1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lanjuinais, Jean Denis, Comte

LANJUINAIS, JEAN DENIS, Comte (1753–1827), French politician, was born at Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) on the 12th of March 1753. After a brilliant college career, which made him doctor of laws and a qualified barrister at nineteen, he was appointed counsel to the Breton estates and in 1775 professor of ecclesiastical law at Rennes. At this period he wrote two important works which, owing to the distracted state of public affairs, remained unpublished, Institutiones juris ecclesiastici and Praelectiones juris ecclesiastici. He had begun his career at the bar by pleading against the feudal droit du colombier, and when he was sent by his fellow-citizens to the states-general of 1789 he demanded the abolition of nobility and the substitution of the title of king of the French and the Navarrese for king of France and Navarre, and helped to establish the civil constitution of the clergy. Returned to the Convention in September 1792 he developed moderate, even reactionary views, becoming one of the fiercest opponents of the Mountain, though he never wavered in his support of republican principles. He refused to vote for the death of Louis