Background
Joseph was born in a small village near Nantes on the 21st of May 1763. His father, a seafaring man, destined him for the sea; but the weakness of his frame and the precocity of his talents soon caused this idea to be given up.
Joseph was born in a small village near Nantes on the 21st of May 1763. His father, a seafaring man, destined him for the sea; but the weakness of his frame and the precocity of his talents soon caused this idea to be given up.
He was educated at the college of the Oratorians at Nantes, and showed marked aptitude for studies both literary and scientific. Desiring to enter the teaching profession he was sent to an institution kept by brethren of the same order at Paris. There also he made rapid progress, and soon entered upon tutorial duties at the colleges of Niort, Saumur, Vendome, Juilly and Arras.
At Arras he had some dealings with Robespierre at the time of the beginning of the French Revolution (1789). In October 1790 he was transferred by the Oratorians to their college at Nantes, owing to irregularities due to his zeal for revolutionary principles; but at Nantes he showed even more democratic fervor. His abilities and the zeal with which he espoused the most subversive notions brought him into favour with the populace at Nantes; he became a leading member of the local Jacobin club. After the downfall of the monarchy on the 10th of August 1792, he was elected as deputy for the department of the Lower Loire to the National Convention which met at the autumnal equinox and proclaimed the republic. The literary and pedagogic sympathies of Fouche at first brought him into touch with Condorcet and the party, or group, of the Girondists but their vacillation at the time of the trial and execution of Louis XVI (December 1792 - January 21, 1793) led him to espouse the cause of the Jacobins, the less scrupulous and more thoroughgoing champions of revolutionary doctrine. On the question of the execution of the king, Fouche, after some preliminary hesitations, expressed himself with the utmost vigor in favor of immediate execution, and denounced those who "wavered before the shadow of a king”. He died in 1820.
In May 1792 on the dissolution of the college of the Oratorians at Nantes, Fouche gave up all connection with the church, whose major vows he had not taken.
member of the Jacobin club