CHAUMETTE (Pierre-Gaspard). Autograph letter signed... Lot 39

CHAUMETTE (Pierre-Gaspard). Autograph letter signed "Anaxagoras Chaumette" [to Étienne Polvérel]. Paris, [ca. April-May 1792]. 2 pp. in-4. " ... It seems, Monsieur, that Monsieur le maire [Jérôme Pétion] speaks to you of me. I wrote to him immediately after my meeting with Mr. Sonthonax. He had assured me that I would be appointed secretary to the commission. If it hadn't been for his imprudence, I wouldn't have written to the mayor, which pains me because it's unpleasant to see a man like him make a false move. How Mr Sonthonax does me wrong! Far from warning me that another secretary was on the way, he keeps it from me, exposes me to having to talk to you about it and consequently gives me the appearance of a supplanter... It seems that in this cursed affair of the colonies, everything is coming together to vex me. Yesterday I wrote to Mr Vernier in Bizoton [near Port-au-Prince]. I ANNOUNCED TO HIM A COMMISSION CHOSEN BY THE MOST ARDENT SUPPORTERS OF LIBERTY. Adieu, Monsieur, I WISH YOU SUCCESS AS CERTAIN AS YOUR INTENTIONS ARE PURE. Ah, may you have the art of making yourself heard by the blacks; but the means? May you be surrounded only by white men. Ah, especially fear the proud colonists..." Étienne de POLVEREL, member of the General Council of the Paris Commune, and Léger-Félicité SONTHONAX, lawyer and publicist, were both members of the Jacobin Club and both abolitionists. On June 3, 1792, along with Jean-Antoine Ailhaud, they were appointed members of the commission charged with pacifying the rebellious island of Saint-Domingue, and enforcing the April 4 decree granting equal political rights to "free negro men of color". They were assisted by a secretary, Olivier Ferdinand Delpech - a post Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette was aiming for. Their action led to the general emancipation of all slaves in Saint-Domingue in October 1793. A CONVINCED ABOLITIONIST, PIERRE GASPARD CHAUMETTE, who adopted the first name Anaxagoras in reference to the philosopher and friend of Pericles, was a prosecutor for the Paris commune. He embraced the most radical ideas of the Revolution, notably in favor of the underprivileged working classes, and joined the Société des Amis des Noirs alongside Léger-Félicité Sonthonax and Abbé Grégoire. It was with the latter that, in June 1793, he proposed the abolition of slavery to the Convention, which finally adopted it in February 1794. A true spokesman for the sans-culottes and one of the men of the Terror, he nevertheless came up against the hostility of Maximilien de Robespierre: accused of being a foreign agent, he was brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal and executed in April 1794.