Jean-Baptiste Gellé (1777 - 1847)

Born 23 Jul 1777 in Créhange, Moselle, Lorraine, France

Died 16 Mar 1847 at age 69 in Luxembourg Luxembourg

Biography

One of the most eminent figures of the Luxembourg State under the Dutch regime, one of the most powerful propagators of the ideas put forward by Pestalozzi and the great French Revolution on the subject of the popular school, is undoubtedly Jean-Baptiste Gellé. Neither the surname of this man nor his education reveal a specifically Luxembourgish origin. If, all the same, the influence of this extraordinary personality has been so fruitful with regard to the institution of a Luxembourg native administration and the introduction of primary education, nourished at the very sources of the people, we can deduce that our country has always been a hub of an inter-European movement. Jean-Baptiste Gellé was born on July 23, 1777 in Créhange (Krichingen), department of Moselle, canton of Falquemont according to the general administration of France at the time. Gellé was nine years old when his family came to settle in Luxembourg in 1786. His father was a merchant and acquired the right of bourgeoisie by the effect of his affiliation to the corporation of merchants of the city of Luxembourg in 1787, frequent use in this time of pre-revolutionary regime. Gellé son, for his part, had been legitimized a Luxembourger as a result, but he was not satisfied with it and had his quality of Luxembourger reinforced by naturalization in due form, in 1816. Gellé attended the parish school (Pfarrschule) of the city of Luxembourg, and there he displayed special qualities. Nowhere is it said if he had already attended a French primary school, having already been nine years old when he arrived in Luxembourg. But the evolution of his studies and the development of this beautiful figure makes us presume it. Finally, he managed to get himself admitted to the College of Luxembourg where he went through all the steps of the ladder without any difficulty. Gellé had finished his humanitarian studies when the French entered Luxembourg in 1795. The French administration having come to replace that of Austria, our young compatriot Gellé lent himself perfectly to demonstrating his general knowledge, especially that of French which, overnight, had become of capital importance for the country. His first job was that of deputy secretary of the city of Luxembourg, a position he held from November 1 to October 1, 1796. On this date, he entered the administration of the Department of Forests definitively, once again as Assistant Secretary. He had to find there an occupation that corresponded to his natural qualities, because it was here above all that he could give the full measure of his means. At an extraordinary pace, he traversed the different levels of the administrative order, already sensibly equal to ours today. On October 1, 1797, he advanced to the rank of clerk, and some time later he became office manager. At the age of 23, in 1800, he was already promoted to head of division of the prefecture of the department_ This is when he became a member of the 4 Constitutional Circle of Luxembourg which had been formed with the aim of discussing all political, literary, scientific and artistic questions as well as those which may 336 Jean-Baptiste Gellé to enlighten the Government in its course, to spread the principles of liberty, to purify the public spirit, to instruct our fellow citizens and to make them love the Republic. - The Constitutional Circle being not only a political society, but also an educational one, and as it is as useful as it is interesting to know the successes of the republican armies as well as the laws which will emanate from them and all that is happening on all the points of the Republic, the company will keep various newspapers as well as the Monitor and the Official. - The fate of the unfortunate being to interest all the good republicans, the society will provide that it is distributed to them each month some help, and for this purpose it will organize every decade a collection .. . . . (Ons Hémecht of 1. 8. 1895). At the prefecture Gellé had to concern himself mainly with state affairs, which were of capital importance during the French occupation. Later, the Congress of Vienna and the related provisions on the subject of the inalienable rights granted to the princes of Nassau increased the complications and made their resolution difficult. Calmes, in his “Le G.-D. of Luxembourg in the Belgian Revolution”, devotes a whole chapter to state affairs and notes above all that the disputes on which we had to decide in this matter were very numerous and often of a delicate nature. We are told that Gellé had acquired in-depth knowledge in this area which was even highly appreciated by the Council of State of Paris, a detail whose importance lawyers will know how to savor above all. Of course, Gellé's work had also attracted the attention of the prefect Jourdan who, until the end of French rule, was in charge of the affairs of the Forest Department. He proposed to Gellé to come with him to Paris where he could, on a much larger scale, take stock of his knowledge. Gellé declined this generous offer, attached as he was to his adopted country, which he did not want to abandon at this turning point in its history. The Allies found Gellé at his old post and kept him there. In this time of transition from one regime to another, the indefatigable worker knew how to impose himself by his high qualities, and it was given to him to render invaluable services to his country. When at last the Grand Duchy passed from the provisional to the definitive and Luxembourg was affiliated, though independent, by the Treaty of Vienna, to Holland, and received a somewhat autonomous government with, as first Governor Willmar, Gellé became its general secretary. In 1816, these functions were changed to those of clerk of the Provincial Estates. It was in this capacity that he was one of the Luxembourg authorities who, on January 2, 1817, went to Arlon to greet King-Grand Duke William I, who had not