Clootz, JEAN BAPTISTE DU VAL DE GRACE, BARON

Clootz, JEAN BAPTISTE DU VAL DE GRACE, BARON, better known as Anacharsis Clootz, was perhaps the most singular of all the frothy enthusiasts brought to the surface of society by the French Revolution. He was born near Cleves in 1755, and from his eleventh year was educated in Paris. While still young he traversed Europe under the name of Anacharsis, lavishing his money to promote the union of all nations in one family. In the French Revolution he saw the fulfilment of his dreams. He constituted himself the 'orator of the human race,' and wearied out the National Assembly with his endless rant, at one time leading in a tatterdemalion regiment of strangers dressed in the costumes of different nations, at another raving at Christianity and preaching in screams the worship of Reason. He gave his vote for the king's death 'in the name of the human race.' With all its folly his enthusiasm was honest, and he was at once hated and feared by the jealous Robespierre, who had him excluded as a noble from the Jacobin Club, and at last involved him in St Just's impeachment of Hébert and his adherents. He was guillotined, March 23, 1794, preaching materialism to the last, and protesting against his sentence, as usual, 'in the name of the human race.' Of his absurd books, may be named: Certitude des Preuves du Mohammedisme (Lond. 1780), L'Orateur du Genre Humain (1791), and Base Constitutionnelle de la République du Genre Humain (1793). See his Life by Avenel (2 vols. Paris, 1865).