Sources
- Alphonse de Beauchamp, Biographie moderne, Paris, Leroux, 1816, p. 175-6.
Jean Julien known as Julien of Toulouse (1750 in Nîmes – 1828) was a deputy to the National Convention and a political figure in the French Revolution.
A Protestant minister in Toulouse at the outbreak of the Revolution, in September 1792 Julien was elected as deputy for the département of Haute-Garonne at the National Convention which voted for the death of Louis XVI. He was next sent on a mission to Orléans and the Vendée, in which he acted as a committed Montagnard, before becoming a member of the Committee of General Security, in which he was put in charge of a report on the rebel and federalist administrators who resisted the events of 31 May. Due to this report Robespierre accused him of being a feuillant and counter-revolutionary, but Julien retracted his report and assured him he had been deceived.
Orders were then put out for his arrest for fraud or trafficking his opinions and speculating in financial companies with Chabot, Basire and Delaunay, but he managed to evade arrest though designated a foreign agent and outlaw. After 9 Thermidor and Robespierre's fall, he appealed against his proscription, which he attributed to his hatred for Robespierre. On Marec's suggestion (full of praise for Julien), the Convention revoked his status as an outlaw but did not allow him to re-enter the legislative assembly. Included in the proscription of 18 Brumaire, he was momentarily arrested and condemned to deportation, but this measure was not carried out and Julien went back to obscurity, from which he would never return. Forced to leave France in 1816 after the Bourbon Restoration, he was unable to remain in Switzerland and so took refuge in Turin.
Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac was a French politician, freemason, journalist, and one of the most prominent members of the National Convention, representing the Plain during the French Revolution. The Plain was dominated by the radical Montagnards and Barère as one of their leaders supported the foundation of the Committee of Public Safety in April and of a sans-culottes army in September 1793. According to Francois Buzot, Barère was responsible for the Reign of Terror, like Robespierre and Louis de Saint-Just. In Spring 1794 and after the Festival of the Supreme Being, he became an opponent of Maximilien Robespierre and joined the coup, leading to his downfall.
George Jacques Danton was a leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution, in particular as the first president of the Committee of Public Safety. Danton's role in the onset of the Revolution has been disputed; many historians describe him as "the chief force in the overthrow of the French monarchy and the establishment of the First French Republic". He was guillotined by the advocates of revolutionary terror after accusations of venality and leniency toward the enemies of the Revolution.
The Committee of Public Safety, formed the provisional government in France, led mainly by Maximilien Robespierre, during the Reign of Terror (1793–1794), a phase of the French Revolution. Supplementing the Committee of General Defence created after the execution of King Louis XVI in January 1793, the Committee of Public Safety was created in April 1793 by the National Convention and restructured in July 1793. It was charged with protecting the new republic against its foreign and domestic enemies, fighting the First Coalition and the Vendée revolt. As a wartime measure, the committee was given broad supervisory and administrative powers over the armed forces, judiciary and legislature, as well as the executive bodies and ministers of the Convention.
The following is a timeline of the French Revolution.
Jacques-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne, also known as Jean Nicolas, was a French personality of the Revolutionary period. Though not one of the most well known figures of the French Revolution, Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne was an instrumental figure of the period known as the Reign of Terror. Billaud-Varenne climbed his way up the ladder of power during that period, becoming one of the most militant members of the Committee of Public Safety. He was recognized and worked with French Revolution figures Georges Danton and Maximilien Robespierre, and is often considered one of the key architects of The Terror. "No, we will not step backward, our zeal will only be smothered in the tomb; either the Revolution will triumph or we will all die."
The Thermidorian Reaction is the common term, in the historiography of the French Revolution, for the period between the ousting of Maximilien Robespierre on 9 Thermidor II, or 27 July 1794, and the inauguration of the French Directory on 1 November 1795. The "Thermidorian Reaction" was named after the month in which the coup took place, and was the latter part of the National Convention's rule of France. It was marked by the end of the Reign of Terror, decentralization of executive powers from the Committee of Public Safety, and a turn from the radical leftist policies of the Montagnard Convention to more conservative positions. Economic and general populism, dechristianization, and harsh wartime measures were largely abandoned, as the members of the Convention, disillusioned and frightened of the centralized government of the Terror, preferred a more stable political order that would have the approval of the affluent. The Reaction saw the Left suppressed by brutal force, including massacres, as well as the disbanding of the Jacobin Club, the dispersal of the sans-culottes, and the renunciation of the Montagnard ideology.
