Gorsa, Antoine Joseph

The son of a shoemaker Jean Baptiste Gors and Maria Anna Peyre. He received a good education and at first was preparing to become a priest. Having abandoned his church career, he came to Paris , where he began to give private lessons, including at the Versailles military school, founded in 1779. For several biting pamphlets against the existing order, in 1781 he was arrested and spent several months in Bisetr prison. This injustice, perpetrated by him, as he believed, further forced him to join the revolutionary movement.

In 1789, with the beginning of the Revolution, Gorsa founded the Courrier de Versailles newspaper (Courrier de Paris dans les provinces), which later became the Courrier des départements and distributed throughout the country. October 4, 1789 in the Palais Royal publicly announced his article on the royalist banquet in Versailles, when in the presence of the king and queen the national cockade was trampled. The next day, he led one of the columns during the campaign of women on Versailles , then sent the royal family to Paris .

He joined the Jacobin club and took an active part in the events of June 20 and August 10, 1792. Elected a member of the Convention from the Department of Seine and Oise , during the trial of Louis XVI he was the secretary of the Assembly, voted for the expulsion and appeal to the people. At first Gorsa joined the Montagnards , but then he moved to the Girondins camp and became a fierce denouncer of the leaders of the Mountain, mainly Marat. In turn, Marat spoke of him like this: "a low flatterer on a salary from Necker, then from Baia, then from Motier, after August 10, calls himself a democrat." ^[2] In the Commune of Paris, Gors was called the "deserter of the people."

The uprising of May 31 - June 2, 1793 put an end to Gors's political career. He fell under the decree of the arrest of twenty-nine Girondins and with them fled first to Evreux and then to Caen . After the suppression of the federalist rebellion on July 28, Gorsa was outlawed. He managed to move to the UK , where he could remain safe. But in early October 1793, Gorsa secretly returned to Paris to one of his former mistresses - Brigitte Mathieu, who contained a reading room in the Palais Royal . Despite all the precautions, the fugitive was recognized by visitors to the Palais Royal and reported to the authorities. On October 7, Gorsa was arrested, immediately appeared before the Revolutionary Tribunal and executed. On the scaffold, Gorsa behaved courageously; the last words before the execution: "Whoever hears me, tell my wife and children that I am dying innocent." ^[3]