wanted to go to Luxembourg because of the presence of the German garrison. On this same occasion, Gellé presided over the strong delegation of the Lodge of Luxembourg who came to Arlon to make contact with the new Grand Master of the Masonic Order, Prince Frédéric, the king's younger son, as well as the Prince of Arenberg, his aide-de-camp and high dignitary of the Grand Orient of the Netherlands. As clerk, Gellé devoted himself entirely and with a lofty spirit to the institution and organization of primary education. It was in this area that he somehow surpassed himself and had enormous and undisputed merits. We are too closely linked to this branch of the general organization of our country to avoid a somewhat more detailed description of this period of Gellé's mission as an educator. We will therefore come back to this after the overview of its administrative activity. In 1818 a temporary jury of instruction was set up, of which Gellé became permanent secretary. In 1824, during the creation of a provincial commission for the administration and direction of primary education, Gellé received the post of secretary and was at the same time appointed inspector of the 1st arrondissement, jointly with de Neunheuser, vicar General, and Doctor J.-B. Wurth. The Belgian Revolution in 1830 destroyed Gellé's work. During all this time, the great director of the first time of the Dutch remained in a deliberate isolation, although he still held, theoretically, the charges of which he had become the bearer. But his activity being able to extend only to the city of Luxembourg, his radius of action had become very restricted and did not give him the possibility of deploying his extraordinary faculties. In 1835, when General de Goedecke was appointed president of the Commission of Government, Gellé became an effective member with voting rights. He combined the duties of secretary and member and kept them until 1840. In addition, and at the insistence of his leaders, he again accepted in 1837 a post in the office of the Administration of the Athenaeum. Thus the opportunity was given to him to oppose as well as he could the unfortunate designs of the German reformer Hassenpflug. After the departure of the latter, whose harmful action on the destinies of our country is too well known, Gellé was placed temporarily at the head of the Regency, which means Commission of Government. He remained there until 1841 and signed: Le conseil de gouvernement, Chef des services civil ff. William II, having in the meantime succeeded his father, called him to head the Commission which was to prepare the first Luxembourg Constitution. A. Neyen (Biographie luXbg., t. I, p. 212) claims that the King Grand Duke, whom Gellé was going to greet at Wasserbillig during his first visit to the country, had offered him the post of governor but that, out of modesty, Gellé had not thought it necessary to follow up on this mark of esteem. In his "Creation of a State" (p. 155), A. Calmes, who dislikes Gellé no more than all the other liberal elements, disagrees with this supposition for not having 'found any trace or 'an offer, nor a refusal'. In any event, Gellé retained the confidence of his sovereign who commissioned him, in 1842, to represent him in Sedan at the funeral of the Princess de La-Tour, born Countess of Nassau. In 1843 the King-Grand Duke appointed Gellé to "greet in his name" the King and Queen of the Belgians on the occasion of their joyous entry into Arlon. However, Gellé's speech was not to the liking of Guillnume, who reproached him for the following: "His mission was not to express his particular feelings or those reputed to be Luxembourgers of the G.-D., but to speak as a representative of His Majesty. By understanding the character of this mission and the relations that exist between the sovereign of G.-D. and that of the Belgians, he would have avoided using expressions so warm, not to say enthusiastic, that one encounters in his speech. (A. Calmes, op. cit., p. 30). In 1843, he took an active part in the development of the first school law. All this legislation bears the imprint of the experiments made between 1817 and 1830 and bears the mark of its author. It is more than certain that he directed the work. The law, once voted and promulgated, finds in him the most faithful executor since he was appointed chairman of the commission responsible for supervising its execution. His rise to the highest offices in the country was not yet complete. In 1845, he was elected member of the States (first Luxembourg Chamber) for the canton of Luxembourg. He died on March 16, 1847 having reached the age of 69 years and 8 months. His death triggered a stir in public opinion, the echoes of which have come down to us. It is because Bishop Laurent, having refused a religious funeral to the universally considered man Gellé had been, almost the entire population of the city of Luxembourg with, at its head, all the constituted bodies, took up and cause for the one whose memory, according to the conception of the time, had just been violated. As we learned from the circular that Baron de Blochausen sent in April 1848 to his electors in the canton of Diekirch, "the scandal aroused on the occasion of the burial of the Right Honorable M. Gellé" even provoked the resignation of the Chancellor of State for the affairs of the Grand Duchy. It is true that this resignation was withdrawn following an approach which the King-Grand Duke caused to be made to Baron de Blochausen. The funeral of J. B. Gellé having been described in particular by Mr. Auguste Collart in his book “Am Wege zur Unabhângigkeit Luxemburgs”, it is useless to return to it here. However, I would like to note that the procession was preceded by a silver cross, the acquisition of which had been decided by the City Council which had been convened urgently. Gellé's cross was used at every civil burial for over 70 years. Did the cross disappear to spare the susceptibility of Christians, or did modern freethinkers consider it incompatible with their conceptions — that would be interesting to know. *)

