Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve

Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve was born in 1756 in Chartres, France.  Pétion was trained as a lawyer.  He spent his time before the Revolution as a pamphlet writer on key current issues.

He had a steady rise in the political world during the French Revolution being elected to the Estates General and then the Constituent Assembly.  He was one of the men chosen to accompany the royal family back from Varennes after their attempted escape.  He was elected Mayor of Paris replacing Lafayette who was increasingly unpopular.  As Mayor he was implicated in the invasion of the Tuileries Palace by the Paris mob who taunted the royal family on the 20th June 1792.  He was suspended from the position of Mayor but the Assembly reappointed him.

On 3 August following the emergence of the Brunswick Manifesto and with fédérés pouring into the streets of Paris from all over France Pétion went to the Legislative with 47 out of 48 Paris Sections supporting him to demand the end of the Bourbon monarchy.  This then led to the creation of the Insurrectionary Committee and the attack on the Tuileries Palace.

He was elected to the Convention and supported the Girondin faction.  Although he voted for the execution of the King he wanted this suspended so it could be put to the country in the form of a referendum.  When the Girondins were expelled from the Convention on the 2nd June 1792 he fled to Caen and then onto the Gironde.  He emerged with several of the Girondin leaders believing they were safe after the death of Robespierre in 1794.  Many were recaptured and Pétion and Buzot who he was with were found having killed themselves in a field having been savaged by wolves.