page_title: Vincent-Marie Viénot, Count of Vaublanc
section_title: A leader of the Club des Feuillants (1791–1792)
hierarchical_section_title: Vincent-Marie Viénot, Count of Vaublanc / Political career during the French Revolution / A leader of the Club des Feuillants (1791–1792)
context_page_description: Vincent-Marie Viénot de Vaublanc baron of the Empire as known as "count de Vaublanc" ' was a French royalist politician, writer and artist. He was a deputy for the Seine-et-Marne département in the French Legislative Assembly, served as President of the same body, and from 26 September 1815 to 7 May 1816, he was the French Minister of the Interior.
  His political career had him rubbing shoulders with Louis XVI, Napoleon Bonaparte, the Count of Artois, and finally Louis XVIII. He was banished and recalled four times by different regimes, never arrested, succeeding each time in regaining official favour. In a long and eventful career, he was successively a monarchist deputy during the Revolution and under the Directoire, an exile during the Terror, a deputy under Napoleon, Minister of the Interior to Louis XVIII and eventually, at the end of his political career, a simple ultra-royalist deputy.
  He is remembered now for the fiery eloquence of his speeches, and for his controversial reorganisation of the Académie française in 1816 while Minister of the Interior.
context_section_description: From this point on, he took the name of Viénot-Vaublanc, which he retained until the end of the First Empire in 1814.
  From the very moment of his appearance, he made himself conspicuous by delivering a speech which denounced the humiliating terms on which Louis XVI was to be received by the Assembly the next day. As a result of these statements, he was elected president from 15 November to 28 November 1791 by the assembly, the majority of whom were royalist.
  On 29 November, Vaublanc was assigned the task of composing a message to the King, asking him to withdraw his veto of the decree of 9 November, a decree designed to slow the massive emigrations (then encouraged by the priests and the nobility) by threatening reprisals against German princes who continued to offer refuge to the armies of French noblemen (such as those of the Comte d'Artois, and of the Prince of Condé). The assembly was so pleased with his work that they asked him to read it to the King personally. Louis XVI replied that he would take the request into serious consideration, and, several days later, personally announced his decision on the matter.
  On this occasion Vaublanc made a name for himself by informing the assembly "that the King had made the first bow, and he had only returned the gesture." The anecdote reveals the shift in constitutional forces: the legislative power, embodied in the Legislative Assembly, was clearly ascendant over the executive, embodied in Louis XVI, who was now no more than the "King of the French" or roi des français.
  Vaublanc now sided with the constitutional monarchists and joined the Amis de la Constitution (dubbed the Club des Feuillants) with 263 other colleagues out of the 745 deputies. He became one of its principal figures, along with Jacques Claude Beugnot, Mathieu Dumas and Jaucourt, after the departure of Barnave and C. Lameth. He vigorously opposed revolutionary governments and was characterised by his loyalty to the King, his opposition to repressive measures against rebellious priests and to laws confiscating the goods of émigrés, and his denunciation of the massacres at Avignon. Debate became steadily more extreme. The crowds attending these debates often shouted at him (as they did at Charles de Lacretelle) "À la lanterne!" Nicolas de Condorcet, his hostile colleague in the Legislative Assembly in 1791, said of him: "There are, at all meetings, these noisy air-headed orators, who produce a great effect through the constant repetition of redundant inanities." Brissot, one of the chief Girondists in the Legislative Assembly, nicknamed him le chef des bicaméristes.
caption: Louis XVI
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