Pétion de Villeneuve, JÉRÔME, a prominent figure in the French Revolution, was the son of a procureur at Chartres, and was born there in 1753. He was practising as an advocate in his native city when he was elected in 1789 its deputy to the Tiers État. An ardent republican and fluent speaker, he quickly became popular, although essentially windy, verbose, and of mediocre understanding. He was a prominent member of the Jacobin Club, and as 'Pétion the Virtuous' became a great ally of 'Robespierre the Incorruptible.' He was sent along with Barnave and Latour-Maubourg to bring back the fugitive royal family from Varennes, and in the execution of this commission he acted in a brutal and unfeeling manner. He afterwards advocated the deposition of the king, and the appointment of a popularly elected regency, and along with Robespierre received, 30th September 1791, the honours of a civic crown. On the 14th of November he was elected mayor of Paris in Bailly's stead, the court favouring his election to prevent that of Lafayette. The invasion of the Tuileries by the mob and the atrocious September massacres both fell within his year of office. He became the first president of the Convention, and was made ridiculous as 'roi Pétion' through Manuel's proposal to give the president the same authority as the president of the United States. On the triumph of the Terrorists Pétion's popularity declined, and he cast in his lot more and more with the Girondists, having become a habitué of Madame Roland's salon. Like them he voted at the king's trial for death, but with delay of execution and appeal to the people. He was elected to the first committee of general defence in March 1793, and on 12th April he headed the fatal because unsuccessful attack on Robespierre. Proscribed among the twenty-two, on the 2d of June, he escaped to Caen, and on the failure of the attempt to make armed opposition against the Convention fled to the Gironde with Guadet, Buzot, Barbaroux, Salle, and Louvet, and hid in a grotto at St Emilion. At length they were tracked and obliged to flee. The bodies of Pétion and Buzot were found in a cornfield, partly devoured by wolves. They were supposed to have died by their own hands.
His Œuvres fill 3 vols. (1792). See J. J. Regnault-Warin's hyper-eulogistic life (1792); C. A. Dauban's Mémoires inédits (1866); and C. Vatel's Charlotte Corday et les Girondins (3 vols. 1872).