Armand Gensonné (, 10 August 175831 October 1793) was a French politician. The son of a military surgeon, he was born in

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...

, Gascony, and studied Law before the outbreak of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

, becoming lawyer of the '' parlement'' of Bordeaux. In 1790 he became ''procureur'' of the Bordeaux Commune, and in July 1791 was elected by the newly created '' départment'' of the Gironde a member of the court of appeal. In the same year he was elected deputy for the ''départment'' to the Legislative Assembly. As ''rapporteur'' of the diplomatic committee, in which he supported the policy of

Jacques Pierre Brissot Jacques Pierre Brissot (, 15 January 1754 – 31 October 1793), who assumed the name of de Warville (an English version of "d'Ouarville", a hamlet in the village of Lèves where his father owned property), was a leading member of the Girondins du ...

, he proposed two of the most revolutionary measures passed by the Assembly: the decree of accusation against the

King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

's brothers (the

Comte de Provence The land of Provence has a history quite separate from that of any of the larger nations of Europe. Its independent existence has its origins in the frontier nature of the dukedom in Merovingian Gaul. In this position, influenced and affected by ...

and the

Comte d'Artois Charles X (born Charles Philippe, Count of Artois; 9 October 1757 – 6 November 1836) was King of France from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. An uncle of the uncrowned Louis XVII and younger brother to reigning kings Louis XVI and Loui ...

) on 1 January 1792, and the declaration of war against the Habsburg ruler Francis II (20 April 1792). He denounced of the intrigues of the court and of the '' Comité autrichien'' (“Austrian committee”, the purported royalist group supporting the Austrians with whom the country was at war), but the violence of the extreme republicans, culminating in the riots of 10 August, alarmed him. Elected to the

National Convention The National Convention (french: link=no, Convention nationale) was the parliament of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for the rest of its existence during the French Revolution, following the two-year Nationa ...

, where he was regarded as one of the most brilliant of the group of

orator An orator, or oratist, is a public speaker, especially one who is eloquent or skilled. Etymology Recorded in English c. 1374, with a meaning of "one who pleads or argues for a cause", from Anglo-French ''oratour'', Old French ''orateur'' (14th ...

s from the Gironde (although he always read his speeches), Gensonné denounced, on 24 October, the actions of the

Paris Commune The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...

following the

September Massacres The September Massacres were a series of killings of prisoners in Paris that occurred in 1792, from Sunday, 2 September until Thursday, 6 September, during the French Revolution. Between 1,176 and 1,614 people were killed by '' fédérés'', gu ...

. At the king's trial in late December, he supported an

appeal to the people Appeal to the People or An Appeal to the People was a document written by communists in Shōwa era Imperial Japan in Fuchu Prison. It was issued after their release on October 10, 1945, a month after the Surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945. ...

, but voted for the

death sentence Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

. He participated to the Constitution Committee that drafted the

Girondin constitutional project The Girondin constitutional project, presented to the French National Convention on 15 and 16 February 1793 by Nicolas de Caritat, formerly the Marquis de Condorcet, is composed of three parts: * An ''Exposition of the Principles and Motives o ...

. As a member of the Committee of General Defence, and as president of the Convention (7 March–21 March 1793), he shared in the harsh attacks of the

Girondist The Girondins ( , ), or Girondists, were members of a loosely knit political faction during the French Revolution. From 1791 to 1793, the Girondins were active in the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention. Together with the Montagnard ...

s on

The Mountain The Mountain (french: La Montagne) was a political group during the French Revolution. Its members, called the Montagnards (), sat on the highest benches in the National Convention. They were the most radical group and opposed the Girondins. Th ...

. On 2 June, after

François Hanriot François Hanriot (2 December 1759 – 28 July 1794) was a French Sans-culotte leader, street orator, and commander of the Garde Nationale during the French Revolution. He played a vital role in the Insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793 and sub ...

's anti-Girondist intervention, he was among the first of those inscribed on the prosecution list. Gensonné was tried by the

Revolutionary Tribunal The Revolutionary Tribunal (french: Tribunal révolutionnaire; unofficially Popular Tribunal) was a court instituted by the National Convention during the French Revolution for the trial of political offenders. It eventually became one of the ...

on 24 October 1793, sentenced to death and

guillotine A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with stocks at t ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gensonne, Armand 1758 births 1793 deaths Politicians from Bordeaux Girondins Members of the Legislative Assembly (France) Deputies to the French National Convention French people executed by guillotine during the French Revolution Presidents of the National Convention