His Death of Marat, depicting his friend Jean-Paul Marat after Charlotte Corday assassinated him on 13 July 1793, became a leading image of the Revolution. After Napoleon's fall the painting long disappeared from public view before its rediscovery.
French painter born in Paris in 1748 and died in Brussels in 1825. He was the preeminent Neoclassical painter of his era, winning fame in the 1780s with The Oath of the Horatii, and an active supporter of the French Revolution and friend of Robespierre as a member of the Jacobin Club. As a deputy to the National Convention he voted for the execution of Louis XVI, and as a member of the Committee of General Security he took part in the Reign of Terror. After Robespierre's fall he was imprisoned twice in 1794 and 1795, then released. After the Empire was proclaimed in 1804 he became Napoleon's court painter and painted The Coronation of Napoleon. After Napoleon's fall in 1815 he lived in exile in Brussels, where he died. His pupils included Girodet, Gérard, Gros and Ingres.
Career timeline
1784Won fame with The Oath of the Horatii
1789–1794Supported the Revolution; deputy to the National Convention and member of the Committee of General Security
1794–1795Imprisoned twice after Robespierre's fall
Clergyman and political theorist of Third Estate sovereignty
Amid the 1788–1789 Estates-General crisis he identified the Third Estate with the whole nation, and later ended the Directory through the coup of 18 Brumaire.
A clergyman and political theorist, Sieyès linked the Third Estate to the nation in his 1789 pamphlet What Is the Third Estate? He helped bring the National Assembly into being and later sat with the Plain in the National Convention. Near the end of the Directory he participated in the coup of Brumaire and helped establish the Consulate.
Career timeline
1775–1788Secretary and deputy to the bishop of Tréguier, then vicar general and chancellor of the diocese of Chartres; sat in the Estates of Brittany.
1789Published What Is the Third Estate?; as a Third Estate deputy he pushed for the National Assembly and joined the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
1792–1795Sat in the National Convention, voted for the death of Louis XVI, and served on a diplomatic mission to The Hague in 1795.
1799Made a Director in May; helped lead the coup of 18 Brumaire and became a provisional Consul of the Consulate.
1799–1830Served in the Sénat conservateur, was expelled from the Academy after the Restoration, left for Brussels, and returned to France after the July Revolution.
1836Died in Paris aged 88; unpublished manuscripts credit him with the first use of the term sociologie.
Committee of Public Safety member allied with Robespierre
A lawyer elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1791 and the National Convention in 1792, he joined the Committee of Public Safety in 1793. Working with Robespierre and Saint-Just, he drafted the Law of 22 Prairial, which stripped defendants of counsel and sharply increased executions.
A lawyer and deputy in the Legislative Assembly and National Convention, Couthon joined the Mountain. On the Committee of Public Safety he worked closely with Robespierre and Saint-Just and played a central role in the Law of 22 Prairial, which sharply restricted defendants’ rights. Arrested on 9 Thermidor, he was executed with Robespierre.
Career timeline
1787Member, Provincial Assembly of Auvergne
1791Deputy for Puy-de-Dôme in the Legislative Assembly
1792Deputy for Puy-de-Dôme in the National Convention
1793Member of the Committee of Public Safety
1793Representative on mission to the Army of the Alps and Rhône-et-Loire; took Lyon
1793President of the National Convention
1794Rapporteur of the Law of 22 Prairial
1794Arrested on 9 Thermidor; guillotined on 28 July
Convention deputy who bridged the Plain and Committee of Public Safety
As the Committee of Public Safety's voice, he presented its reports on war, mass mobilization and revolutionary government to the Convention. Nicknamed 'the Anacreon of the Guillotine', he joined Robespierre's fall in 1794, then was impeached for the Terror.
A deputy to the Estates-General and National Convention, Barère sat with the Plain in 1792. From 1793 he served on the Committee of Public Safety and acted as a principal spokesman, presenting reports on war, mass mobilization, and revolutionary government. He joined the move against Robespierre in 1794 but was later impeached for his role in the Terror.
Career timeline
1789Elected deputy to the Estates-General by the estates of Bigorre.
