A native of Geneva, he became one of the democratic leaders there, and in 1782 was forced to take refuge in England, after the armed interference of France, Sardinia and Berne in favour of the aristocratic party. There he met other Swiss, among them Jean Paul Marat and Étienne Dumont, but their schemes for a new Geneva in Ireland--which the government favoured--were given up when Jacques Necker came to power in France, and Clavière, with most of his comrades, went to Paris.
There in 1789 he and Dumont allied themselves with Honoré Mirabeau, secretly collaborating for him on the Courrier de Provence and also preparing speeches for Mirabeau to deliver. It was mainly by his use of Clavière that Mirabeau sustained his reputation as a financier. Clavière also published some pamphlets under his own name, and through these and his friendship with JP Brissot, whom he had met in London, he became minister of finance in the Girondist ministry, from March to June 12 1792.
After August 10 he was again given charge of the finances in the provisional executive council, with little success. He shared in the fall of the Girondists, was arrested on June 2 1793, but was left in prison until December 8, when, on receiving notice that he was to appear on the next day before the Revolutionary Tribunal, he committed suicide.
This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.