Claude Antoine, comte Prieur-Duvernois
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Engraving of Claude Antoine by Emile Giroux |
Claude Antoine,
comte Prieur-Duvernois, commonly known as
Prieur de la Côte-d'Or after his native
département, to distinguish him from
Pierre Louis Prieur (
December 2,
1763—
August 11,
1832), was a
French engineer and a politician during and after the
French Revolution.
Early life and revolutionary beginnings
Born in
Auxonne As an officer of engineers, he presented to the
National Constituent Assembly in
1790 a
Mémoire on the
standardization of weights and measures.
In 1791 he was returned by the Côte-d'Or to the
Legislative Assembly, and in
1792 to the
National Convention. In 1792, Prieur-Duvernois was sent on a mission to the
Army of the Rhine to announce the deposition of
King Louis XVI, after having voted in favor of his
execution.
In
1793 he was a
representative on mission surveying the ports of
Lorient and
Dunkirk, but he was arrested in
Normandy upon the fall of the
Girondists (June 1793) by the rebel authorities of
Caen, and only released in July 1793 after the defeat of their forces at
Vernon.
Committee of Public Safety
On
August 14 1793 he became a member of the
Committee of Public Safety, where he allied himself with
Lazare Carnot in the organization of national defence, being especially charged with the provision of the munitions of for the troops engaged in the
French Revolutionary Wars. With Carnot, he aligned with the
Reign of Terror, and voted in favor of
Georges Danton's execution.
Retaining his seat after the
Thermidorian Reaction, he managed to escape capture in the riots of
1 Prairial Year III, and was subsequently spared the attacks of moderates in the Thermidorian Convention.
Directory and Empire
Under the
Directory he sat in the
Council of Five Hundred, retiring after
Napoleon Bonaparte's
18 Brumaire coup (
November 9,
1799). In
1808 he was created a
count of the
Empire, and in
1811 he retired from the army with the grade of
chef de brigade (the equivalent of
colonel).
Prieur-Duvernois was one of the founders of the
École Polytechnique, and shared in the establishment of the
Institut de France; the adoption of the
metric system and the foundation of the
Bureau des Longitudes were also due to his efforts. Prieur died in
Dijon.
The 1911
Encyclopaedia Britannica, in turn, gives as references:
* J. Gros,
Le Comite de salut public (1893)
* E. Charavay,
Correspondance de Carnot, vol. i., which includes some documents drawn up by Prieur.