1791–1792Served as a judge of the newly instituted Court of Cassation (October 1791 – September 1792).
1792Elected to the National Convention for Hautes-Pyrénées, presided over the Convention, and chaired the trial of Louis XVI.
1793–1794Elected to the Committee of Public Safety and served throughout its existence, presenting its reports on war, mass mobilization, and revolutionary government to the Convention.
1794Joined the Thermidorian coup that brought down Robespierre.
1795Decreed arrested and deported for the Terror; after Oléron and Saintes he escaped on 26 October and hid in Bordeaux.
1799Amnestied by Napoleon; under the First Empire he worked as a writer.
1815Sat in the Chamber of Deputies during the Hundred Days, then was banished for life as a regicide after the Bourbon Restoration.
1830–1841Returned to France, served Louis Philippe under the July Monarchy, and died on 13 January 1841.
Revolutionary journalist whose Le Père Duchesne spoke to a sans-culotte readership
Founder of Le Père Duchesne, which became the voice of the Parisian sans-culottes, and a leading figure behind the fall of the Girondins in 1793; pressed radical dechristianisation, was arrested with his followers in March 1794 and guillotined on 24 March.
A journalist of the French Revolution and deputy prosecutor of the Paris Commune. The earthy, popular language of Le Père Duchesne, founded in 1790, gave him influence among sans-culotte readers and he became prominent in the Cordeliers Club. In 1793 he attacked the Girondins and supported stronger economic controls and dechristianisation. The “Hébertists” were not a formal party but a label for overlapping newspaper, Cordelier, and Commune networks. After a failed call for insurrection, revolutionary government arrested him and he was executed on 24 March 1794.
Career timeline
1790Founded the popular revolutionary newspaper Le Père Duchesne
1791–1792Prominent Cordelier; deputy prosecutor of the Paris Commune
1793Attacked the Girondins and backed sans-culotte demands and dechristianisation
1794.03Arrested after a failed call for insurrection; executed on 24 March
Jacobin politician who argued for subsistence rights and revolutionary government
On 9 Thermidor, 27 July 1794, Convention deputies arrested him with about 90 others; he was executed without trial.
A lawyer and National Convention deputy during the French Revolution, Robespierre served on the Committee of Public Safety. His 1792 speech on subsistence placed access to necessities first while recognizing legitimate property and trade. His February 1794 report defended virtue and terror as principles of revolutionary government. This was a participant’s justification of repression; decisions made by the Convention and its committees cannot all be treated as his personal orders. He was executed after his defeat at Thermidor.
Career timeline
1789Elected deputy to the Estates-General for Artois
1780Graduated in law and was admitted to the Arras bar
1792Elected deputy to the National Convention
1793–1794Served on the Committee of Public Safety, a leading figure of the revolutionary government
Politician who moved from the revolutionary triumvirate to the Feuillants
He joined the Third Estate in 1789 but, through the triumvirate and the Feuillants, sought to stabilise the Revolution behind a constitutional monarchy; when the monarchy fell in 1792 he emigrated.
An aristocratic officer and veteran of the American War of Independence, Lameth joined the Third Estate in 1789 and supported the abolition of privilege. He formed the “triumvirate” with Barnave and Duport before becoming a Feuillant defender of constitutional monarchy. After exile and return, he served as a prefect under Napoleon and later as a liberal deputy.
Career timeline
1777–1785Entered the king's bodyguard corps and served as a cavalry officer; in 1782 he fought in the American War of Independence as a colonel under Rochambeau.
1789Elected deputy of the nobility of Péronne to the Estates-General, he rallied to the Third Estate and was among the promoters of the abolition of privilege on the night of 4 August.
1789–1791With Barnave and Duport he formed the triumvirate leading the Assembly's left; on 20 November 1790 he was elected president of the Assembly.
1791–1792A founding Jacobin and then a Feuillant leader defending constitutional monarchy; promoted maréchal de camp in the Army of the North in May 1792, he crossed to the enemy with Lafayette on 10 August and was interned by Austria.
1800–1814Returning to France, he served as prefect of the Basses-Alpes, Rhin-et-Moselle, Roer and Pô, was made a Baron of the Empire in 1810, and became lieutenant general and prefect of the Somme in 1814.
