The function of public accuser, defending society, was established during the French Revolution by the decrees of 1 December 1790, 16 September 1791, 15 December 1791 and 15 February 1792, and disappeared in 1799 when the Constitution of 22 Frimaire An VIII was introduced, establishing the reconstitution of the public accuser's office as it had existed under the Ancien Régime. [1]
Elected, as with the other judges of the criminal court, the accuser was responsible for prosecuting offences admitted to the indictment by the grand jury. He was to receive complaints and ensure that court decisions were carried out. Public accusers also took over the administrative role of supervising judicial police officers, justice of the peace and gendarmerie officers.
On 29 September 1791, the French Constituent Assembly decided that "public accusers will have the same costume as judges, with the exception of the feathers, placed around their hats; they will wear medals with the words 'public safety'. [2]
In each criminal court, the public accuser was responsible for prosecuting the case on behalf of the king, defending his prerogatives. [3] The other judges were elected on 15 February 1792. On 18 February 1792 Louis-Joseph Faure was elected as assistant to Robespierre. [4] On 24 February 1792 Louis Pierre Manuel as procureur of the commune, charged with both the investigation and prosecution of crime, gave a speech. (Manuel cooperated with Robespierre responsible for the coordination of the local and the federal police in the department and the sections.) [5] [6] On 10 April, Robespierre resigned the unenviable position of "public accuser".
The decree of 10 March 1793 created the Revolutionary Tribunal and appointed a public accuser Louis-Joseph Faure and two deputies to the court Jean-Baptiste Fleuriot-Lescot and Fouquier-Tinville. Within three days Faure preferred to give up the post and was replaced by the latter, [7] an office that he filled from the end of the month until 1 August 1794. [8] [7] His office as public accuser arguably reflected a need to display the appearance of legality during what was essentially political command, more than a need to establish actual guilt. After the Thermidorian reaction, his powers were gradually framed and decreased to the benefit of the commissioner of the executive power. [9]
Georges Jacques Danton was a leading figure in the French Revolution. A modest and unknown lawyer on the eve of the Revolution, Danton became a famous orator of the Cordeliers Club and was raised to governmental responsibilities as the French Minister of Justice following the fall of the monarchy on the tenth of August 1792, and was allegedly responsible for inciting the September Massacres. He was tasked by the National Convention to intervene in the military conquest of Belgium led by French General Dumouriez. And in the Spring of 1793, he supported the foundation of a Revolutionary Tribunal and became the first president of the Committee of Public Safety.
Antoine Quentin Fouquier de Tinville, also called Fouquier-Tinville and nicknamed posthumously the Provider of the Guillotine was a French lawyer and accusateur public of the Revolutionary Tribunal during the French Revolution and Reign of Terror.
Jean-Lambert Tallien was a French politician of the revolutionary period. Though initially an active agent of the Reign of Terror, he eventually clashed with its leader, Maximilien Robespierre, and is best known as one of the key figures of the Thermidorian Reaction that led to the fall of Robespierre and the end of the Terror.
Louis Pierre Manuel was a republican French writer, municipal administrator of the police, and public prosecutor during the French Revolution who was arrested, trialled and guillotined.
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The September Massacres were a series of killings and summary executions of prisoners in Paris that occurred in 1792, from Sunday, 2 September until Thursday, 6 September, during the French Revolution. Between 1,176 and 1,614 people were killed by sans-culottes, fédérés, and guardsmen, with the support of gendarmes responsible for guarding the tribunals and prisons, the Cordeliers, the Committee of Surveillance of the Commune, and the revolutionary sections of Paris.
Philippe-Antoine Merlin, known as Merlin de Douai was a French politician and lawyer.
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François Hanriot was a French Sans-culotte leader, street orator, and commander of the National Guard during the French Revolution. He played a vital role in the Insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793 and subsequently the fall of the Girondins. On 27 July 1794 he tried to release Maximilien Robespierre, who was arrested by the Convention. He was executed on the next day – together with Robespierre, Saint-Just and Couthon – by the rules of the law of 22 Prairial, only verifying his identity at the trial.
The Revolutionary Tribunal was a court instituted by the National Convention during the French Revolution for the trial of political offenders. In October 1793, it became one of the most powerful engines of the period often called the Reign of Terror.
Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier was a major French politician of the French Revolution. He is sometimes called the "Great Inquisitor", for his active participation in the Reign of Terror.
Louis-Joseph Faure was a French jurist and politician who was one of the four authors of the Napoleonic Code.
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre was a French lawyer and statesman, widely recognized as one of the most influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. Robespierre fervently campaigned for the voting rights of all men and their unimpeded admission to the National Guard. Additionally he advocated for the right to petition, the right to bear arms in self-defence, and the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade.
La Révolution Française is a French rock opera by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Raymond Jeannot, book by Alain Boublil and Jean-Max Rivière, created in 1973. The show premiered at the Palais des Sports de Paris.
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Jean-Baptiste Edmond Fleuriot-Lescot or Lescot-Fleuriot was a Belgian architect, sculptor, and a revolutionary.
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