Online Encyclopedia

PIERRE ETIENNE LOUIS DUMONT (1759-1829)

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V08, Page 666 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

See also:
PIERRE ETIENNE LOUIS DUMONT (1759-1829)  , French
See also:
political writer, was born on the 18th of
See also:
July 1759 at Geneva, of which his
See also:
family had been citizens of good repute from the days of Calvin . He was educated for the
See also:
ministry at the college of Geneva, and in 1781 was chosen one of the pastors of the city . The political troubles which disturbed Geneva in 1782, however, suddenly turned the course of his
See also:
life . He belonged to the liberals or democrats, and the triumph of the aristocratic party, through the interference of the courts of France and Sardinia, made residence in his native
See also:
town impossible, though he was not among the" number of the proscribed . He therefore went to join his
See also:
mother and sisters at St
See also:
Petersburg . In this he was probably influenced in
See also:
part by the example of his townsman
See also:
Pierre Lefort, the first tutor, minister, and general of the
See also:
tsar . At St Petersburg he was for eighteen months pastor of the French church . In 1785 he removed to
See also:
London, Lord Shelburne, then a minister of state, having invited him to undertake the
See also:
education of his sons . It was at the house of Lord Shelburne, now 1st marquess of Lansdowne, where he was treated as a friend or rather member of the family, that he became acquainted with many illustrious men, amongst others Fox, Sheridan, Lord Holland and
See also:
Sir
See also:
Samuel Romilly . With the last of these he formed a close and enduring friendship, which had an important influence on his life and pursuits . In 1788 Dumont visited Paris with Romilly . During a stay of two months in that city he had almost daily intercourse with Mirabeau, and a certain affinity of talents and pursuits led to an intimacy between two persons diametrically opposed to each other in habits and in character .

On his return from Paris Dumont made the acquaintance of

Jeremy Bentham . Filled with admiration for the genius of Bentham, Dumont made it one of the chief
See also:
objects of his life to recast and edit the writings of the
See also:
great
See also:
English jurist in a form suitable for the ordinary
See also:
reading public . This
See also:
literary relationship was, according to Dumont's own account, one of a somewhat
See also:
peculiar character . All the fundamental ideas and most of the illustrative material were supplied in the'
See also:
manuscripts of Bentham; Dumont's task was chiefly to abridge by striking out repeated
See also:
matter, to supply lacunae, to secure uniformity of style, and to improve the French . The following
See also:
works of Bentham were published under his editorship: Traite de legislation civile et penale (1802), Theorie
See also:
des peines et des recompenses (1811), Tactique des assemblees legislatives (1815), Trait' des preuves judiciaires (1823) and De l'organization judiciaire et de la codification (1828) . In the summer of 1789 Dumont went to Paris . The
See also:
object of the journey was to obtain through Necker, who had just returned to office, an unrestricted restoration of Genevese liberty, by cancelling the treaty of guarantee between France and Switzer-
See also:
land, which prevented the republic from enacting new
See also:
laws without the consent of the parties to this treaty . The proceedings and negotiations to which this
See also:
mission gave rise necessarily brought Dumont into connexion with most of the leading men in the Constituent Assembly, and made him an interested spectator, sometimes even a participator, indirectly, in the events of the French Revolution . The same cause also led him to renew his acquaintance with Mirabeau, whom he found occupied with his duties as a deputy, and with the composition of his journal, the Courier de Provence . For a time Dumont took an active and very efficient part in the conduct of this journal, supplying it with reports as well as
See also:
original articles, and also furnishing Mirabeau with speeches to be delivered or rather read in the assembly, as related in his highly instructive and interesting
See also:
posthumous
See also:
work entitled Souvenirs sur Mirabeau (1832) . In fact his friend George Wilson used to relate that one day, when they were dining together at a table d'hote at
See also:
Versailles, he saw Dumont engaged in writing the most celebrated
See also:
paragraph of Mirabeau's address to the king for the removal of the troops . He also reported such of Mirabeau's speeches as he did not write, embellishing them from his own stores, which were inexhaustible .

But this co-operation soon came to an end; for, being attacked in

See also:
pamphlets as one of Mirabeau's writers, he felt hurt at the notoriety thus given to his name in connexion with a man occupying Mirabeau's peculiar position, and returned to England in 1791 . In 18or he travelled over various parts of
See also:
Europe with Lord Henry Petty, afterwards 3rd marquess of Lansdowne, and on his return settled down to the editorship of the works of Bentham already mentioned . In 1814 the restoration of Geneva to in-dependence induced Dumont to return to his native place, and he soon became the leader of the supreme council . He devoted particular attention to the judicial and penal systems of his native state, and many improvements on both are due to him . He died at Milan when on an autumn tour on the 29th of September 1829 .

End of Article: PIERRE ETIENNE LOUIS DUMONT (1759-1829)
[back]
JEAN DUMONT (d. 1726)
[next]
DUMORTIERITE

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click and select "copy." Paste it into a website, email, or other HTML document.