About

A lawyer at the parlement of Normandy, Thouret helped draft the cahier des doleances of the Third Estate of Rouen and was elected to represent the city in 1789. As rapporteur of the Constitution Committee, he played a major part in the Constituent Assembly’s administrative and judicial reforms. He presented proposals for a new territorial division whose initial geometrical design was substantially modified before France was divided into eighty-three departments. Thouret supported placing ecclesiastical property at the disposal of the nation and presented reforms that abolished venal judicial offices, established elected judges and created a justice of the peace in each canton. He presided over the Assembly three times, including during its final session in September 1791. Afterwards appointed to the Court of Cassation, he was arrested in November 1793, convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal and guillotined on 22 April 1794.