Mounier was born the son of a cloth merchant in
Grenoble in Southeastern France. He studied
law, and in 1782 purchased a minor judgeship at Grenoble. He took part in the struggle between the
parlements and the court in 1788, and promoted the meeting of the estates of Dauphiné at
Vizille (20 July 1788), on the eve of the
French Revolution. He was secretary of the assembly, and drafted the
cahiers ("notebooks") of grievances and remonstrances presented by it to King
Louis XVI. Thus brought into prominence, Mounier was unanimously elected deputy of the third estate to the
Estates General of 1789; Mounier also founded the
Monarchiens party in August 1789. There, and in the
Constituent Assembly, he was at first an upholder of the new ideas, pronouncing himself in favor of the union of the Third Estate with the two privileged orders, proposing the famous
Tennis Court Oath, assisting in the preparation of the new constitution, and demanding the return of
Jacques Necker. After the
Estates General became the
National Assembly, Mounier was elected to the committee on the constitution. On 28 September 1789 he was elected president of the Constituent Assembly. Being unable to approve the proceedings which followed, Mounier withdrew to Dauphiné, resigned as deputy, and, becoming suspect, took refuge in
Switzerland in 1790. He returned to France in 1801.
Napoleon Bonaparte named him prefect of the department of
Ille-et-Vilaine, which he reorganized, and in 1805, he was appointed councillor of state. He died in Paris. His principal writings are
Considérations sur les gouvernements (1789);
Recherches sur les causes qui ont empeché les Français de devenir libres (1792), and ''De l'influence attribuée aux philosophes, aux francs-maçons et aux illuminés sur la Révolution Française.'' (1801). ==Works==