Joseph Fouché, 1st Duc d'Otrante, 1st Comte Fouché was a French statesman, revolutionary, and Minister of Police under First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, who later became Emperor Napoleon. He was particularly known for the ferocity with which he suppressed the Lyon insurrection during the Revolution in 1793 and for being minister of police under the Directory, the Consulate, and the Empire. In English texts, his title is often translated as Duke of Otranto.
François-Antoine, Count of the Empire (1756–1826) was a French writer, lawyer and politician during the Revolution and the Empire.
Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just was a Jacobin leader during the French Revolution. He was a close friend of Maximilien Robespierre and served as his most trusted ally during the period of Jacobin rule (1793–94) in the French First Republic. Saint-Just worked as a legislator and a military commissar, but he achieved a lasting reputation as the face of the Reign of Terror. He publicly delivered the condemnatory reports that emanated from Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety and defended the use of violence against opponents of the government. He supervised the arrests of some of the most famous figures of the Revolution and saw many of them off to the guillotine. For his unyielding severity, later writers dubbed him the "Angel of Death".
François Hanriot was a French Cordelier leader, a street orator, and a commander of the Garde Nationale 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.
Augustin Bon Joseph de Robespierre was the younger brother of French Revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre. His political views were similar to his brother's. During the Battle of Toulon (1793), he became a supporter of Napoleon, nicknamed "Robespierre on horse". When his brother was arrested on 9 Thermidor, Robespierre volunteered to be arrested as well, and he was executed by guillotine like Maximilien and 20 other counter-revolutionaries.
François-René-Auguste Mallarmé was a French statesman of the French Revolution and a supporter of Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Empire. His career is of particular interest because he was among political figures such as Joseph Fouché who at first aggressively supported the Terror, only to betray its leaders and support the various conservative reactionary régimes that followed. His was a chevalier de l'Empire from 22 November 1808 and a baron de l'Empire from 31 January 1810.
Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier was a French politician of the French Revolution.
Jean-Pierre-André Amar or Jean-Baptiste-André Amar was a French political figure of the Revolution and Freemason.
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre was a French lawyer and statesman who was one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Constituent Assembly and the Jacobin Club, he campaigned for universal manhood suffrage and the abolition both of celibacy for the clergy, and slavery. In 1791, Robespierre became an outspoken advocate for the citizens without a political voice, for their unrestricted admission to the National Guard, to public offices, and for the right to carry arms in self-defence. Robespierre played an important part in the agitation which brought about the fall of the French monarchy on 10 August 1792 and the summoning of a National Convention. His goal was to create a united and indivisible France, equality before the law, to abolish prerogatives and to defend the principles of direct democracy.
The insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793, during the French Revolution, resulted in the fall of the Girondin party under pressure of the Parisian sans-culottes, Jacobins of the clubs, and Montagnards in the National Convention. By its impact and importance, this insurrection stands as one of the three great popular insurrections of the French Revolution, following those of 14 July 1789 and 10 August 1792.
Jean-Baptiste Mailhe was a politician during the French Revolution. He gave his name to ""the Mailhe amendment", which sought to delay the execution of Louis XVI.
Jacques-Alexis Thuriot, known as Thuriot de la Rosière, and later as chevalier Thuriot de la Rosière, chevalier de l'Empire was an important French statesman of the French Revolution, and a minor figure under the French Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The Coup d'état of 9 Thermidor or the Fall of Maximilien Robespierre refers to the series of events beginning with Maximilien Robespierre's address to the National Convention on 8 Thermidor Year II, his arrest the next day, and his execution on 10 Thermidor Year II. In the speech of 8 Thermidor, Robespierre spoke of the existence of internal enemies, conspirators, and calumniators, within the Convention and the governing Committees. He refused to name them, which alarmed the deputies who feared Robespierre was preparing another purge of the Convention.
Edme-Bonaventure Courtois was a deputy of the National Convention. He found the will of Marie-Antoinette in the collection of papers of Robespierre hidden under his bed.
