Léopold Renaudin
Léopold Renaudin (11 March 1749 – 7 May 1795) was a French revolutionary sworn to the Revolutionary Tribunal.[1]
Career
Renaudin was born in Saint-Remy in the Vosges, the son of Gaspard Renaudin, shoemaker, and Mary Anne Miquel. He became a luthier and worked in Paris at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1776, he moved to rue Saint-Honoré, close to the Opera, in the section of the Oratory, where he remained until the end of his days. In his work, he is particularly known for his basses, which are still sought after in the 21st century.[2]
A supporter of revolutionary ideals, he became an elector of his section 1791 and 1792. Mandated by the section to demand in the Legislature on 3 August 1792 that the king be deposed, he sat on the Paris Commune on August 10. One of the most energetic members of the Jacobin Club, the jury considered him the hardest of those tried in the Revolutionary Court. At trial, he defended himself, like most defendants, by saying: "At that time, everyone would have voted as we did". Sentenced to death on 17 Floreal, year III, he was guillotined the next day in Paris, on the Place de Grève, with fifteen co-defendants.
References
- Sylvette Milliot Histoire de la lutherie parisienne du XVIIIe siècle à 1960 1997 Volume 2 - Page 125 "Ainsi est mort, à quarante-six ans, Léopold Renaudin, luthier et juré du tribunal révolutionnaire. Rien n'indique qu'il ait eu à certains moments quelque éclair de lucidité sur le rôle abominable qu'il jouait."
- Susan Orlando The Italian Viola Da Gamba 2002 Page 161 - "An example is the French luthier Léopold Renaudin (1756-1795), who advertised his services: 'Renaudin, Luthier of the Academie de Musique, makes all sorts of musical instruments, repairs them and cuts them when they are of a form too big ..."