Chaumette

Chaumette, PIERRE GASPARD, one of the French Revolutionists, was born a shoemaker's son at Nevers in 1763. He was some years a seaman, but the opening of the Revolution found him a clerk at Paris. He attached himself to Camille Desmoulins, and soon gained such popularity by his extravagant sansculottism that he was appointed procurator of the commune of Paris. In his zeal he rejected his own Christian name, Pierre, as having been sullied by saintly associations, and styled himself 'Anaxagoras.' The institution of the tribunal of the Revolution, the decree for a revolutionary army, and the law against suspected aristocrats, were largely due to his efforts. One of his proposals was that all Parisians should wear sabots, another that the Tuileries and Luxembourg gardens should be planted with potatoes. His antics in connection with the 'worship of reason' excited the disgust of Robespierre, who devised measures for bringing the whole company of actors under Hébert to the scaffold. He was executed April 13, 1794.