- Adam Lux
Adam Lux (
December 27 ,1765 -November 4 ,1793 ) was a German revolutionary and sympathiser of theFrench Revolution .Life
Early life
Lux was born in
Obernburg am Main , a village belonging to theElectorate of Mainz , as a farmer's son. However, his parents managed to finance his studies at theUniversity of Mainz (in theArchbishopric of Mainz of theHoly Roman Empire , nowadays inRhineland-Palatinate ), where he became a "Dr. phil." with hisLatin dissertation on the notion of "enthusiasm ".As a destitute academic, he first worked as a
tutor for a merchant family inMainz , into which he married. His wife'sdowry made it possible for him to buy an estate in Kostheim, where he followed the call of the French philosopherJean-Jacques Rousseau by getting back to nature, and became a farmer.Republic of Mainz
His advocacy of the French Revolution was expressed by an odd political action: after a three-day-long informative meeting, Lux held a
referendum , about whether his homeland should enter theFrench First Republic , on November 2, 1792 in Kostheim. Of the 223 men entitled to vote, 213 supported an accession to France; only 2 rejected the idea, the remaining 8 couldn't take part in the referendum. The result of poll was celebrated with a feast, whose climax was the planting of aliberty pole .Lux then moved to Mainz with his family, where the Rhenish-German National Convention, the parliament of the
Republic of Mainz , chaired byAndreas Joseph Hofmann , which was founded according to the French example, elected him to be a representative.In France
On
March 21 ,1793 , the convention sent the naturalist and writerGeorg Forster , the merchantAndré Potocki , and him toParis , to complete the planned accession to France. In Paris he met several German "friends of freedom", such asKonrad Engelbert Oelsner andJohann Georg Kerner , who shared his disappointment with the development of the Revolution. They were disgusted by the eruption of the Terror and the radicalization of theSans-culottes and theJacobin Club .On
July 17 ,1793 Lux witnessed the execution of theGirondist Charlotte Corday , who had assassinated the radical agitatorJean-Paul Marat . With the publication of provokingpamphlet s, in which justified the killing as an act of liberation, he apparently risked his life deliberately - not all motives of his behavior are comprehensible nowadays, especially those concerning his relation to Corday and her actions. The poetJustinus Kerner , whose older brother Johann Georg Kerner witnessed the events in Paris, reported on these activities in his book "Bilderbuch aus meiner Knabenzeit", which was based on his brother's records.Death and legacy
After giving up the intention of publicly killing himself in front of the
National Convention , in order to protest against the violence of revolutionary goals, he set out to be executed by his former political friends. According to eyewittnesses, Lux ascended theguillotine 'sscaffold , as if it were a rostrum.Because of his mysterious fate, Lux drew the attention of his contemporaries.
Jean Paul wrote: " [Let] no German forget him!". According to the AmericanGermanist Thomas Saine ,Johann Wolfgang von Goethe even based the first husband of Dorothea in his epic "Hermann and Dorothea " (1798) on Lux. Comparatively, the interest in Lux went into decline in subsequent periods.References
*
Justinus Kerner , "Das Bilderbuch aus meiner Knabenzeit. Erinnerungen aus den Jahren 1786 bis 1804", Chapter " [http://www.guenther-emig.de/kerner/bilder_07.html Freundschaftliches Verhältnis meines Bruders mit Adam Lux] ",Braunschweig , 1849
*Stefan Zweig , "Adam Lux. Zehn Bilder aus dem Leben eines deutschen Revolutionärs", with essays byFranz Dumont andErwin Rotermund ,Obernburg am Main , Logo Verlag, 2004
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