JEAN

See also:

• BAPTISTE

BAPTISTE

See also:

• JEAN BAPTISTE DROUET (1763-1824)

DROUET (1763-1824)  , French Revolutionist, chiefly noted for the part he played in the arrest of Louis XVI. at Varennes, was born at Sainte-Menehould . He served for seven years in the army, and afterwards assisted his father, who was post-master of his native town . The carriages conveying the royal family on their flight to the frontier stopped at his door on the evening of the 21st of June 1791; and the passengers, travelling under assumed names, were recognized by Drouet, who immediately took steps which led to their arrest and detection on reaching Varennes . For this service the Assembly awarded him 30,000 francs, but he appears to have declined the reward . In September 1792 he was elected deputy to the Convention, and took his place with the most violent party . He voted the death of the king without appeal, showed implacable hostility to the Girondins, and proposed the slaughter of all English residents in France . Sent as commissioner to the army of the north, he was captured at the siege of Maubeuge and imprisoned at Spielberg till the close of 1795 . He then became a member of the Council of Five Hundred, and was named secretary . Drouet was implicated in the conspiracy of BaI euf, and was imprisoned; but he made his escape into Switzerland, and thence to Teneriffe . There he took part in the successful resistance to the attempt of Nelson on the island, in 1797, and later visited India . The first empire found in him a docile sub-prefect of Sainte-Menehould . After the second Restoration he was compelled to quit France .

Returning secretly he settled at

Macon, under the name of Merger and a guise of piety, and preserved his incognito till his death on the 11th of April 1824 . See G . Lenotre, Le Drame de Varennes (Paris, 1905) .