MOUNIER, JEAN JOSEPH (1758-18o6)

This article appears in Volume V18, Page 936 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MOS-NAN

MOUNIER, JEAN JOSEPH (1758-18o6) , French politician, was born at

Grenoble

GRENOBLE

(Isere) on the 12th of November 1758. He studied law, and in 1783 obtained a judgeship at

Grenoble

GRENOBLE

. He took

part

PART

in the struggle between the pi...dements and the

court

in 1788, and promoted the

meeting

MEETING (from " to meet," to come together, assemble, 0. Eng. metals ; cf. Du. moeten, Swed. mota, Goth. gamotjan, &c., derivatives of the Teut. word for a meeting, seen in O. Eng. Wit, moot, an assembly of the
people
- PEOPLE
; cf. witanagemot)

of the estates of Dauphine at Vizille (July 20, 1788), which on the eve of the Revolution created an immense stir. He was secretary of this assembly, and drafted the cahiers of grievances and remonstrances presented by it to the king. Thus brought into prominence, Mounier was unanimously elected

deputy

DEPUTY (through the Fr. from a Late Lat. use of deputare, to cut off, allot; putare having the original sense of to trim, prune)

of the third estate to the states general of 1789. There, and in the Constituent Assembly, he was at first an upholder of the new ideas, pronouncing himself in favour of the

union

of the Third Estate with the two privileged orders, proposing the famous oath of the Tennis

Court

, assisting in the preparation of the new constitution, and demanding the return of Necker. On the 28th of September 1789 he was elected president of the Constituent Assembly. Being unable, however, to approve the proceedings which followed, Mounier withdrew to Dauphine, gave in his resignation as

deputy

DEPUTY (through the Fr. from a Late Lat. use of deputare, to cut off, allot; putare having the original sense of to trim, prune)

, and, becoming suspect, took

refuge

REFUGE

in Switzerland in 1790. He returned to France in 18oi, was named by Bonaparte prefect of the department of Illeet-Vilaine, which he reorganized, and in 1805 was appointed councillor of state. He died in Paris on the 28th of January 18o6. His

principal

PRINCIPAL

writings are Considerations sur les gouvernements (1789); Recherches sur les causes qui ont empeche les Francais de devenir libres (1792), and De i'Inftuence attribuee aux philosophes, aux francs-

mason

et aux illumines sur la revolution de la France (18oi).
See F. A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de l'assemblee constituante (2nd ed., Paris, 19o5); De Lanzac de Laborie, Utz Royaliste liberal en 1789; J. J. Mounier (Paris, 1887) ; A. Itochas, Biographie du Dauphine (Paris, 1856) ; Berriat St Prix, Eloge historique de M. Mounier (1806) ; F. BoIanovski, " Quelques lettres inedites de J. J. Mounier," in the Revue historique (1898).

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