MALLET-PREVOST, Paul Henri – (1756-1833) If Frenchtown has a founder, it is this man.
He was born in Geneva, Switzerland, on Jan. 30, 1756. As a young man, he went to work for his uncle Bontems Mallet as a bank clerk. Mallet-Prevost married Jeanne Elizabeth Patry (1757-1810) in 1779. Uncle Bontems had banks in Geneva and Paris, and in 1788 Mallet-Prevost moved his family to Paris.
The French government was deep in debt from the Seven Years War against England and from helping America in the Revolution. The peasants and laborers of France, overtaxed and underfed, simmered with rage. While political turmoil was ramping up, Mallet-Prevost was associating with both liberals and aristocrats. He knew Benjamin Franklin. Josephine, future empress of France, and her daughter Hortense, future queen of Holland, were his houseguests for two weeks.
In May of 1789 the French National Assembly, dominated by the lower and middle classes, vowed that absolute monarchy was over and France would be a constitutional monarchy. King Louis XVI wanted to bust this up, but his army was spread thin by violent uprisings. In July, Paris mobs captured the Bastille, seeking to free political prisoners and acquire weapons, and peasants attacked nobles all over the countryside. In August the Assembly declared equal rights for all citizens, reformed the tax code, established representative government and made other reforms, with Mallet-Prevost offering financial advice. In September of 1791 they figured the revolution was fait accompli and disbanded to make way for an elected Legislative Assembly.
The king was never on board with any of this, and he plotted with aristocrats, some of whom had fled to other countries, and asked the rulers of Austria and Prussia to come overthrow the new government and put him back on top. The French populace was also divided; some felt the revolution had gone too far, and some felt that it hadn't gone far enough.
So 1792 would eventful.
Austria and Prussia invaded France aiming to restore King Louis to absolute power. In August, the new government, fed up with the king's shenanigans, imprisoned Louis and his family. In September, giving up on the constitutional monarchy, the National Assembly declared France a republic.
In a book of family history published in 1930, Severo Mallet-Prevost weaves the misadventures of Paul Henri into French history. The royal French government's financial crisis worsened, and it could not make interest payments on its debts. And Uncle Bontemps owned a lot of those worthless debts. His Paris bank failed sometime in 1792. Mallet-Prevost was out of a job, so he joined the army of the republic in time to keep some of the king's Swiss guards from being massacred when the royals were arrested.
Mallet-Prevost “was himself strongly republican, and sympathized deeply with the sufferings of the people. He adhered to these views even after he himself became the object of persecution,” wrote Severo.
Despite the republic's slogan, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” there were no keggers or panty raids. But there was a trial of King Louis for betraying his country. He was beheaded on Jan. 21, 1793. The government's Committee of Public Safety took over, and any dissent brought a death sentence. During the Committee's Reign of Terror, about 18,000 heads rolled.
Certainly it was an awkward time to be in the army. But France was at war with other countries, so Mallet-Prevost sent his wife and three sons away to Abbeville near the coast, while he remained on duty.
He “was known as an aristocrat and as having saved many of his countrymen during the massacre of the Swiss. He became a suspected character; and an order was issued for his arrest” while he was stationed at Strasbourg.
Prosper Languedoc, a young noble in disguise who worked for the army sweeping stables, warned Mallet-Prevost that “his name had been enrolled among those destined for the guillotine” and he'd better run for it.
“This was on Dec. 10, 1793. Paul Henri ordered out the troop of horse of which he was commander. (This interfaces poorly with a son's testimony the Mallet-Prevost was the army's commissary general.) They rode toward a high bluff under pretense of reconnoitering the enemy. When within a short distance of the spot, he ordered his men to halt, while he and his aide (Nicholas) Defresnoyee advanced toward the bluff. Seizing a favorable moment, they both leaped their horses down the precipice and almost miraculously escaped injury. They dashed toward the Prussian encampments. The troop, catching sight of the manoeuver, hurried to the spot; but afraid to descend, fired upon the fugitives, who happily were then beyond reach.”
They rendezvoused with Mom and the kids in Switzerland, but Mallet-Prevost wasn't safe there; the aristocracy regarded him as a dangerous revolutionary, so he had to leave the family behind and flee again. He made his way to England, and in June of 1794 embarked for America, arriving in New York or Philadelphia, depending on whom you believe.
More about Mallet-Prevost later.
From Rick's Frenchtown Encyclopedia
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