Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne
{{Short description|French revolutionary (1743–1793)}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Jean-Paul Rabaut de Saint-Étienne
| image = Jean-PaulRabautSaint-Etienne.jpg
| imagesize = 235
| caption =
| office = 10th President of the National Convention
| term_start = 24 January 1793
| term_end = 7 February 1793
| predecessor = Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud
| successor = Jean-Jacques Bréard
| office2 = Deputy to the Estates-General
for the Third Estate
| surname =
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1743|11|14}}
| birth_place = Nîmes, Kingdom of France
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1793|12|05|1743|11|14}}
| death_place = Paris, French First Republic
| death_cause = Guillotine
| nationality = French
| parents = Paul Rabaut
| alma_mater = University of Lausanne
}}
Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne ({{IPA|fr|ʒɑ̃ pɔl ʁabo sɛ̃.t‿etjɛn}}; 14 November 1743 – 5 December 1793) was a leader of the French Protestants and a moderate French revolutionary.
Biography
Jean-Paul Rabaut was born in 1743 in Nîmes, in the department of Gard, the son of Paul Rabaut. The additional surname of Saint-Étienne was assumed from a small property near Nîmes.{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Rabaut Saint-Étienne, Jean Paul|volume=22|page=766}} His brothers were Jacques Antoine Rabaut-Pommier and Pierre-Antoine Rabaut-Dupuis, both also politically active.
Like his father, he became a Calvinist pastor, and distinguished himself with his zeal for his co-religionists, becoming a spokesman for the Protestant community in France. He worked closely with Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, minister to Louis XVI, and with members of the parlement of the Ancien Régime to obtain formal recognition of Protestant civil rights, despite the concerns of some royal advisors.
Officially ending religious persecution in France, Louis XVI signed the Edict of Tolerance on 7 November 1787, and it was registered in parlement two-and-a-half months later (29 January 1788). This edict offered relief to all the major non-Catholic faiths of the time: Calvinist Huguenots, Lutherans, and Jews. After more than a century of prohibition, it gave them all civil and legal recognition as well as the right to form new congregations openly.
Full religious freedom had to wait two more years for the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789, but the 1787 Edict of Tolerance was a pivotal step in subduing religious strife, and it officially ended religious persecution in France.[http://booking-help.org/book_338_glava_314_Edict_of_Versailles_%281787%29.html Encyclopedia of the Age of Political Ideals, Edict of Versailles (1787)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120714094231/http://booking-help.org/book_338_glava_314_Edict_of_Versailles_(1787).html |date=14 July 2012 }}, downloaded 29 January 2012
Having gained a reputation with his Histoire primitive de la Grèce, Rabaut de Saint-Étienne was elected deputy to the Estates-General of 1789 by the third estate of the bailliage of Nîmes.
In the Constituent Assembly, he worked on the framing of the constitution; he spoke against the establishment of the republic, which he considered ridiculous; and voted for the suspensive veto, as likely to strengthen the position of the Crown. In the Convention, he sat among the Girondists, opposed the trial of Louis XVI, was a member of the Commission of Twelve and was proscribed with his party.
He remained in hiding for some time, but he was ultimately discovered and guillotined in December 1793.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- View works by [https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/creator/33670 Rabaut de Saint-Étienne] at Biodiversity Heritage Library
- [http://bajarlibros.co/verpdf/lettres-agrave;-monsieur-bailly-sur-l39;histoire-primitive-de-la-gregrave;ce/2oJjCVaIcCabcCal/ Lettres à Monsieur Bailly sur l'histoire primitive de la Grèce (PDF facsimile)]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rabaut Saint-Etienne, Jean-Paul}}
Category:French Calvinist and Reformed ministers
Category:Members of the National Constituent Assembly (France)
Category:Presidents of the National Convention
Category:Deputies to the French National Convention
Category:Members of Parliament for Aube
Category:French people executed by guillotine during the French Revolution