In the register of deputies, Lorraine has known everything, geniuses, crooks, priests, bosses, workers, courageous people, cowards, shooting stars who have only made a brief appearance or, at Conversely, those clinging to the railings that only death or defeat could dislodge from parliament. There were also deputies from Lorraine who have entered the history of France, including two famous Henris, two abbots, Abbé Pierre, whose real name was Henri Grouès, elected deputy for Meurthe-et-Moselle from 1945 to 1951 under the Gaullist label, and Abbé Grégoire, priest close to the revolutionaries and deputy, also from Nancy, from 1789. Henri Grégoire was even President of the Constituent Assembly for a very short time in 1791. 1791 was the year where the Toulois Joseph Carez becomes deputy of Meurthe (this former department corresponded to the south of the current departments of Moselle and Meurthe-et-Moselle). Carez is one of those deputies whom nothing predestined for such a function, Joseph wanted to be an opera singer and will realize quite quickly that his voice is not made for that, he then returns to the family printing house where he will also invent platemaking (an engraved plate system that revolutionizes the profession). Joseph Carez was a moderate revolutionary deputy, for example very opposed to the persecution of priests. Remember that among the Revolutionaries, there was something for everyone: from the most conciliatory to the furious.
Moderate revolutionary, it is also the case of Jean-Baptiste Bresson, native of Darney, elected deputy of the Vosges also in 1791, Revolutionary classified among the Girondins (rather provincials), opposed to the Montagnards (rather Parisians) welcoming revolutionary parliamentarians the most radical, like Robespierre or Marat. Bresson was a courageous young deputy. In 1793, he opposed the execution of King Louis XVI, he voted for detention after declaring: “No, citizens, we are not judges, because the judges are prostrate before an equal law for all and us, we violated equality to make an exception against one”. A speech and a bold vote but which will earn this Vosgien the hatred of the Mountaineers. They have him brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Bresson escapes prison and probably death in an incredible way: he was a deep sleeper and during a transfer of prisoners, the guards do not see that he is at the bottom of the dungeon and that he is dozing. Bresson on waking up realizes that he is alone and that the door is open, he flees, hides for two days under the platform of the National Assembly, then manages to leave Paris. He hid in a forest house near Contrexéville only to reappear at the end of the Terror, corresponding to the fall of Robespierre, in 1794.