Armand-Gaston CAMUS (1740-1804) politician and administrator - Lot 231

Armand-Gaston CAMUS (1740-1804) politician and administrator, Conventionnel (Haute-Loire), organizer of the Archives Nationales. L.A. (minute), Paris March 23 II (1793), to his colleagues on mission in Belgium; 7 pages and a quarter in-4. Important letter on Belgium. He recounts his arrival at the Convention, where people are dismayed by "the affair of the 18th" (Dumouriez's rout at Neerwinde), and where a great deal of false news is being spread. Camus asked to speak "on the state of the army and the spirit of the people in Belgium [...] the army in a position to defend itself and having only the indiscipline and treachery of the stains and fugitives to really fear; the Belgians as a people who want to unite with the Republic, who have been exasperated by imprudence and vexations"... Camus then went to the War Committee and the General Defense Committee, where much was said about "the Generals and their faults". He then recounts his altercation with Camille DESMOULINS, accusing Treilhard and Camus of having, in recognition of services rendered under the ancien régime, stripped Dampierre of his command and given it to Lanoue, and of having pretty much stripped Fourcade, Gouchon and Fauchet "who were working usefully in Belgium". Camus asks his colleagues to help him justify himself. He then talks about the possibility of sending national guards to Belgium...Former Patrice Hennessy collection (with his stamp).