 15, 1794 · Vadier delivers to the Convention the report on the
conspiracy of Catherine Théot
, which causes great laughter. Without stating it openly, he links Robespierre to the old mystic and thereby makes the Cult of the Supreme Being appear ridiculous. - July 27, 1794 · At the session of 9 Thermidor, Vadier accuses Robespierre of having turned the Revolutionary Tribunal into an instrument of tyranny through the law of 22 Prairial.
- 1795 · For his involvement in the Germinal uprising of Year III, Vadier is sentenced to deportation. He manages, however, to remain in hiding until the amnesty granted by the outgoing Convention in October 1795.
- May 1797 · Vadier is acquitted in the Babeuf trial, yet remains interned on Île Pelée near Cherbourg.
- 1800 · Vadier is allowed to leave Île Pelée thanks to the amnesty granted by the Consulate.
- 1816 · Under Louis XVIII he is banished from France as a regicide.
- December 14, 1828 · Vadier dies in Brussels.
Quotes
With bitter irony, mocking his victims and joking about death, he nicknamed the guillotine ‘the little flap-window’.
Octave Aubry on Vadier, 1942.
Robespierre claims that anyone who conspires against him — he who supposedly embodies the perfect republican — thereby conspires against the Republic itself. A rather remarkable new kind of logic.
Vadier in the Convention on 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794).
I will kill myself if the Convention cannot do justice to sixty years of virtue.
Vadier, one month after 9 Thermidor, after being accused by Lecointre. He held a pistol to his temple.
Le Moniteur
Primedi, 11 Thermidor, l'an 2 de la République Française, une et indivisible
Vadier used the Catherine Théot affair, involving an elderly mystic, to ridicule Robespierre’s Cult of the Supreme Being.
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Jan Knupper 2025 | CCXXXIV
