Jean-Baptiste du Val-de-Grâce,

baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often Hereditary title, hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than ...

de Cloots (24 June 1755 – 24 March 1794), better known as Anacharsis Cloots (also spelled Clootz), was a Prussian nobleman who was a significant figure in the French Revolution. Perhaps the first to advocate a world parliament, an idea later espoused by

Albert Camus Albert Camus ( ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, journalist, world federalist, and political activist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the s ...

and

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

, he was a

world federalist World federalism or global federalism is a political ideology advocating a democratic, federal world government. A world federation would have authority on issues of global reach, while the members of such a federation would retain authority ove ...

and an internationalist

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

. He was nicknamed "orator of mankind", "citizen of humanity" and "a personal enemy of God". American author

Herman Melville Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works ar ...

refers to an "Anacharsis Clootz deputation" as a representation of global humanity in both ''

Moby-Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 Epic (genre), epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler ...

'' (1851), '' The Confidence-Man'', and later in ''

Billy Budd ''Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative)'', also known as ''Billy Budd, Foretopman'', is a novella by American writer Herman Melville, left unfinished at his death in 1891. Acclaimed by critics as a masterpiece when a hastily transcribed vers ...

''.

Biography

Early life

Born near

Kleve Kleve (; traditional ; ; ; ; ; Low Rhenish: ''Kleff'') is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Netherlands, Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century onwards, Cleves was capital of a county and lat ...

, at the castle of , he belonged to a noble Prussian family of Dutch Protestant origin. The young Cloots, heir to a great fortune, was sent to Paris at age eleven to complete his education, and became attracted to the theories of his uncle the ''

abbé ''Abbé'' (from Latin , in turn from Greek , , from Aramaic ''abba'', a title of honour, literally meaning "the father, my father", emphatic state of ''abh'', "father") is the French word for an abbot. It is also the title used for lower-ranki ...

'' Cornelius de Pauw (1739–1799), '' philosophe'', geographer and diplomat at the court of

Frederick II of Prussia Frederick II (; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was the monarch of Prussia from 1740 until his death in 1786. He was the last Hohenzollern monarch titled ''King in Prussia'', declaring himself '' King of Prussia'' after annexing Royal Prus ...

. His father placed him in the military academy of

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, but he withdrew at the age of twenty and travelled through Europe, preaching his revolutionary philosophy and spending his money as a man of pleasure.

Revolution

On the breaking out of the Revolution, Cloots returned in 1789 to Paris, thinking the opportunity favorable for establishing his dream of a universal family of nations. On 19 June 1790 he appeared at the bar of the National Constituent Assembly at the head of thirty-six foreigners, and, in the name of this embassy of the human race, declared that the world adhered to the

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (), set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human and civil rights document from the French Revolution; the French title can be translated in the modern era as "Decl ...

. After this, he was known as the orator of the human race, by which title he called himself, dropping that of baron, and substituting for his baptismal names the pseudonym of Anacharsis, from Jean-Jacques Barthélemy's famous philosophical romance '' Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece''. In 1792 he placed 12,000 livres at the disposal of the

French Republic France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

for the arming of forty or fifty fighters in the cause of man against

tyranny A tyrant (), in the modern English language, English usage of the word, is an autocracy, absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurper, usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defen ...

(''see

French Revolutionary Wars The French Revolutionary Wars () were a series of sweeping military conflicts resulting from the French Revolution that lasted from 1792 until 1802. They pitted French First Republic, France against Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain, Habsb ...

''). After the riots of 10 August he became an even more prominent supporter of new ideas, and declared himself "the personal enemy of

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

Christ", abjuring all

revealed religion Revelation, or divine revelation, is the disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity (god) or other supernatural entity or entities in the view of religion and theology. Types Individual revelation Thomas A ...

Convention

In the same month he had the rights of French citizenship conferred on him; and, having in September been elected a member of the

National Convention The National Convention () was the constituent assembly of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for its first three years during the French Revolution, following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the ...

, he voted in favor of

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

for

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

Louis XVI Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765), Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir- ...

, justifying it in the name of the human race, and was an active partisan of the war of

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

Execution

Excluded at the insistence of

Maximilien Robespierre Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (; ; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman, widely recognised as one of the most influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. Robespierre ferv ...

from the

Jacobin Club The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (), renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality () after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club () or simply the Jacobins (; ), was the most influential List of polit ...

