Jean-François Reubell

Although numerous facets of the French Revolution have been thoroughly researched, there remain many lacunae. A historian can still find much virgin territory in the social aspects of the Revolution or he can study the events of a given locality. It is especially in the realm of biographical studies, however, that much more remains to be done. Social, economic, and other forces played an important role in the Great Revolution. But in the final analysis it were men and women, no matter how much they might have been "conditioned by the forces of history" or their environment who determined the course of history and who molded their own destiny. No biography on J ean-Franc;ois Reubell has been written. Some fifty years ago R. Guyot wrote, Documents biographiques sur J.-F. Reubell (Paris, Nancy, IgII). This is a bibliographical and archival guide, how ever, which I have used with profit. Furthermore, the well-known Alsatian dignitary and historian M. Felix Schaedelin devoted much of his time to a study of Reuben, but he never wrote a biography. Reuben was not one of the major figures on the revolutionary stage, but he was one of the many revolutionaries whose role was on many occasions very conspicious and decisive. A study of his career, there fore, can illuminate various facets of the Revolution especially the period of the Directory.