Gazette of the United States
December 29 1790
Géricault Life
1766-67 Plan of New York (Ratzer – Kitchin, detail) courtesy of Gallica.
Gazette of the United States
Press publications such as the New York newspaper: Gazette of the United States reprinted news from France and other nations for their readers in the Americas. In this article, we focus on the December 29, 1790 issue of the Gazette and their summary of the events which occured in France and Saint Domingue that fall. News travelled slowly across the Atlantic and often without much in the way of context.
Opposition and loyalty to central authority, and the duty of this authority to subjects or citizens, were issues much in the minds of many at the close of the 18th century on both sides of the Atlantic. English colonists in North America fought and won a war of rebellion against the royal authority in England with the aid of France. In the summer of 1789, representatives of the third and second estates (commoners and clergy) had defied Louis XVI in Versailles, and vowed to work towards their common interests against the crown and most of the aristocracy in a new National Assembly (Assemblée nationale constituante).
The people of Paris, fearing a violent expression of royal authority that summer, attacked the Hôtel des Invalides and the Bastille to arm themselves with cannon, guns and powder. In the fall of 1789, frustrated by the intransigence of the royal family, Marie Antoinette as much as her husband the king, the people of Paris marched to Versailles, invaded the royal residence, and forced the monarch and his family to relocate to the Tuilleries palace in Paris.
Late in 1789, the crown suspended France’s ancient regional courts, or Parlements, which had long represented the interests of the regional aristocracy primarily and often opposed the wishes of French monarchs. Revolutionary representatives had little interest in protecting any of the old institutions which they could not reform. To that end, France dissolved the ancient system of provinces, such as Normandy, and divided France into 83 departments early in 1790.
Church property, nationalized in 1789, secured a new kind of income-earning bond known as an assignat. By the fall of 1790, assignats were used as legal tender, forcing the government to print new assignats in smaller denominations better suited to this purpose. The formation of a civil clergy bound to the national authority in the summer of 1790 further divided communities in France.
Colonists in the Antilles looked to protect their traditional social and economic interests in this changing environment. In France’s island colony of Saint Domingue, (modern Haiti), the Assembly of Saint Marc, claiming to represent the interests of the colonists, met in the south-west and issued edicts and new laws on trade and relations with non-whites, in defiance of the crown and the National Assembly. These events were keenly observed inside and outside France, as the Gazette summary confirms.
Many of these changes had a profound impact on Théodore Géricault’s relations in France and in Saint Domingue, as we shall see.
From the (Boston) Columbian Centinal,
LATEST FRENCH ADVICES
[An obliging correspondent having favoured us with Paris papers from the 1st to the 14th October, we are enabled to furnish our readers with FRENCH INFORMATION 16 days later than hath been before received.]
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Oct. 6. – “A LETTER was received from the Keeper of the Seals, informing that the Decrees which suppress the present Courts of Justice, and establish new ones, had been received by the Chambers of the Parliament of Rouen, Bourdeaux, Toulouse, Donai, &c. – That the Parliament of Toulouse, on receiving them, came to the following resolution, which he laid before the Assembly. Extract of the Resolve of the Parliament of Toulouse. ‘The Court considering that the French Monarchy is verging rapidly to the moment of its dissolution, &c. Protests, in behalf of their Lord the King, the Clergy, the Nobility, and all the citizens, against all attempts on the rights of the Crown – the annihilation of the Nobility, and the total overthrow of the French Monarchy: Against all Edicts, Declarations, and Letters Patent, tending to the suppression of this Court – and the dismemberment of the province of Languedoc; against all attempts made upon religion, upon the dignity of its Ministers, and upon the spiritual jurisdictions of the Church, and its Liberties; And whereas the records made by this Chamber since the 15th November last were only provisionary, they are hereby declared of no validity or effect: The said Court ordains, that the present Resolution shall be transcribed upon its records, as a testimony of their principles, and as a Memorial that the Magistrates who compose it, and the people whom they represent, are devoted to the King, and to the Nation: They also ordain, that a copy of this Resolve shall be sent to the said Lord the King, Done at Toulouse, 27th Sept. 1790.’
After it was read, Mr. Robespierre rose. ‘I observe, said he, that this Assembly cannot but view the Members of the Parliament of Toulouse, as weak enemies, vanquished and sunk under the weight of the public opinion. I beg that we may discover that moderation – that prudent firmness, which is the surest evidence of strength and the distinguishing trait of power. Sirs, treat the Members of this Parliament, as enemies of the Nation in a manifest delirium. I request then, they may be brought to this bar.’ This proposal excited great murmurs – many Members, among others, Mr. Camus, moved that the affair might be submitted to the committee on reports, to report the day after tomorrow; but others proposed to submit it to the Committee on the Constitution. The last motion was carried.
