Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette

Pierre Gaspard Chaumette
Pierre Gaspard Chaumette
Born	24 May 1763 Nevers
Died	13 April 1794 (1794-04-14) (aged 30) Paris
Nationality	French
Fields	Botany Politics
Alma mater	University of Paris

Pierre Gaspard Chaumette (24 May 1763 – 13 April 1794) was a French politician of the Revolutionary period.

Chaumette was born in Nevers France, 24 May 1763, into a family of shoemakers who wanted him to enter the Church. However he did not have a vocation and instead sought his fortune as a cabin boy. After only reaching the rank of helmsman, he returned to Nevers to study his main interests, botany and science. He also studied surgery and made a long voyage in the company of an English doctor, serving as his secretary. He then became surgeon to the Brothers of Charity at Moulins. Chaumette studied medicine at the University of Paris in 1790, but gave up his career in medicine at the start of the Revolution. Chaumette began his political career as member of the Jacobin Club editing the progressive Revolutions de Paris journal from 1790. His oratory skills proved him a valuable spokesperson of the Cordelier Club, and more importantly, the sans-culotte movement in the Parisian neighbourhood Sections. In August 1792 Chaumette became the Chief Procurator of the Commune of Paris; on 31 October 1792 he was elected President of the Commune and was re-elected in the Municipal on 2 December of that same year. As member of the Paris Commune during the insurrection of 10 August 1792, he was delegated to visit the prisons, with full power to arrest suspects.

His conduct, oratorical talent, and the fact that his private life was considered beyond reproach, all made him influential, and he was elected president of the Commune, defending the municipality at the bar of the National Convention on 31 October 1792. Re-elected in the municipal elections of 2 December 1792, he was soon given the functions of procureur of the Commune, and contributed with success to the enrollments of volunteers in the army by his appeals to the population of Paris. Chaumette held strong anti-monarchy views. He led a deputation from the Commune and argued before the National Convention that failing to punish Louis XVI for his crimes was causing high prixes and the fall of the assignat. Further, Chaumette held a strong opinion about the fate of Louis XVI after his fall. He was greatly outspoken in his demand for the king's blood. Chaumette’s thesis was that as long as Louis XVI went unpunished prices would remain high, and shortages and the profiteering that created them, which he assumed to be the work of the royalists, would go unchecked.