Committee of General Security member who reported the ban on women’s clubs
On 30 October 1793, reporting for the Committee of General Security, he argued that women were unsuited to political association, and the Convention banned women’s clubs and popular societies.
A Grenoble lawyer elected to the Convention for Isère in 1792, he sat with the Mountain and voted for Louis XVI’s execution. Joining the Committee of General Security in 1793, he became, with Vadier, one of its most influential members. In October he delivered the report indicting the Brissotin deputies, and on 30 October he presented the report that banned women’s clubs and popular societies, a measure historians see as checking women’s political gains in the Revolution. He later investigated the India Company affair. Imprisoned after Thermidor and then amnestied, he was implicated in Babeuf’s Conspiracy of the Equals but acquitted.
Career Timeline
- 1792Elected to the Convention for Isère and sat with the Mountain.
- 1793Joined the Committee of General Security; on 3 October reported for the indictment of the Brissotin deputies.
- 1793On 30 October secured the ban on women’s clubs and popular societies.
- 1794Reported on the India Company affair, a report Robespierre criticised.
- 1795–1797Imprisoned in 1795 and amnestied; acquitted at the trial of the Conspiracy of the Equals.