, he remained a foreigner in many eyes. When the

Committee of Public Safety The Committee of Public Safety () was a committee of the National Convention which formed the provisional government and war cabinet during the Reign of Terror, a violent phase of the French Revolution. Supplementing the Committee of General D ...

levelled accusations of treason against the Hébertists, they also implicated Cloots to give substance to their charge of a foreign plot. Although his innocence was manifest, he was condemned and subsequently

guillotine A guillotine ( ) is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by Decapitation, beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secur ...

d on 24 March 1794. He incongruously followed

Vincent Vincent (Latin: ''Vincentius'') is a masculine given name originating from the Roman name ''Vincentius'', which itself comes from the Latin verb ''vincere'', meaning "to conquer." People with the given name Artists *Vincent Apap (1909–2003) ...

Ronsin Ronsin (or: Ronsen) is a village in the Kogho Department of Ganzourgou Province in central Burkina Faso Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, To ...

, Momoro and the rest of the Hébertist leadership to the scaffold, in front of the largest crowd ever assembled for a public execution. Their death was a sort of carnival, a pleasant spectacle according to Michelet's witnesses.

Thought

Cloots was an original political thinker who crafted his own interpretation of the meaning of the French Revolution. He was a proponent of the world state, and he sought to promote a more broad-minded and internationalist understanding of the Revolution's potential. He imagined the institutions of the world state along the lines of those of the French

Revolutionary Republic A revolutionary republic is a form of government whose main tenets are popular sovereignty, rule of law, and representative democracy. It is based in part on the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers, and was favored by revolutionaries during the ...

. Cloots's thought was expressed in several works, most importantly in his ''Bases constitutionnelles de la République du genre humain''.

Works

*''La Certitude des preuves du mahométisme'' (

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, 1780), published under the pseudonym of ''Ali-GurBer'', in answer to Nicolas-Sylvestre Bergier's ''Certitude des preuves du christianisme'' *''L'Orateur du genre humain, ou Dépêches du Prussien Cloots au Prussien Herzberg'' (Paris, 1791) *''La République universelle ou adresse aux tyrannicides'' (1792). *''Adresse d'un Prussien à un Anglais'' (Paris, 1790), 52 p

*''Bases constitutionnelles de la République du genre humain'' (Paris, 1793), 48 p

*''Voltaire triomphant ou les prêtres déçus'' (178?), 30 p. Attributed to Cloots

*''Discours prononcé à la barre de l'Assemblée nationale par M. de Cloots, du Val-de-Grâce,... à la séance du 19 juin 1790'' (1790), 4 p

Notes

References and further reading

* ''In turn, it cites as references:'' ** Avenel, Georges (1865), ''Anacharsis Cloots, l'orateur du genre humain'', 2 vols., Paris: reprint Editions Champ Libre, 1976 ** H. Baulig's articles in ''La Révolution française'', tome 41 (1901) * Labbé, François (1999), ''Anarchasis Cloots, le Prussien francophile. Un philosophe au service de la Révolution française et universelle'', Paris, L'Harmattan, coll. l'Allemagne d'ier et d'aujourd'hui, 546 p. ** Book review by Annie Duprat, «Anarchasis Cloots, le Prussien francophile. Un philosophe au service de la Révolution française et universelle», in ''Annales historiques de la Révolution française'', Numéro 324, n ligne mis en ligne le : 10 avril 2006. URL

Consulté le 21 octobre 2006. * Mortier, Roland (1995), ''Anacharsis Cloots ou L'utopie foudroyée'', Paris: Stock, 350 p. * .

External links

*
Anarcharsis Cloots Archive
" Marxists Internet Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Cloots, Jean-Baptiste Du Val-De-Grace, Baron De 1755 births 1794 deaths People from Kleve Naturalized citizens of France French atheism activists Deputies to the French National Convention French essayists Barons of the Holy Roman Empire French religious writers French people of Dutch descent People from the Duchy of Cleves People executed by guillotine during the French Revolution German emigrants to France Executed Dutch people Executed people from North Rhine-Westphalia 18th-century French writers 18th-century French male writers French male essayists 18th-century essayists 18th-century atheists Proto-anarchists