Author of the Le Chapelier Law banning guilds and workers’ combinations
On 14 June 1791 the law he moved was adopted, banning guilds and forbidding workers or employers of the same trade to combine for their common interests.
A lawyer from Rennes, he was elected to the Estates-General for the Third Estate in 1789, helped found the Breton Club, and as president of the Constituent Assembly in August 1789 presided over the night session of 4 August that abolished feudalism. On the constitutional committee he drafted much of the 1791 Constitution. The law bearing his name, adopted on 14 June 1791, banned guilds and workers’ combinations, a prohibition that lasted until 1864. In September 1791 he also presented a law restricting concerted political action by popular societies. Suspected during the Terror for his Feuillant ties, he was guillotined on 22 April 1794.
Career Timeline
- 1789Elected to the Estates-General for the Third Estate of the sénéchaussée of Rennes; a founder of the Breton Club.
- 1789As president of the Constituent Assembly in August he presided over the night of 4 August; joined the constitutional committee in late September.
- 1791The Le Chapelier Law was adopted on 14 June; after the Champ de Mars massacre in July he left the Jacobins for the Feuillants.
- 1791Carried a law of 30 September restricting concerted political action by popular societies.
- 1794Arrested, he was guillotined in Paris on 22 April.