Oct. 9. – The National Assembly decree, that the National Loans opened by virtue of former decrees, shall be shut from the day of the publication of the decree. The new assignats (paper-money) created by the decree of 29th Sept. shall be in Notes of 2000, 500, 200, 100, 80, 70, 60, and 50 livres each.
[The following very important Decree is prefaced by the lengthy speech of M. BARNAVE, in which he gives the Assembly a particular detail of occurences in the Colonies, particularly some illegal measures of the Municipal Assembly of St. Marc, in the island of St. Domingo – At the close of which he introduced the following Decree, which was adopted – ]
Oct. 12. “The National Assembly, after having heard their committee on the subject of the colonies, upon the situation of the island of St. Domingo, and the events which have there taken place, considering that the principles of the Constitution have been violated, the execution of their decrees suspended, and the public tranquility disturbed by the acts of the General Assembly sitting at St. Marc – considering also that the National Assembly has promised to the colonies the speedy establishment of laws the most proper to secure them in the possession of their property; that they have in order to quiet their alarms early announced to them the intention of hearing their voice on every change which might be proposed in the laws prohibitive to commerce, and their firm determination of establishing as constitutional articles in their organization, that no personal laws should be decreed for the colonies, but upon the special and formal request of the colonial Assemblies – that they have been solicitous that the colonies of St. Domingo should realize these dispositions, by securing to them the execution of the decrees of the 8th and the 28th of March (1790), and taking every measure to establish public order and tranquility.
DECLARES – the pretended decrees and acts issued from the Assembly appointed at St. Marc, under the title of the General Assembly of the French division of St. Domingo, an outrageous attempt against the national sovereignty and legislative power, and decrees that they are null and incapable of being put in execution – declares the said assembly deprived of its power, and all its members stripped of the character of deputies of the Colonial Assembly of St. Domingo. –
DECLARES – that the Provincial Assembly of the North, the citizens of the town of Cape-François, the parish of Croix de Bouguets, and all those who have remained faithful to the decrees of the National Assembly, the volunteers of Port-au-Prince, those of St. Marc, the patriotic troops of the Cape, and all the other active citizens who have been guided by the same principles, have gloriously performed all the duties belonging to the title of Frenchmen, and are thanked in the name of the nation by the National Assembly –
DECLARES – that the governor general of St. Domingo, those officers of rank who have faithfully served under his orders, and especially the Sieurs Vincent and de Mauduit, have gloriously performed the duties of their functions.
DECREES – that the King shall be requested to give orders, that the decrees and instructions of the 8th and 28th of March last, shall be put in execution in the Colony of St. Domingo – that in consequence they shall immediately proceed [if it has not already been done] to the formation of a new Colonial Assembly, according to the rules prescribed by the said instructions, and to conform to them precisely –
DECREES – that all established laws shall continue to be executed in the colony of St. Domingo, until new laws are substituted, following the steps; presented by the decrees aforesaid –
DECREES , notwithstanding, that until the organization of the tribunals in the said colony, the Supreme Council of the Cape shall be continued in the form in which it was established; and that the judgement therein rendered, since Jan. 10, shall not be set aside by reason of the illegality of the tribunal.
DECREES – that the King shall be requested, in order to preserve the tranquility of the colony, to send there two ships of the line, and a proportionate number of frigates, and to complete the number of the regiments at the Cape and Port-au-Prince –
DECREES also – that the members of the before mentioned General Assembly of St. Domingo, and the other persons sent from the National Assembly by the Decree of Sept. 20th, shall remain in the same condition until further orders are taken respecting them.”
BORDEAUX, SEPT. 30
“This day at noon the corporation with the Mayor at their head and preceded by the trumpets of the city and a detachment of the municipal guard on foot, proceeded to the court-house, Place de Lombuice (sic?), in conformity to the decree of the National Assembly of the 7th of this month sanctioned by the King, to set the seals upon the registry, archives, and other deposits of papers and the records of the ancient tribunal, formerly the parliament. This formality, which drew together a large concourse of spectators, was finished without the least disturbance; the officers of the corporation were received at the entrance into the court with universal acclamations. A single picquet of the National cavalry were held in readiness during this operation, which will not be one of the least brilliant epochs of our history. – Thus then is fallen that ancient oak, whose root sprung from the foundations of monarchy, and whose proud top has so often braved the thunder: The traveller contemplates with some remains of horror this enormous trunk which lately threatened to bury the state in its fall, now laying in the dust, and blesses the victorious hand which has thrown it down.”
