Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ viktyʁnjɛ̃ vɛʁɲo]; 31 May 1753 – 31 October 1793) was a French lawyer and statesman, a figure of the French Revolution. A deputy to the Assembly from Bordeaux, Vergniaud was an eloquent orator. He was a supporter of Jacques Pierre Brissot and the Girondist faction.
Vergniaud was born in the city of Limoges in the province of Limousin, to the elder Pierre Vergniaud and his wife Catherine Baubiat. The Vergniauds had both come from well-to-do merchant families with a long history in the province, and the family enjoyed a comfortable prosperity. At the time of Vergniaud's birth, his father was a contractor and purveyor for the king, supplying food for the royal garrison in the city.
The younger Vergniaud was first tutored at home by a Jesuit scholar, Abbé Roby, a master of ancient languages: it is likely that Vergniaud's lifelong love of the classics was inspired by him. The boy was sent to the Jesuit college at Limoges where he excelled. The future French statesman Turgot was at that time the intendant of the province, and knew the elder Vergniaud well. On one occasion, young Pierre recited some of his own poetry in the presence of Turgot, who was greatly impressed by his talent. Through Turgot's patronage, Vergniaud was admitted to the Collège du Plessis in Paris. Little is known of Vergniaud's personal life during his time at Du Plessis, but his education there was clearly a major formative experience: his deep, personal absorption of classical history and philosophy is evident throughout his later life.
After his studies were complete, Vergniaud went unsure of his direction in life. He drifted lazily through several years, dabbling in fiction and theater, and losing his short career as a clerk in the provincial revenue office. Much to his father's dismay, his chief preoccupation became frequenting salons and engaging in conversation, but in these pursuits Vergniaud excelled magnificently: important new friendships and associations grew richly for him in the salons. He was particularly favored by the Countess de Maleyssie, who let the frequently destitute Vergniaud live freely in her estate, and Charles Dupaty, President of the parlement of Bordeaux, who urged him to study law.
Vergniaud's sister Marie had married a wealthy porcelain maker from Limoges named A.M. Alluaud, and it was this brother-in-law who gave fortifying encouragement and critical financial support to the aspiring law student. With his help, and the powerful guidance of Dupaty, Vergniaud was accepted by the bar and went straight into practice in April 1782. He did not take long to make his mark in the field. His first few cases were successful enough, but before the end of his first year in practice he was handed the case of Marie Bérigaud, a local woman accused of promiscuity and a consequent infanticide. This sordid and sensational affair held the city in thrall and Vergniaud was given the difficult assignment of proving her innocence. At the trial's end, the young woman was absolved of all charges, and her false accuser was imprisoned instead. With this shockingly complete victory, Vergniaud was widely recognized as a rising star.
Years of successful advocacy followed, and Vergniaud's eloquence was frequently met with loud bursts of applause in the courtroom. In 1790 he took on the defense of Pierre Durieux, a National Guardsman of Brive who had been imprisoned and sentenced to death for having incited a riot. The Durieux affair arose from the boisterous celebrations of revolutionary peasants in the small village near Brive called Allassac. Incensed members of the local aristocracy had attempted to quell the indecorum by firing shots in the air; met with rocks and stones, they turned their guns on the crowd and killed several peasants. When Durieux's unit arrived to restore order, the soldier found himself repelled by his duty, and according to the charges he urged the rioters to fight back. Durieux was not alone: many Guardsmen were arrested and two were swiftly condemned to death. While Durieux languished in jail awaiting his turn, the news spread and sparked the furious interest of revolutionaries all around the nation. Vergniaud had already been greatly moved by revolutionary rhetoric, and was an enthusiastic supporter of the reforms which had caused the initial celebrations at Allassac. As Durieux's lawyer, Vergniaud entered his first truly political case.
The trial began in February 1791 before a packed courtroom. Vergniaud's case was built on the fact that his client had not actually committed any offense: could he be hanged, Vergniaud asked, just for something he said in a moment of righteous anger? He reminded the court of similarly imprudent remarks that had recently been made in the National Assembly itself: "One of its members... speaking of those to whom the people owe their liberty [said], 'One must fall upon these people saber in hand.' Have you asked for a scaffold to be raised for him?" With rising drama, he repeated the question four times to the hushed courtroom. In a long and incandescent speech, he widened his defense of Durieux to include the whole of the peasant crowd: "They trod in indignation the soil which they so long had watered with their sweat and tears. Their eyes turned with the somber disquiet of resentment to the superb château where they had so often gone to lower themselves by shameful homage, and from which, more than once, the caprices of pride... had spread like devastating torrents." Vergniaud's oration put the entire Revolution on trial, and, like Durieux, it was exonerated completely. Revolutionaries printed copies of his defense and circulated them throughout France. Vergniaud had delivered one of the great speeches of his life, and now the provincial lawyer would be coaxed from all quarters to join the revolution at the national level.
In 1789 Vergniaud had been elected a member of the general council of the département of the Gironde. After the Durieux affair, he was chosen to be a representative to the Legislative Assembly and he proceeded to Paris in August 1791. The Assembly met on 1 October, and for a time Vergniaud refrained from speaking publicly. Soon after his first speech on October 25, however, he was elected president of the Assembly, for the usual brief term. Between the outbreak of the Revolution and his election to the Legislative Assembly, Vergniaud's political views had undergone a decided change. At first he had supported the idea of a constitutional monarchy, but the flight of King Louis XVI made him distrust the sovereign, and he began to favour a republic.
The sentiments and passions that his eloquence aroused were made use of by a more extreme party. Even his first Assembly speech, on the émigrés, proposing for a treble annual contribution be levied on their property, resulted in a measure passed by the Assembly, but vetoed by the king, mandating the death sentence and confiscation of their goods. Step by step, he was led on to tolerate violence and crime, the excesses of which he realised only by the September Massacres, which ultimately overwhelmed the party of Girondists that he led.
On 19 March 1792, when the perpetrators of the massacre of Avignon had been introduced to the Assembly by Collot d'Herbois, Vergniaud spoke indulgently of their crimes and lent the authority of his voice to their amnesty.
He worked at the theme of the émigrés, as it developed into that of the counter-revolution, and in his occasional appearances in the tribune as well as in the project of an address to the French people, which he presented to the Assembly on 27 December 1791, he stirred the heart of France, especially by his call to arms on 18 January, shaped the policy, which culminated in the declaration of war against the king of Bohemia and Hungary on 20 April.
The policy in foreign affairs, which he pursued through the winter and spring of 1791–92, he combined with arousing the suspicions of the people against the monarchy, which he identified with the counter-revolution, and of forcing a change of ministry. On 10 March, Vergniaud delivered a powerful oration in which he denounced the intrigues of the court and uttered his famous apostrophe to the Tuileries: "In ancient times fear and terror have often issued from that famous palace; let them re-enter it to-day in the name of the law!"