Joseph Masclet

Amé Thérèse Joseph Masclet (17 November 1760, Douai - 7 October 1833, Nice) was a French diplomat and an author of letters to Lafayette.

Biography

Former civil servant of Ancien Régime in the French Royal Navy, at Saint-Domingue, he was then a lawyer of the Parliament of Paris in 1788.[1][2] At the outbreak of the French Revolution, he was involved as a journalist for the Mercure National[n 1], writing especially for press freedom.[3][4] He enlisted in the French Revolutionary Army in 1790 as an officer in the 1st Regiment of Riflemen, first as second lieutenant, and later as lieutenant, in 1792; he then served as aide-de-camp to general officers in the Army of the Rhine.[2] Masclet, who was friend to Rouget de Lisle, wrote the last two verses of La Marseillaise.[5][6][7]

In an anonymous letter published in the Journal de Paris (1791) under his pseudonym "Eleuthere", he opposed Collot d'Herbois in the case of the Swiss of the Château-Vieux Regiment, that paradoxically became the symbol of freedom, and, in 1792, expressed with André Chénier his strongest claims against festivities given in their honnor by the municipality of Paris.[8][9]

He was pro-Lafayette at that time and went to England during the Reign of Terror to save his life. He constantly wrote defending him, asking for his release from Prussian and Austrian prisons. He published numerous articles in The Morning Chronicle using the pseudonym Eleutheros (freeman).[10][11] He worked to Lafayette's deliverance and succeeded in establishing a correspondence with Lafayette with the assistance of active agents. They became friends at that time.

Later, he served as sub-prefect during Napoleonic era, respectively in Boulogne-sur-Mer, Lille, Douai and Cosne until 1814.[12] In Boulogne, he was slandered as a double agent, a spy and a traitor.[13]

After the First Restoration, he was French consul at Liverpool from where he went to Edinburgh, and later to Bucharest, in 1824. He was French consul at Nice at the time of his death.[14]

Amé-Thérèse-Joseph Masclet was the eldest son of a large family. One of his brothers, Jean-Baptiste died bishop in Moscow. Another one, Hippolyte. was a court advisor in Russia.[12]

References and notes

References
  1. Stendhal (1959). Stendhal-Club; Centre national des lettres; Académie française (eds.). Stendhal club, Volume 2 (in French). Paris: Stendhal Club. p. 126.
  2. Psaume, Étienne (1816). Alexis Eymery; Delaunay (eds.). Biographie moderne, ou galerie historique, civile, militaire [Modern Biography, or Collection of Historical, Civil and Military portraits] (in French). Paris. p. 360. Masclet (Aimé-Thérèse-Joseph)
  3. Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines de l’université de Clermont-Ferrand; Institut d’études du Massif Central (1966). Gilbert Romme (1750-1795) et son temps (in French). Paris: Presses universitaires de France. p. 97. ISBN 9782877410007.
  4. Quérard, Joseph-Marie (1833). La France littéraire, ou Dictionnaire bibliographique [France literary, or Bibliographical dictionary] (in French). Paris: Firmin Didot frères, libraires. p. 594. Masclet
  5. Lamy, Fernand (1978). "Revue de l'Agenais, Volume 104" (in French). Vol. 104. Société académique d'Agen. p. 41. Retrieved 1 September 2016. Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
  6. Welschinger, Henri (1918). "Le premier maire constitutionnel de Strasbourg – Frédéric de Dietrich 1748-1793" (in French). Vol. 47. Revue des Deux Mondes. pp. 251–252. Retrieved 2 September 2016. Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
  7. Maugendre, Xavier (1996). L'Europe des hymnes dans leur contexte historique et musical [European national hymns in their historical and musical context] (in French). Paris: Mardaga Editions. p. 17. ISBN 9782870096321.
  8. Chénier, André (1840). Œuvres en prose: augmentées d'un grand nombre de morceaux inédits [Works in prose: augmented by a large number of unpublished pieces] (in French). Paris: Librairie de C. Gosselin. p. 318. Eleuthère .
  9. Joannic-Seta, Frédérique (2015). Le bagne de Brest: Naissance d'une institution carcérale au siècle des Lumières [The prison of Brest: Birth of a prison institution during the Enlightenment] (in French). Paris: Presses universitaires de Rennes. ISBN 9782753524149.
  10. Jules Cloquet (1835). Recollections of the private life of General Lafayette. Baldwin and Cradock. pp. 49–50. Morning Chronicle.
  11. George Cadogan Morgan; Richard Price Morgan (2012). Mary-Ann Constantine, Paul Frame (ed.). Travels in Revolutionary France and a Journey Across America. University of Wales Press. ISBN 9781783165438.
  12. Duthilloeul, Hippolyte-Romain (1844). Galerie douaisienne, ou biographie des hommes remarquables de la ville de Douai [Galerie douaisienne, or biography of notable men of the city of Douai] (in French). Douai: Adam d'Aubers. pp. 275–279. Masclet (Amé-Thérèse)
  13. Philp, Mark (2006). Resisting Napoleon: The British Response to the Threat of Invasion, 1797-1815. Aldershot, Hant, England & Burlington, USA: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 214. ISBN 9780754653134.
  14. "Joseph Masclet [Eleutheros]". lordbyron.org. Lord Byron and his Time. 2016.

Notes
  1. Mercure national: a French journal created in 1789.

Quotes
  • I receive with great pleasure the letter with which you have honored me, and I have perceived with extreme emotion your affecting and energetic address to the people of Great Britain on the subject of M. de Lafayette.
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