Jacques-Pierre Brissot,
J.P. Brissot, Deputy of Eure and Loire, To His Constituents
(New York: Reprinted by Childs and Swain, 1794).

During the French Revolution, Brissot wrote this defense of his conduct as a leader of the more moderate Girondin faction. Brissot's influence was challenged by the Montagnards, whose allied forces surrounded the revolutionary National Convention in June 1793 and arrested him. After an escape and recapture, Brissot and 28 others were sentenced to death in October. The Girondins' demise by arrest, trial, and execution marked the beginning of the Terror.

The text, translated and printed in New York less than a year after Brissot's death, shows how keenly Americans followed contemporary events in France. In particular, our copy has extensive annotations by the great American jurist James Kent. In 1794, Kent had just been hired as the first law professor at Columbia, where his lectures would form the basis of his famous Commentaries on American Law (1826-30). He also kept abreast of history, politics, and literature, due in part to his growing library. No radical republican, Kent's comments transcribed here reflect American political differences between those more and less sympathetic to the course of the French Revolution.

James Kent’s annotations – J. P. Brissot, J. P. Brissot, Deputy of the Eure and Loire…

Another of Kent's books, his copy of the Natura Brevium (London, 1634), is also in our collection.