Addendum: Antoine Joseph Santerre

Oh my, did the researchers at Beervana Amalgamated Sentences screw this one up! A couple weeks ago, we here at the site produced a purportedly definitive list of the most interesting historic brewers with whom to have a beer. One name was omitted (passive tense intentional to hide culpability), and we have sacked all responsible parties. In the interest of accuracy, however, we add the following name, a person who had a front-row seat to one of the most interesting moments in western history: Antoine Joseph Santerre.

Born in Paris in 1752, Santerre was the third son of a brewer, also named Antoine. The brewing line came through Santerre’s mother, however; her father Jean François Santerre was a successful owner and his daughter was wealthy when she married her third cousin, also named Santerre. The parents died young (people in the 18th century often did), leaving the children to take care of the family’s Brasserie de la Magdeleine. Young Antoine went off to school, pursuing a degree in the sciences, and later bought his own brewery with his brother François. According to one account (perhaps his own), he pioneered some innovations at the brewhouse. At this point in his life, everything seemed to be about beer, and he even married the daughter of another brewer.

Santerre is not, however, primarily known for this part of his life.

 
 
 
 

Santerre was popular in his Parisian suburb, the Faubourg St. Antoine (today in the 11th arrondissement), and he was given to the populist sentiment brewing around the country by the late 1780s. He was on hand for—and central to—some of the momentous events that followed. He was one of the thousand or so revolutionaries who stormed the Bastille in July 1789. Two years later, he was at the Champ de Mars Massacre, when soldiers of the king fired on demonstrators. The crown issued a warrant for his arrest, and he went into hiding, emerging a year later to lead the assault on the Tuileries Palace, which ended the reign of Louis XVI and the French monarchy.

Not bad for a brewer!

Santerre became a leader of the revolution, became commander-in-chief of the National Guard and the jailer to the King, the man who escorted his highness to the guillotine. Later, he became a general in the army, but his failures on the battlefield led more radical elements to think him a traitor and in 1794 he was imprisoned. Unlike most of the figures from this period, however, he managed to keep his head—literally. He was released after the death of Robespierre, resigned his post, and returned home, where he intended to resume brewing. He managed to live until 1809, or 57 years old, but while the guillotine didn’t end his life, it nevertheless came to a sad end, as “his brewery was ruined, and after many vicissitudes of fortune he died in poverty in Paris.”

Most of what the internet knows about Santerre comes from Antoine Carro’s Santerre Général de la République Française from 1847, which I gather was taken Santerre’s own writing. The Wikipedia page seems to have borrowed heavily from the Encyclopedia Britannica entry, and there’s not a lot out there. I’m sure there are many resources in libraries, perhaps even a few in English, and if anyone has more information about this figure, please share. He sounds like quite a character.