Jean-Pons-Guillaume Viennet
His long career as a soldier then a politician, playwright and poet lasted through political revolutions and literary wars, and is full of incident and travels.
After being an excellent student at the college in Béziers and presiding over the club for children of his own age during the early years of the Revolution, he was destined by his family for a career in the church.
This ship had scarcely left harbour when it was sighted and pursued by two British cruisers, and a few artillery salvos later the Hercule had lost more than half its rigging and Viennet was taken prisoner.
He left Paris and was a captain in the 1813 Saxony campaign, assisting at the battles of Lützen and Bautzen (at the latter he was decorated personally by Napoleon).
Viennet did not return to the imperial armies during the Hundred Days and refused to vote in favour of the acte additionnel, thus forcing himself to procure a voyage to Cayenne.
He collaborated on the l'Aristarque, the Journal de Paris and the Constitutionnel until he was finally admitted to the corps royal d'état-major thanks to Gouvion Saint-Cyr.
On 17 July 1820, he put on his one-act opera Aspasie et Périclès at the Académie de musique but, though it ran for 16 performances it was not a success despite its masterful music thanks to an uninteresting libretto.
Made chef d'escadron by seniority in 1823, he was demoted to the ranks in 1827 in the wake of the publication of his Épître aux chiffonniers in favour of the liberty of the press, a witty protest against hateful and absurd legislation.
Dedicated to the new regime, but still with a burning and intolerant spirit, he was his party's "enfant terrible" and openly spoke in favour of its opponents' projects, hopes and watchwords.
Even whilst in the Chamber of Deputies he continued to be vehemently outspoken, making sudden and biting attacks on the republicans, who he called paymasters of the counter-revolution and soon drawing scorn and whistles from them.
With continuing energy, Viennet pursued his literary works (novels, operas, tragedies, comedies, epithets and fables) as keenly as his loud political debates.
