A really existing Enjolras and the Republic - Documentation of a research
So a few days ago I found an interesting article about a historical figure whose name is Enjolras.
The blog on which I found it is rather dubious, as it is declared counterrevolutionary and its main purpose seems to be blaming the Republic for all possible injustices happening at the end of the 18th century. The article itself however does not reflect this at all, which makes me think that is just a plagiate of the article cited at the bottom, i.e. A. MAZON - Revue historique, archƩologique, littƩraire et pittoresque du Vivarais - 15 janvier 1893.
However I canāt check this, because there is no (other) copy of this article available.
I thus shall report the most important information I retrieved from that article.
Jean-Claude Enjolras-Laprade, ex-priest, justice of the peace (1758-1828)
Ā First of all I have to admit that I am not an expert in history of the French Revolution or anything similar to that, so there might be inadecuacies.
The first thing the article mentions is that little is known about his youth. After becoming a priest he was a teacher at the collĆØge dāAubenas.
When the revolution happened it was decided that the churchmen who didnāt take the oath as prescribed by the National Assembly in 1791. As the only one of the churchmen Enjolras took the oath thus declaring his loyality to the nation, the law and the king (who was still in power at the time) and to maintain with all his power the constitution declared by the National Assembly and accepted by the king. As a recompension he was ordained constitutional priest of Aubenas (whatever that is, probably some religious function). And contemporarily he was also member of the general council of the municipality.
He stayed the consitutional priest of Aubenas until the closure of the churches in January 1793.
When he renounced at his functions he signed the following declaration:
In a free government, there does not have to be any privilege. The freedom of cultes was proclaimed to the big satisfaction of the French republicans. This law would not reach its goal, if there was a dominant religion by law and by fact. However, there exists one, by law and by fact: the catholic religion. It has a public cult, its ministers are salaried : what has to be for everone or for no one. I give an example of a submission to the law; I abandon the treatment that the nation has given me in quality of priest of Aubenas, and I renounce moreover on the public functions as a priest.
In 1794 Enjolras was arrested two times, and remained in prison for almost the entire year. He is accused of intrigues, but in a letter to a friend whom he asks for help and who seems to have some public function he says that he himself is the victime of intrigues. He describes a state of violence for which he blames the fanatics and the aristocrats. He calls this people newly converted, and pretending to be sincere and true Republicans while suppressing those who really are upholding these principles since the beginning or even before. He tells how four professors of the collĆØge have been discharged and replaced by incompetent men without moral.
The few of republicans that remain, seing what happened to those who have directed thim all the time of the Revolution, were intimidated and reduced to silence
[The newly converted presented] as intrigants all those who have made the revolution in the ArdĆØche and have sustained the true principles in times of crisis. [They successfully convinced others that they] are true and sincere republicans. [Guyardin] did not think that they could have wanted to prevent the national guard from marching to Lyon, nor to pervert the public spirit by theĀ aristocratic wordings [...]. What was clear is that all that was patriot in Villeneuve, Privas, Aubenas and elsewhere was presented to him asĀ instigator of trouble and propagator of anarchy. The patriots have been witnesses to all of this, they suffered it and they didnāt dare to say a word.
I dared to advance that I didnāt believe that the aristocrats of 1790, the fanatics of 1791, the federalists of August and September 1793 were true and sincere republicans only two months later.
How this whole affair developed and why he was set free again and when or how, this articles does not mention. It only says that in his memoirs he stated that afterwards he stayed unemployed relying on family until 1796, and that from that year on he fulfilled his function as a justice of the peace in Coucouron until 1810.
Whereas in another article I learned that the main task of a justice of the peace at the time were to solve problems concerning the family (heritage, children out of marriage, child custody...), disputes between neighbours, debts and similar question, with limited penal powers, this one seems to have been occupied primarily with the repression of violent counterrevolutionary and criminal action, which was very intense in that region.
The article contains very detailed descriptionsĀ of both his attempts of reestablishing order in the region, lack in support from the authorities, as well as violent reprisal against him and his family because of these involvements. He also describes that his brother and his wife, who lived at the same place as he, died as a consequence of this kind of violence leaving behind six children aged between 15 years and 18 months.
He recruited spies and was always prepared to monitor the ways where the counterrevolutinaries could pass and often he would set himself at the head of the national guards to chase the robbers or to purge the woods that had become national of a crowd of marauders that had no scruples in stealing from wood that they considered as stolen from them by the government.
His overzeal in repressing counterrevolutionary activities has made its way into the local tradition according to which it was enough to people who were suspected of coldness towards the institutions of the time to be caught with an arm to be shot by order of the terrible justice of the peace. But the author of the article is convinced that this might be an exageration.
There is a huge contrast between the harsh persecution of the counterrevolutionaries by Enjolras and his attitude towards prosecuted priests. Here he is reported to have looked away on purpose when confronted with illegal church activities. This shows that despite having renounced to his public religious functions, he still considered himself a priest and he also didnāt renounce his catholic faith
Because of his clear political stance he was marginalized by the Restauration authorities and, because of his overzeal in the persecution of counterrevolutionaries he probably also didnāt have the best reputation among the population. The clergy didnāt like him because he renounced at his religious function (which they considered an apostasy). He wasnāt even in good terms with his own family because of his avarice and his harassing spirit. One of his relatives even was suspected to be responsable for his death in 1828, but was acquitted owing to lack of evidence.
Sadly this article about him was the only information I could get about this Enjolras, which is fragmentary, but based on sources written by himself. What I can say after reading it is that the experiences as they were described by Enjolras himself and contextualized in the articles fit well in the picture I got from @pilferingapples post about the reasons why Hugo placed the origin of the Amis in the Midi. I now have a very concrete example of how this environment could have looked like at just 10 years before our Enjolras was born, and I could imagine that Hugos Enjolras, was he a actually living person, could well be somehow related to the Enjolras described in the article, and grown up with family histories of that kind, also considering that this Enjolras himself actually lived until 1828.
