Jean Franois Lefebvre De La Barre
The Chevalier Franois-Jean Lefebvre de La Barre, born 12 September 1746 at Castle Frolles-en-Brie and executed at Abbeville on 1July 1766 , is a victim of religious intolerance in the Enlightenment in a case where s invest the philosophers of the Enlightenment in the name of tolerance of religion.
Summary |
Around the age of 16, in 1762 , the Chevalier de La Barre and his brother Jean-Baptiste are sent to Abbeville with their aunt, Anne Margaret Feydeau (which is actually their cousin), abbess of Willancourt, after the destruction their father who had squandered a fortune of more than 40,000 pounds, annuities inherited from his father, Lieutenant General of the Army.
The case began after the breakdown, discovered on August 9 1765 , the statue of Christ rising on the new bridge of Abbeville. This statue had been slashed in several places by a "sharp instrument" which he wrote as the bailiff of the king, and caused his right leg "three cuts of over an inch long each, and four rows deep" and "two cuts near the stomach." The excitement in the city of Picardy is huge because, according to the Catholic Church, this gesture is God, not only its symbol, which is hit. Thus, the sign of the seriousness of this sacrilege, the bishop of Amiens itself, Bishop Louis-Franois-Gabriel d'Orleans La Motte leads barefoot ceremony of the "repair" to fix this offense in presence of all the local dignitaries.
An ideal culprit
Who committed this sacrilege? Rumours rife but lack of evidence, we must resort to queries to repair the offense. The priests incited the same accusation at Mass on Sunday. Finally, the survey was conducted by Duval Soicour, police lieutenant of Abbeville, which involved hard, not hesitating to provide false accusations and false testimony, and the lieutenant of the election tribunal Belleval , which is a personal enemy of the Chevalier de la Barre, since his aunt, the abbess of Willancourt, rejected his advances.
Intimidated, respondents accuse the knight of La Barre and two accomplices, Gaillard of Etallonde Moisnel and to have sung two songs libertine disrespectful towards religion and to be passed before a procession in July 1765 without removing their hats. Worse, the three men in defiance, refused to kneel during the passage of the same procession. After termination, a search conducted at the home of La Barre led to the discovery of three banned books (including the Philosophical Dictionary of Voltaire and erotic books) which completes the discrediting despite a solid alibi. Unfortunately for La Barre, the Bishop of Amiens and community leaders (encouraged by influential devotees attached to tradition) wanted to make this event a true example.
Thinking be cleared through his family relationships, the Chevalier de La Barre does not prepare his flight and he was arrested on 1 October 1765 to the Abbey Longvillers The mobilization of Enlightenment Implicated in this affair, Voltaire takes up the cause of the Chevalier de La Barre and his co-defendants. He writes the Relation of the death of the Chevalier de la Barre to Mr. Marquis of Beccaria and the cry of innocent blood for which he was then sentenced without the sentence to be executed because of his presence in Switzerland. Because of its remoteness, it is Diderot who keeps abreast of events. Voltaire used his connections to exonerate Etallonde of Gaillard, who had fled to Holland , and protect it by making it engage in the Prussian army. As for Moisnel, who recognized a few profanities and was only 15, he was not worried. The case of the Chevalier de La Barre was appointed, with others as the Calas affair or the case Sirven , one of the famous cases that have been the occasion for Voltaire and the philosophers of the Enlightenment to fight against the arbitrary justice in the eighteenth century. Voltaire has added to his Philosophical Dictionary, Encyclopedia became Questions and considerably enriched, an article entitled "Torture" denouncing injustice and barbarism in the case of the Chevalier de La Barre. This conviction was without legal basis, the Declaration of 30 July 1666 on blasphemy does not provide the death penalty. It was subsequently established that the degradation of the crucifix behind the case Chevalier de la Barre was caused by the accident of a cart loaded with wood. The Chevalier de la Barre was in his room the night of the degradation of the crucifix . The Convention on the rehabilitated 25 Brumaire an II . In 1897 , a committee of freethinkers obtained the erection of a statue of the Chevalier de La Barre to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Montmartre. Moved in 1926 , Nadar Square, the statue was toppled on October 11th 1941 by the Vichy government. On 24 February 2001 , a new statue was erected in its place. There is also a " street Chevalier de La Barre "behind the Sacred Heart, between rue Ramey and the rue du Mont-Cenis. There are also streets of the "Chevalier de la Barre" in Pavilions sous Bois , and Yerres. In 1902 , activists lay lay a bouquet of flowers at the place of execution. This act is responsible for creating the group that organizes the bar since then and still today, the first Sunday of July, an event that runs through the center of Abbeville, the monument La Barre , which was erected in 1907 by voluntary subscription, on the banks of the Somme canal near the station, to the place of execution. Today, the name, Abbeville monument and statue in Paris of the victim of religious intolerance remains a rallying point for proponents of secularism and anti-Catholicism. There are even two associations on behalf of the Chevalier de la Barre: The association Chevalier de la Barre in Paris and Groupe La Barre in Abbeville. Conclusion
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