Bassville, Nicolas-Jean Hugou de

▪ French journalist and diplomat

born February 7, 1753, Abbeville, France

died January 14, 1793, Rome, Papal States [Italy]

      French journalist and diplomat whose death in Rome at the hands of a mob was exploited by the French Revolutionary (French Revolution) governments as a grievance against the papacy.

      Bassville was at first employed as a tutor and wrote two educational works. At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789, he became an editor of the Mercure national. In 1790 he published his Mémoires historiques, critiques et politiques sur la Révolution de France (“Historical, Critical, and Political Memoirs of the Revolution of France”). Entering the diplomatic service, he went in May 1792 as secretary of legation to Naples and was soon sent, without official status, to Rome. His conduct in Rome, in particular his provocative display of the French tricolour, enraged the populace. On January 13, 1793, Bassville, who had been driving with his family to the Corso, was pursued by a hostile crowd and dealt a wound from which he died the next day.

      The responsibility for the murder was laid by the National Convention on the pope, and in 1797, by an article of the Peace of Tolentino, the French Directory exacted damages of 300,000 livres for Bassville's family.

* * *