Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dejvid (talk | contribs) at 09:00, 3 January 2025 (from French wiki). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

François Xavier Lanthenas, born on April 19, 1754 in Puy-en-Velay (province of Velay, current department of Haute-Loire), died in Paris on 13 Nivôse year VII (January 2, 1799), was a doctor and a politician during the French Revolution.

Biography

===Family origins and education=== François Xavier Lanthenas comes from a family of the merchant bourgeoisie. His father Joseph is a candle merchant. His mother is Marie Elisabeth Pons. Lanthenas studied at the college of Puy-en-Velay. During his apprenticeship in commerce, he was sent to the Kingdom of Naples, where he became friends with Jean-Marie François Merlino, a Lyon fabric merchant1, and with Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière, who persuaded his father to allow him to study medicine. Lanthenas received his doctorate in medicine in September 1784 at the University of Reims. He practiced medicine in Villefranche-sur-Saône and stayed in Paris where he frequented Roland, the tax farmer Tronchin, and, from 1787, Jacques-Pierre Brissot, with whom he frequented the Society of Friends of the Blacks. He also frequented the Jacobin Club between 1791 and 1792. ===Election to the National Convention=== In September 1792, François-Xavier Lanthenas was elected deputy to the National Convention. He was appointed by the department of Haute-Loire, the fourth out of seven, and by that of Rhône-et-Loire, the fifteenth and last. He opted for the latter department and was replaced in Haute-Loire by Jean-André Barthélémy2. Lanthenas sat on the benches of the Gironde. During the trial of Louis XVI, he voted for death and rejected the appeal to the people and the stay of execution3. He voted against the indictment of Jean-Paul Marat, although he suggested that "doctors be appointed to examine whether Marat was not really suffering from madness and frenzy"4. He did not take part in the vote on the reestablishment of the Commission of Twelve5. He was denounced by the sections of Paris as well as about twenty other deputies from the Gironde for having "openly violated the faith of his constituents", such as Brissot, Guadet and Vergniaud6. He was, however, released from the arrest decree on June 2 following an intervention by Marat, who judged that "Doctor Lanthenas is a poor man in spirit who does not deserve to be taken care of"7. Already in his newspaper Le Publiciste de la République française, Marat had dismissed the accusation of the insurrectional Commune against him by writing that Lanthenas was "too imbecile to be counted among the leaders"8. According to the historian Michel Pertué, it was perhaps out of consideration for his colleague, who was also a doctor, that Marat intervened so that he would not be disturbed9. In October 1792, Lanthenas was elected substitute to the Constitutional Committee and a member of the Public Instruction Committee10, from which he left in October 179311. In Brumaire Year III (October 1794), he was elected member of the Commission of Twenty-One charged with examining the conduct of Jean-Baptiste Carrier, accused of being responsible for the shootings and drownings during his mission in Nantes

Election to the Council of Five Hundred and death

and end of life François-Xavier Lanthenas was elected deputy of Ille-et-Vilaine to the Council of Cinq-Cents on 24 Vendémiaire Year IV (16 October 1795). He left in Germinal Year V (late March-early April 1795). He was appointed commissioner of the Executive Directory to the municipal administration of the 11th arrondissement of Paris. He died in poverty, having inherited an estate from his mother and 25,000 livres from his father.