• ) As the reason why the Church had refused religious burial to a man as fundamentally religious as Gellé was his membership in the Lodge, a few words should be said about it. J. B. Gellé, who had been received as a Freemason in 1803, directed the destinies of the Lodge from 1815 to 1846, except for four one-year interruptions. In the archives of this society is a file which contains the manuscripts of the speeches made by Gellé on numerous occasions. Kindly placed at my disposal, these pieces reflect a great flight for

Gelé had remained single- He was an only child and lived with his two sisters Marie-Aime (1784-1841) and Catherine (1797-1876) at No. 2 rue de l'Eau, the former hotel of the family of Brios of Hollenfels. He considered it a duty to support them in their old age. Catherine Gellé, venerated by all the families who had maintained good relations with her brother, was a good woman. As noted in the Historical and Statistical Overview of Public Benevolence in Luxmbourg (Dong Hemecht 1937, 3/4), it endowed the capital's Charitable Office in 1835 with Fr. 17,000.- and in 1874 with Fr. 26,458. -. Finally, she had set up a scholarship of Fr. 6,000.- in favor of an indigent pupil of the Ecole Normale des Instructeurs. As for. J.-B. Gellé himself, his abnegation had known no bounds and, in terms of charity, his interventions had been innumerable. His merits had therefore been fully recognized on all sides. The honorary distinctions awarded to him bear witness to this. Already. in 1822, he was conferred on him the rank of knight in the order of the Dutch Lion, to which was added in 1841 the tie of commander of the same order. In 1842 he received the title of Knight of the Order of the Crown of Oak with star. The King of the Belgians had appointed him Commander of the Civil Order of Leopold in 1843. This is a brief and succinct overview of the different periods of the administrative and family life of Gellé. But let us pass to his principal work, the institution of a regular and well-conditioned primary education in Luxembourg. speeches of welcome and farewell, and strong noble feelings for them. funeral speeches. It will surely interest readers of the "National Biography" to learn details of the lives of some of those Freemasons referred to in Gellé's speeches. On the feast of St-Jean, in the winter of 1809, during the reception of Br. Joseph Vincent, adjutant non-commissioned officer of the 69th regiment, there was talk of the death of Brs.: Jacques Sauveur Dumont, commander of the reserve company and Welsh, member of the military Lodge "La Fraternité" in the Orient of the 59th regiment, both "fallen under the blows of a desperate enemy" and having "perished for the glory of the Fatherland". The speech that Gellé delivered at. the reception of M.-L. Schrobilgen on November 8, 1814 contains judicious considerations on Labor as well as on the legal profession. Eulogies relate to: F. G. Bolme, born November 17, 1782, who had only just been initiated into the mysteries of Masonry. unjustified (July 1821). The collector of the city of Luxembourg Jodoc-Frédéric Hoehhertz, born in this city on 9. 6. 1776, had served as an officer in the flags FSFTID: in GWFL-PXZ.

Jean-Baptiste died at the age of 69 on 16 March 1847 in Luxembourg Luxembourg.^[1]

Research Notes

Notes from external profile

https://lb.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Gell%C3%A9

Sources

1. ↑ Death: Unspecified Jean-Baptiste Gellé, "Luxembourg, Civil Registration, 1796-1941" Note: "Luxembourg, Registres d'état civil, 1796-1941," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPR4-C1DY), Jean-Baptiste Gellé, 16 Mar 1847; citing Death, Luxemburg, , Archives nationales de Luxembourg (National Archives), Luxembourg; FHL microfilm. Citing: File Format: File: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPR4-C1DY Scrapbook: N 15 OTHER Slideshow: N (accessed 1 January 2021)