Antoine Joseph Santerre

Antoine Joseph Santerre (16 March 1752 in Paris – 6 February 1809) was a businessman and general during the French Revolution.

The Santerre family moved from Saint-Michel-en-Thiérache to Paris in 1747 where they purchased a brewery known as the Brasserie de la Magdeleine. Antoine Santerre married his third cousin Marie Claire Santerre, daughter of a wealthy bourgeois brewer, Jean François Santerre, from the Cambrai in March 1748. The couple had six children, Antoine Joseph being the 3rd. The others were Marguerite, born in 1750; Jean Baptiste, born in 1751; Armand Théodore, born in 1753; followed by François and Claire. The future general's father died in 1770, his mother just months later. His elder brother and sister, Marguerite and Jean Baptiste took charge of the household and family business, helping their mother raise the younger children, they never married. Armand Théodore went into the sugar business, and owned a factory in Essonnes, the other members of the family remained in the brewery business. François, known as François Santerre de la Fontinelle, had breweries in Sèvres, Chaville and Paris and Claire, the youngest, married a lawyer. Antoine Joseph was sent to school at the collèges des Grassins, followed by history and physics under M.M. Brisson and the abbot Nollet. His interest in physics led advances in beer production that pushed breweries out of their infancy. In 1770 Antoine Joseph was emancipated, and 2 years later, with his inheritance he purchased with his brother François Mr. Acloque's brewery at 232 Faubourg St. Antoine for 65,000 French Francs. In that same year he married his childhood sweetheart, the daughter of his neighbour, Monsieur Francois, another wealthy brewer. Antoine Joseph was 20 years old and Marie François was sixteen. Marie died the following year from an infection derived from a fall during her 7th month of pregnancy. Years later Antoine Joseph married Marie Adèlaïde Deleinte with whom he had three children, Augustin, Alexandre and Theodore.

His generosity won great popularity in the Faubourg St. Antoine. When the French Revolution erupted in 1789, he was given command of a battalion of the Parisian National Guard and participated in the storming of the Bastille. After the Champ de Mars Massacre on 17 July 1791, a warrant was issued for his arrest and Santerre went into hiding. He emerged again the following year to lead the people of the Faubourg St. Antoine, the eastern units, in the assault on the Tuileries Palace by the Paris mob, which overwhelmed and massacred the Swiss Guard as the royal family fled through the gardens and took refuge with the Legislative Assembly. Louis XVI was officially removed as king soon after.

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