Ruelle was a political writer who served in the French diplomatic delegation to the Austrian Netherlands from 1788 to 1790 and again briefly in 1792. He was living in Paris by 1795 and eventually gained a position with the national lottery. In 1799, he criticized Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, and disgust with Napoleon’s rule as emperor fueled a number of later publications, including an 1814 national constitution that proposed a constitutional monarchy and that he dedicated to Russia’s Alexander I. He defended his constitutional ideas in several pamphlets and in 1815 criticized the federal system of the United States in a letter to Madison. His last known publication appeared in 1820 (J. M. Quérard, La France litteraire, ou Dictionnaire bibliographique …, 12 vols. [Paris, 1827-64], 8:278; Alfred Boulay de la Meurthe, Le Directoire et l’expédition d’Égypte: Étude sur les tentatives du Directoire pour communiquer avec Bonaparte, le secourir et le ramener [Paris, 1805], 164-5; Fréderic Schoell, Cours d’histoire des états Européens, depuis le bouleversement de l’empire Romain d’occident jusqu’en 1789, 47 vols. [Paris and Berlin, 1830-34], 39:314; Gazette nationale, ou le Moniteur universel, 11 Aug. 1799; Ruelle, ancien chargé d’affaires dans la légation de France, aux Pays-Bas Autrichiens; au Tribunat [Paris, 1800]; Ruelle, Numéros pour les tirages de la Loterie nationale [Paris, 1802]; Constitution française; par M. Ruelle, ancien agent diplomatique [Paris, 1814]; Ruelle, Réponse à MM. Bergasse et Barruel et à tous les anticonstitutionnels [Paris, 1814]; Abraham P. Nasatir and Gary Elwyn Monell, eds., French Consuls in the United States: A Calendar of Their Correspondence in the Archives Nationales [Washington, D.C., 1967], 351; RS description begins J. Jefferson Looney and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Princeton, 2004–  description ends , 9:150–1).

la premiere: Ruelle sent a manuscript, dated 10 Aug. 1805, of his model republican constitution—for the then-fictional country of Benin—with an undated cover letter addressed to the president and members of the U.S. Congress. A title page bore the inscription, “La servitude de la presse et la diversité des langues sont les mamelles du despotisme et de la Superstition” (the subjugation of the press and a diversity of languages are the mammaries of despotism and superstition). Consisting of some 100 articles, Ruelle’s constitution divided power between an elected congress and an executive authority that was split into four branches: a senate in charge of judicial matters, a consulate in charge of administrative departments and police, a “généralat” in charge of the military, and a diplomatic directory in charge of foreign relations. The constitution mandated equality before the law and guaranteed property rights and the right of petition. Citizens were free to practice particular religious faiths, but the constitution elevated a civil faith, the “Religion nationale,” as supreme. The nation would be divided into departments governed by local assemblies that could propose changes to the constitution. It is uncertain if the version that ended up in Senate records was enclosed in the letter above, or if Ruelle sent it directly to Congress. He apparently sent other versions that TJ never received, before enclosing a revised version in 1808 that TJ deposited in the Library of Congress. Ruelle published the work as Constitution de la République béninienne, ou Modèle d’une constitution républicaine in 1815 (MS with cover letter in DNA: RG 46, LP, 9th Cong., 2d sess., endorsed by a Senate clerk; Ruelle to TJ, 31 July 1807; TJ to Ruelle, 25 Feb. 1809).