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Pierre Gaspard Chaumette

Pierre Gaspard Chamette (1763 - April 13, 1794) was a French politician of the Revolutionary period.

Born in Nevers, his main interest was botany until the outbreak of the Revolution. Chaumette studied medicine at the University of Paris in 1790, became one of the orators of the club of the Cordeliers, and contributed anonymously to the Revolutions de Paris. As member of the insurrectionary Commune during the insurrection of August 10, 1792, he was delegated to visit the prisons, with full power to arrest suspects. He was accused later of having taken part in the September Massacres, but proved that at that time he had been sent by the provisional executive council to Normandy to oversee a requisition of 60,000 men. Returning from this mission, he spoke eloquently in favour of the French Republic.

His conduct, oratorical talent, and the fact that his private life was considered beyond reproach, all made him influential, and he was elected president of the Commune, defending the municipality at the bar of the National Convention on October 31, 1792.

Re-elected in the municipal elections of December 2, 1792, he was soon given the functions of procoureur of the Commune, and contributed with success to the enrolments of volunteers in the by his appeals to the population of Paris. Chaumette was one of the instigators in the attacks of May 31 and of June 2, 1793 on the Girondists, carrying out a virulent and intransigent attack.

He demanded the formation of a Revolutionary Army, and repeatedly demanded the extermination of all traitors to the Revolution. He promoted the worship of Reason, and on November 10, 1793, presented the "goddess" to the Convention in the guise of an actress. On November 23, Chaumette obtained a decree closing all the churches of Paris, and placing the priests under strict surveillance; however, two days later he obtained from the Commune the free exercise of worship.

He wished to save the Hébertists through a new insurrection, and fought against Maximilien Robespierre (who, as a promoter of the Cult of the Supreme Being, had provoked the fall of Hébertists). His revolutionary decree promulgated by the Commune on his demand was overthrown by the Convention. Robespierre had him accused with the Hébertists; Chaumette was arrested, imprisoned in the Luxembourg Palace, sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal, and guillotined.

Chaumette was a noted social reformer: he secured the abolition of corporal punishment in schools, the suppression of lotteries, of bordellos and of obscene literature; he instituted reforms in the hospitals, and insisted on the honours of public burial for the poor.

Chaumette left some printed speeches and fragments, and memoirs published in the Amateur d'autographes. His memoirs on the events of August 10 were published by François Victor Alphonse Aulard, preceded by a biographical study.

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.