Henri-Jean Bancal des Issarts, militant, deputy, notable: from political utopia to moral order (French Revolution)

Henri-Jean Bancal des Issarts had only been in the Auvergne region for a short while when the Revolution broke out since in 1756, his father, from the Languedoc region, who made silk stockings had come to set up his business in Clermont-Ferrand. With the help of his stewards, he had made it thrive. His economic success made it easier for his family to become part of the social circles of the town, particularly the freemasons, and then came Henri-Jean's studies in Paris and his first steps in the law profession. As early as 1788 he was a member of the Societe des Amis des Noirs and became friends with the future Girondist leaders. During the following year he took an active part in club life and in 1790 he set up the Jacobins de Clermont. Using this network of clubs and societies and provincial newspapers he attempted to circulate new ideas and travelled extensively to try and promote the idea of a European Revolution - Henri-Jean was an out and out Anglophile. These deeds along with the state property that he had acquired lead him to believe that he could lay political claim to the Puy-de-Dome and he stood at many an election suffering bitter defeat (these defeats brought to light the political groups in Clermont-Ferrand and the unparalleled circumspection vis-v-vis the republican temptation that Bancal had expressed as soon as the king's flight became known). He finally became a member of Parliament in 1792. It came as no surprise that his work on education or social order and the leniency he showed when Louis XVI came to trial made him a "Girondist". His electoral mandate was interrupted however by General Dumouriez's betrayal with whom he was on an assignment: Bancal was handed over to the Austrians on April 1,1793. He was set free in August 1795 and for three years he took part in the Conseil des Cinq-Cents; what he said and wrote showed the extent to which his captivity had led him towards a mysticism shot through with intimate Protestant morals; towards a withdrawal to family values above all patriarchal and a landowner's ideal that he tried to establish in Clermont by adopting an attitude that is very revealing of the world of lords and ladies in France which was beginning to take root.