Jean, Baron de Batz
Encyclopedia
Jean Pierre de Batz, Baron de Sainte-Croix, known as the Baron de Batz, (January 26, 1754– January 10, 1822), was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 royalist
Royalist
A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of government, but not necessarily a particular monarch...

 and businessman. He was born in Goutz-les-Tartas (Gers
Gers
The Gers is a department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in the southwest of France named after the Gers River.Inhabitants are called les Gersois or Gersoises.-History:...

), and died in Chadieu, near Vic-le-Comte
Vic-le-Comte
Vic-le-Comte is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne in central France.-References:*...

 (Puy-de-Dôme
Puy-de-Dôme
Puy-de-Dôme is a department in the centre of France named after the famous dormant volcano, the Puy-de-Dôme.Inhabitants were called Puydedomois until December 2005...

).

Biography

Under the Constituent Assembly
Constituent assembly
A constituent assembly is a body composed for the purpose of drafting or adopting a constitution...

, Batz's reputation as a financier got him elected to the liquidation committee, which was responsible for clearing public accounts. At the same time, he became a secret adviser to Louis XVI
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....

, in whose employ he received large payments for these services.

After the abolition of the monarchy in 1792 Baron de Batz became one of the leading members of the secret royalist movement in Paris. On January 21, 1793, Batz tried in vain to raise the crowd in boulevard de Bonne Nouvelle to save the king from execution. Going into partial hiding, he continued to speculate on national property and war supplies of war, attending to both leaders of the Paris Commune
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...

 as conventional as Chabot
François Chabot
François Chabot was a French politician.-Early career:Born in Saint-Geniez-d'Olt , Chabot became a Capuchin friar in Rodez before the French Revolution, while continuing to be attracted to the works of philosophes - the reason for which he was banned from preaching in the respective diocese.After...

, Basire
Claude Basire
Claude Basire was a French politician of the Revolutionary period.-Biography:Born in Dijon, he became a deputy for the Côte-d'Or in the Legislative Assembly, he made himself prominent by denouncing the Bourbon and the Tuileries Palace's comité autrichien...

, Julien de Toulouse or Delaunay d'Angers
Joseph Delaunay
Joseph Delaunay was a French deputy.He was national commissar at the Tribunal of Angers and, in 1791, he was elected as a deputy to the Legislative Assembly by the département of Maine-et-Loire. In 1792, he was re-elected as deputy to the National Convention by the same département...

; or Swiss and German bankers, including Austrian banker Junius Frey and his brother, Brussels Proli; Gusman Spanish and Portuguese.

After the discovery of the case of the liquidation of the French East India Company
French East India Company
The French East India Company was a commercial enterprise, founded in 1664 to compete with the British and Dutch East India companies in colonial India....

, the high committee and the public security committee generally regarded as the leader of a vast conspiracy aimed at delivering the queen, corrupt deputies to pit against the revolutionary government and promote the Counter-revolution using the excesses of the ultra-revolutionaries, including dechristianization. Thus, on March 14, 1794, Hébertistes together with Clootz
Jean-Baptiste du Val-de-Grâce, baron de Cloots
Jean-Baptiste du Val-de-Grâce, baron de Cloots , better known as Anacharsis Cloots , was a Prussian nobleman who was a significant figure in the French Revolution...

, Pereira and Proli, were guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...

d. Then, on April 5, Danton and his friends were executed with Chabot, Basire, the abbot of Espagnac
Espagnac
Espagnac is a commune in the Corrèze department in central France.-Economy:The main economic activity is cattle raising though it now benefits from the recent trend of rural tourism.-History:...

, Gusman, and the Frey brothers.

Baron de Batz eluded officers of the committees, but saw his relatives and most of his close contacts arrested. On June 17, among the 60 convicted of red shirts, 20 had proven links with the baron.

Coming out of hiding after the 9-Thermidor
Thermidor
Thermidor was the eleventh month in the French Republican Calendar. The month was named after the French word thermal which comes from the Greek word "thermos" which means heat....

, he intermingled with the royalist
Royalist
A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of government, but not necessarily a particular monarch...

 insurrection of 13 vendémiaire an IV (October 25, 1795). After the coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

 of 18 V fructidor, he found refuge in Auvergne
Auvergne (province)
Auvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province....

, where he bought a castle. When discovered, he was arrested, but escaped during his transfer to Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

, and he fled to Switzerland. The Parisian consulate, had him removed from the list of emigrants and he abandoned political activism, moving to live in Auvergne
Auvergne (province)
Auvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province....

.

Under the Restoration
Bourbon Restoration
The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon  – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...

, he was awarded the rank of maréchal de camp and the cross of St. Louis
Order of Saint Louis
The Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis was a military Order of Chivalry founded on 5 April 1693 by Louis XIV and named after Saint Louis . It was intended as a reward for exceptional officers, and is notable as the first decoration that could be granted to non-nobles...

 for his services, as well as the military commander of the Cantal
Cantal
Cantal is a department in south-central France. It is named after the Cantal mountain range, a group of extinct, eroded volcanic peaks, which covers much of the department. Residents are known as Cantaliens or Cantalous....

, which was revoked after the Hundred Days
Hundred Days
The Hundred Days, sometimes known as the Hundred Days of Napoleon or Napoleon's Hundred Days for specificity, marked the period between Emperor Napoleon I of France's return from exile on Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815...

 period.

Living in seclusion in Chadieu he died January 10, 1822.

Literary representations

  • Jean de Batz is the hero of a series of novels by Juliette Benzoni, The Game of Love and Death.
  • The Baron de Batz appears a few of The Scarlet Pimpernel
    The Scarlet Pimpernel
    The Scarlet Pimpernel is a play and adventure novel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, set during the Reign of Terror following the start of the French Revolution. The story is a precursor to the "disguised superhero" tales such as Zorro and Batman....

    series of books by Baroness Orczy
    Baroness Orczy
    Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi was a British novelist, playwright and artist of Hungarian noble origin. She was most notable for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel...

    , playing the most prominent role in Eldorado
    Eldorado (novel)
    Eldorado, by Baroness Orczy is a sequel book to the classic adventure tale, The Scarlet Pimpernel. It was first published in 1913. The novel is notable in that it is the partial basis for most of the film treatments of the original book....

    .
  • He also appears as a major character in Raphael Sabatini's novel, Scaramouche the Kingmaker, and a minor character in The Lost King.
  • The character of the double agent, a supporter of the monarchy and member of a network of Royalist agents in France and abroad whilst masquerading as a staunch Republican, is a stock character in literature set in the French Revolution. Through his activities, his character sent many revolutionaries to the guillotine, having them convicted them of being anti-revolutionaries.

Sources

  • Roger Dupuy, « Jean, baron de Batz », in albert Soboul
    Albert Soboul
    Albert Marius Soboul was a French historian of the French Revolution and of Napoleon. A professor at the Sorbonne, he was Chair of the History of the French Revolution and author of numerous influential works of history and historical interpretation.-Early life and education:Albert Marius Soboul...

    (dir.), Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française, Paris, PUF, 1989 (rééd. Quadrige, 2005, p. 96-97)
  • Noëlle Destremau, Le baron de Batz un étonnant Conspirateur, Nouvelles Editions Latines.
  • G. Lenotre, Le baron de Batz, Librairie académique Perrin et Cie
  • Baron de Batz, La vie et les conspirations de Jean, Baron de Batz, 1754–1793, - Les conspirations et la fin de Jean, Baron de Batz, 1793-1822, Calmann-Lévy, 1910-1911.
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