Barthélémy-Jean-Baptiste Sanadon

Bartholomew John the Baptist Sanadon, better known by the name of Jean-Baptiste Sanadon was a constitutional Catholic Bishop^[1][2] and a member of the revolutionary Convention.

Early life

He was born in February 1729 in Evreux ( Eure ) and died on 9 February 1796 in Sainte-Marie, Pyrénées-Atlantiques). Sanadon entered the Benedictine order and he was principal of the college of Pau, having been a professor of history and literature. In 1785, Sanadon published an essay on the nobility of the Basques, which he extracted from manuscripts of papers knight Jean Philippe de Bela.^[3]

Revolutionary Work

Louis being cross-examined by the Convention.

He was attracted to the ideas of the Revolution and he took the citizenship oath and was elected constitutional bishop of the Lower Pyrenees on 2 March 1790.^[4] He moved to Bayonne and took possession of his diocese, on 21 June 1790, despite the protests of former bishops of Lescar, Oloron and Bayonne against the "intrusion" by the new regime.^[5][6][7]

On 4 September 1792, the electorate in ‘‘Basses-Pyrénées’’ chose him to sit in the National Convention (the first of 6).^[8][9] where he sat with the moderate section. He was also in the so called ‘‘third roll call in the trial of Louis XVI’’ where he said "I vote for life imprisonment for war and peace, deportation."

He resigned on 13 August 1793 and he returned to Bayonne, where he was detained for several months in the Citadel of the Holy Spirit in 1793 and released in 1794, then went to Spain. He was the last Bishop of Oloron.

References

1. Bishops of Oloron at GCatholic Website.
2. La Grande Encyclopédie.
3. Jean Philippe de Bela was also known as Le chevalier de Béla (The Bela Knight), was a colonel of the regiment of Royal-Cantabrian created in 1745 by royal decree. He wrote a book entitled History of the Basques, which remained in manuscript form in three volumes and kept at the National Library.
4. the election went to the second round, where he won by 174 votes against 96 the abbot Guirail.
5. Quoted by Manex Goyhenetche, General History of the Basque Country - Volume 4, Elkarlanean 2002 ( ISBN 978-2-913156-46-3 ) , p. 59 . , P. 59.
6. Julien Vinson, "Historical parts of the revolutionary period in French and Basque," Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts of Bayonne, 1887, p. 57-103 and Bibliography of the Basque Language, p. 240-241.
7. Georgios Fatouros, ‘‘Barthélemy-Jean-Baptiste Sanadon’’, in Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) , Band 8, Herzberg 1994 ( ISBN 3-8830-9053-0 ) , p.1293–1294.
8. ‘‘Dictionnaire des parlementaires français (1789-1889)’’ (Dictionary French parliament (1789-1889)).
9. Julien Vinson, ‘‘Pièces historiques de la période révolutionnaire en français et en basque’’, Bulletin de la Société des sciences, lettres et arts de Bayonne , 1887, pp. 57-103 et Bibliographie de la Langue Basque , p.240-241