CLERMONT-TONNERRE, STANISLAS MARIE ADELAIDE, COMTE DE French politician, was born at Pont-h-Mousson on Oct. 1 o, 1757. Sent to the states general in 1789 by the noblesse of Paris, he joined the Third Estate, and was elected president of the Constituent Assembly on Aug. 17, 1789. On the rejection by the Assembly of the scheme elaborated by the first constitutional committee, he at tached himself to the party of moderate royalists, known as monarchiens, led by P. V. Malouet. His speech in favour of reserving to the crown the right of absolute veto under the new constitution drew down upon him the wrath of the advanced politicians of the Palais Royal; but he continued to advocate a moderate liberal policy, especially in the matter of removing the political disabilities of Jews and Protestants and of extending the system of trial by jury. In Jan. 1790 he collaborated with Malouet in founding the Club des Impartiaux and the Journal des Impartiaux, the names of which were changed in November to the Societe des Amis de la Constitution Monarchique and Journal de la Societe, etc., in order to emphasize their opposition to the Jacobins (Societe des Amis de la Constitution). This club was denounced by Barnave in the Assembly (Jan. 21, and on March 28 it was attacked by a mob, whereupon it was closed by order of the Assembly. Clermont-Tonnerre was murdered by the populace during the rising of Aug. 9-1o, 1792.
See Recueil des opinions de Stanislas de Clermont-Tonnerre (1791), the text of his speeches as published by himself ; A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Constituante (1905).