Commentary
Théodore Géricault’s parents, Georges Nicolas Géricault and Louise Marie Jeanne Caruel, married in Rouen on February 16, 1790. Both families were originally from western Normandy. Both families had strong connections with the Parlement of Rouen.
Louise Marie Jeanne Caruel was born in Rouen on January 17, 1753. Jean Caruel, her paternal grandather, was born in Huegeville, in western Normandy, in 1688. Some time later Jean Caruel moved to Rouen, the capital of Normandy, and found employment at the Parlement there. His son, Jean Vincent Charles Caruel, the future father of Louise Marie Jeanne Caruel, Géricault’s mother, was born in Rouen on May 17, 1721. Jean Vincent Charles Caruel also obtained a position at the Parlement of Rouen, like his father.
Georges Nicolas Géricault was born on February 2, 1743, in Saint Cyr du Bailleul in western Normandy. He studied first in Domfront, trained in the law in Caen, and later found work at the Parlement of Rouen. His cousin, Siméon Jacques Henri Bonnesœur Bourginiére, also from western Normandy, also pursued a career in the law. On January 8, 1787, Bonnesœur Bourginiére married Felix Louise Caruel, the younger sister of Louis Jeanne Caruel, in Rouen. This marriage likely brought Georges Nicolas and Louise Jeanne closer. Bonnesœur Bourginiére was later elected to the National Assembly as one of the representatives of the department of Manche, in western Normandy.
The crown suspended the Parlements in November, 1789, when Géricault’s parents were likely planning their marriage. Georges Nicolas Géricault, until that point employed as an “homme de loi” for the Parlement of Rouen, faced an uncertain future. Six months later after the Géricault-Caruel marriage, France made the suspension of France’s Parlements permanent in September of 1790. Georges Nicolas Géricault would have to find new employment. With so many other advocates seeking employment, Georges Nicolas turned to “maritime commerce.”
The circumstances surrounding the suspension and abolition of the Parlement in Rouen probably explain, in part, why Georges Nicolas Géricault and Louise Marie Jeanne Caruel lived in the home of her mother, Louise Thérèse de Poix (the widow Caruel) on the rue d’Avalasse, where their only child Théodore was born on September 26, 1791. The Caruels and the Bonnesoeur-Géricaults were connected in multiple ways which we shall discuss in more detail elsewhere.
Efforts by the crown to impose its authority by force over the Assembly of Saint Marc in Saint Domingue in 1790 were more successful. As the Gazette reported, the Assembly of Saint Marc granted itself the authority to enact laws and ignore royal edicts during the spring and summer of 1790. The capture of the Bastille by the people of Paris was essentially a rebellion of ordinary people acting against the reactionary and ineffective policies of the crown. The actions of the Assembly of Saint Marc were essentially those of status-conscious whites rebelling against the formal recognition of the rights of free people of color guaranteed under French law.
Conclusion
Our discussion of the impact of the events of 1790 upon the family Théodore Géricault in Rouen is very much part of standard Géricault scholarship. That said, we hope readers already familiar with these facts will benefit from reading of these events as they appeared to the public in the press.
Few scholars have explored Géricault’s family in Saint Domingue in any detail. Yet, the changes in French law which transformed the subjects of the king of France into citizens of the French nation were hotly contested in Martinique and in Saint Domingue. As we shall see, these changes had profound effects on Géricault relations in Saint Domingue. French colonists interpreted the decrees from France in radically different ways. Laws extending legal equality to free people of color were met with the gravest of warnings about the impact of such laws on the viabiity and survival of France’s colonies in the Antilles. Again, Saint Domingue and revolution in Europe’s colonies in the Caribbean are well-studied topics.
However, little had been written until very recently about the life of Louis Joseph Robillard de Péronville, a Géricault Saint Domingue relation by marriage and a figure familiar to regular readers, or of the lives of other Géricault relations in Saint Domingue. It was Louis Robillard de Péronville who, from 1802 until 1809, funded the Musée français, the high-quality reproductions of paintings and other objects housed in the Louvre, an enterprise we contend played such an important role in shaping Théodore Géricault’s life.
Louis Joseph Robillard de Péronville and Géricault’s Saint Domingue relations also played active parts in events in Saint Domingue before and after 1790. Very recent research casts new light on Géricault’s relationship with his hitherto unknown Saint Domingue relations. The conflicts surrounding the edicts of the Assembly of Saint Marc are at the very center of this discussion. We identify and examine these Géricault relations and their conflicts in much greater detail elsewhere in this issue, and in those to follow.
* Edited lightly for style and clarity December 7 & 23, 2022, an on September 18, 2023