Abstract EN:

Son of a shoemaker from Nevers, France, expelled from secondary school at the age of 13 because of his rebellious nature, having lived the tough life of a merchant marine during of american war for independence, chaumette quickly took up the radical positions of parisian democracy in the spring of 1791, alongside the cordeliers, journalists from revolutions de paris, elected member of the insurrectional commune by the "théâtre français" section, he broke with the "girondins" over the question of the formation of a regional militia based in paris to protect the convention. Elected paris commune "procureur" in december 1792, he played a role in the may 31, 1793 victory over the "girondins" by placing the commune at the centre of the movement of parisian sections, mobilised against the "girondins" in order to ensure the forced borrowing of money from the rich. He was at the head of the september 5, 1793 demonstrators who obtained the creation or a revolutionary army from the convention. He rallied to the dechiristianisation offensive due to his hate of the vendee counter-revolutionary uprising and through revolutionary pragmatism : the epispocal palace then became the temple of humanity, welcoming the old and the sick. When he tried to win control of the parisian terrorist apparatus of the comite de surete generale, he lost the support of the cordeliers. He approved Saint-Just's decrees hand those abolishing slavery ; he refused to be associated with the cordelian attempt to purge the convention. Accused for having accepted gold from abroad and for having attempted to demoralise the republic by imposing atheism, he was guillotined. The real reason for his conviction, in fact was the need for the newly stabilised revolutionary government to do away with any sort of political independence on the part of the "sans-culottes".