Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve
Date of Birth
January 3, 1756
Date of Death
June 18, 1794
About
A lawyer from Chartres and a popular deputy of the Constituent Assembly, Pétion accompanied the royal family back from Varennes in June 1791. Elected mayor of Paris that November, he held office during the demonstration of 20 June 1792 and the overthrow of the monarchy on 10 August, while his authority was contested by the department, the sections and the insurrectionary Commune. Elected for Eure-et-Loir, he became the Convention’s first president and associated with deputies around Brissot. Placed under arrest after 2 June 1793, he escaped to Normandy and then the Gironde. He and François Buzot died near Saint-Émilion in June 1794, apparently by suicide.