“ Fontanes was a moderate reformer, and in 1790 he became joint-editor of the Modérateur. He married at Lyons in 1792, and his wife’s first child was born during their flight from the siege of that town. Fontanes was in hiding in Paris when the four citizens of Lyons were sent to the Convention to protest against the cruelties of Collot d’Herbois. The petition was drawn up by Fontanes, and the authorship being discovered, he fled from Paris and found shelter at Sevran, near Livry, and afterwards at Andelys. ”

“ FONTANES, LOUIS, Marquis de (1757–1821) , French poet and politician, was born at Niort (Deux Sèvres) on the 6th of March 1757. He belonged to a noble Protestant family of Languedoc which had been reduced to poverty by the revocation of the edict of Nantes. His father and grandfather remained Protestant, but he was himself brought up as a Catholic. His parents died in 1774–1775, and in 1777 Fontanes went to Paris, where he found a friend in the dramatist J. F. Ducis. His first published poems, some of which were inspired by English models, appeared in the Almanach des Muses ”

“ He soon returned to France, and his admiration for Napoleon, who commissioned him to write an éloge on Washington, secured his return to the Institute and his political promotion. In 1802 he was elected to the legislative chamber, of which he was president from 1804 to 1810. ”