José Marchena Ruiz de Cueto

Who was José Marchena Ruiz de Cueto?

José Marchena Ruiz de Cueto, also known as Abate Marchena, was a Spanish author, who studied with distinction at the University of Salamanca.

He was born at Utrera. He took minor orders and was for some time professor at the seminary of Vergara, but he became a convert to the doctrines of the French philosophes, scandalizing his acquaintances by his professions of materialism and his denunciations of celibacy. His writings being brought before the Inquisition in 1792, Marchena escaped to Paris, where he is said to have collaborated with Marat in L'Ami du peuple; at a later date he organized a revolutionary movement at Bayonne, returned to Paris, avowed his sympathies with the Girondists, and refused the advances of Robespierre.

He acted as editor of L'Ami des lois and other French journals until 1799, when he was expelled from France; he succeeded, however, in obtaining employment under General Moreau, upon whose fall in 1804 he declared himself a Bonapartist.