José Ruiz de Cueto Marchena

Background

José Marchena Ruiz de Cueto was born on November 18, 1768, at Utrera, Spain. He was a son of a Prosecutor in the Council of Castile.

Education

From 1780 Marchena studied in the school of Doña María de Aragón in Madrid, and in 1784 he studied moral philosophy in the real studies of San Isidro of the Court itself. He enrolled at the Faculty of Law of the University of Salamanca, which granted him the Bachelor's degree in 1788.

Career

Between 1788 and 1792 he lived in Madrid a rather dark life, dedicated to the study, political thought and literature. His Ode to the French Revolution, probably composed in the summer of 1789, highlights his early political commitment and his fascination by the events in France. In March 1792 he was into exile. Until March of the following year he remained in Bayonne, where he co-existed with other Spanish refugees. In August 1792 he published with Miguel Rubin de Celis the Gazette of liberty and equality. At the end of that year he stroke up a relationship with the Deputy Brissot, which joined since an intense and loyal friendship. Animated by Brissot, in March 1793 he travelled to Paris to the orders of the Minister Lebrun, which lasted a project of revolutionary propaganda aimed at the countries at war with the Republic. However, the fall of the Girondists party in June 1793 frustrated the plans of Marchena, who had already suffered a brief retention in Paris in early May. After various vicissitudes, he was arrested in Bordeaux with other militant and driven to the capital. On October 17 he entered the prison in the Conciergerie, where remains detained probably until the end of 1794.

At a later date he organized a revolutionary movement at Bayonne, returned to Paris, avowed his sympathies with the Girondists, and refused the advances of Robespierre. He acted as editor of L'Ami des lois and other French journals till 1799, when he was expelled from France; he succeeded, however, in obtaining employment under Moreau, upon whose fall in 1804 he declared himself a Bonapartist. In 1808 he accompanied Murat to Spain as private secretary; in this same year he was imprisoned by the Inquisition, but was released by Joseph Bonaparte, who appointed him editor of the official Gaceta. In 1813 Marchena retired to Valencia, and thence to France, where he supported himself by translating into Spanish the works of Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire and Volney. The Liberal triumph of 1820 opened Spain to him once more, but he was coldly received by the revolutionary party.

José Marchena Ruiz de Cueto died on February 26, 1821, at Madrid.

Achievements

• José Marchena Ruiz de Cueto was an honoured writer, who is best known by his ode to Christ Crucified, which breathes a spirit of profound and tender piety.

Connections

Friend:

Jacques Pierre Brissot