Isaac René Guy le Chapelier
French politician (1754-1794)
Isaac René Guy Le Chapelier (12 June 1754 – 22 April 1794) was a French jurist and politician of the Revolutionary period.
Biography
Le Chapelier was born in Rennes in Brittany, where his father was bâtonnier of the corporation of lawyers, a title equivalent to President of the Bar. He entered the law profession, and was a noted orator. In 1775, Le Chapelier was initiated as a freemason at the Grand Orient de France.
In 1789 he was elected as a deputy to the Estates General by the Third Estate of the sénéchaussée of Rennes. He adopted radical opinions. His influence in the National Constituent Assembly was considerable: he served as president 3–17 August 1789, presiding over the famous all-night session of 4–5 August, during which feudalism was abolished in France, and in late September 1789 was added to the Constitutional Committee, where he drafted much of the Constitution of 1791.
Le Chapelier introduced a motion in the National Assembly which prohibited guilds, trade unions, and compagnonnage, and which also abolished the right to strike. The law did not "abolish the right to strike", no right to not turn up for work and not be dismissed, had ever existed in French law, a "right" that did not exist, and had never existed, can not have been "abolished" by the law of 1791. Le Chapelier and other Jacobins interpreted demands by Paris workers for higher wages as contrary to the new principles of the Revolution.
“Isaac René Guy le Chapelier” enters the record as french politician (1754-1794). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Isaac, René and Chapelier can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1362331. VIAF identifies the subject as 12417062. The Library of Congress control number is n90683423. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1754, 1794, 1775 and 1789.
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This entry incorporates text from “Isaac René Guy le Chapelier” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.