Claude Fournier

Claude Fournier L'Héritier (December 21, 1745 - 1825), French revolutionist, called "l'Americain," was born at Auzon (Haute-Loire), the son of a poor weaver.

He went to The Americas to seek his fortune. At San Domingo on the island of Haiti, he started an establishment for making tafia (an inferior quality of rum), but lost his money in a fire. Returning to France he threw himself into the French Revolution with enthusiasm, and distinguished himself by organizing the popular armed force by means of which the most famous of the revolutionary coups were effected. His influence was principally manifested in the insurrections of October 5 and 6 1789, July 17 1791, and June 20 and August 10 1792.

He was on bad terms with the majority of the politicians (particularly with Jean-Paul Marat) and spent a great part of his time in prison, all the governments regarding him as an agitator and accusing him of inciting to insurrection. Arrested for the first time for trying to force an entrance into the club of the Cordeliers, from which he had been expelled, he was released, but was in prison from December 12 1793 to September 21 1794, and again from March 9 1795 to October 26 1795.

After the attempt on the First Consul in the rue Sainte-Nicaise he was deported to Guiana, but was allowed to return to France in 1809. In 1811, while under surveillance at Auxerre, he was accused of having provoked an emeute against taxes known as the droits reunis (afterwards called contributions indirectes), and was imprisoned in the Chateau d'lf, where he remained till 1814.

On the second restoration of the Bourbons, Fournier was confined for about nine months in the prison of La Force. After 1816 he was left unmolested, turned royalist, and passed his last years in importuning the Restoration government for compensation for his lost property in San Domingo. He died in obscurity.

For further details see preface to FA Aulard's edition of Fournier's Mémoires secrets (Paris, 1890), published by the Societe de l'histoire de la Revolution.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.