Hugues Destrem

On the following 7 June, in the name of the extraordinary committees for finance and commerce, he issued an urgent decree allocating the necessary funds for the département of Aisne to buy grain in the districts not suffering from scarcity then affecting other countries.

He was elected secretary to the assembly on 21 December the same year alongside Quirot, Joubert and Rollin, dealing with financial and administrative questions.

Hostile to the Coup of 18 Brumaire, he demanded explanations on the extraordinary convocation of the Council at the château de Saint-Cloud and the permanence of the moving sitting of 19.

His son successfully petitioned Napoleon for a pardon for him, but in the meantime he had escaped from Cayenne aboard an American ship with Étienne Michel, who had been exiled at the same time.

In 1908 a bronze bust of Destrem was made by Frédéric Brou for his birthplace, but Vichy France took it down as part of the 'mobilisation of non-ferrous metals' and sent it to Germany, where it was melted down.