1820–1827Under the Restoration he sat as a liberal opposition deputy for Seine-Inférieure and then Seine-et-Oise, fighting the Villèle ministry.
Paris Commune prosecutor prominent in dechristianisation
As the Commune’s procurator he linked social policy to sans-culotte pressure, advanced the Terror and dechristianisation, opposed women’s political activity, and split with Robespierre before his 1794 execution.
As procurator of the Paris Commune, Chaumette was involved in urban policies on prices, relief, and public education as well as radical popular politics. He became a prominent promoter of dechristianisation in 1793 and was close to Hébert and Cordelier networks. He was arrested after the government’s purge of the Hébertists and executed in April 1794.
Career timeline
1790As a member of the Jacobin Club, he edited the radical Revolutions de Paris journal.
1792In August he became chief procurator of the Paris Commune and was delegated to inspect the prisons with power of arrest during the insurrection of 10 August.
1792Elected president of the Commune on 31 October, he defended the municipality before the National Convention and was re-elected on 2 December.
1793He helped lead the attack on the Girondins and in October acted as prosecutor at their trial alongside Hébert.
1793In September, amid the subsistence crisis, he led popular mobilisation and contributed to the establishment of the Terror.
1793He led the dechristianisation campaign, organising the Festival of Reason of 10 November.
1794Arrested on 13 March, after the Hébertists’ arrest on 4 March; convicted over the Luxembourg prison plot and guillotined on 13 April.
Civil commissioner who proclaimed emancipation in northern Saint-Domingue
On 29 August 1793, as civil commissioner in Saint-Domingue, he proclaimed all slaves of the Northern Province free, five months before the Convention abolished slavery in all the colonies.
A lawyer at the Parlement of Paris who wrote in support of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks and was close to Brissot, he was sent to Saint-Domingue as a civil commissioner with Polverel and others in 1792. Their stated mission was not emancipation but equal rights for free people of colour. Amid conflict with white colonists and the threat of Britain and Spain, he proclaimed freedom for the slaves of the Northern Province on 29 August 1793, with an obligation for non-combatants to return to plantation labour. On 4 February 1794 the Convention extended abolition to all French colonies. Historians debate whether his motives lay in revolutionary ideals of equality or in the need to hold on to power.
Career timeline
1784Took his law degree and became a lawyer at the Parlement of Paris.
1792Sent to Saint-Domingue as a civil commissioner with Polverel and others.
1793Proclaimed the emancipation of the slaves of the Northern Province on 29 August.
1794–1795Recalled to France to answer charges brought by the colonists, and was vindicated.
1796–1797Returned to Saint-Domingue, but Toussaint Louverture had him put aboard a ship for France in August 1797.
Cordelier and Hébertist who served as secretary-general of the War Ministry
As secretary-general of the War Ministry he filled its offices with radical patriots; arrested with the Hébertists in March 1794, he was executed on 24 March.
The son of a Paris prison concierge, Vincent worked as a lawyer’s clerk. An early member of the Cordeliers Club, where he served as secretary, he entered the General Council of the Paris Commune after the rising of 10 August 1792. In April 1793 he became secretary-general of the War Ministry under Bouchotte and filled its offices with radical patriots. Arrested in December 1793 and freed the following February, he joined the Hébertist campaign against the Indulgents and the revolutionary government. In the course he appears among those arrested in March 1794 with Hébert, Ronsin, Momoro and others and executed on 24 March. No material evidence was produced for the conspiracy charges against them.
Career timeline
1792Entered the General Council of the Paris Commune after 10 August, replacing Fabre d’Églantine.
1793Appointed secretary-general of the War Ministry under Bouchotte in April.
1793–1794Arrested on 17 December on the orders of the Committee of General Security; released on 2 February.
1794Re-arrested with Hébert on 14 March and executed on 24 March.
A conqueror who rose from revolutionary general to emperor
In the coup of 9–10 November 1799 (18 Brumaire), he conspired with Talleyrand and Sieyès and used troops with fixed bayonets to disperse the Council of Five Hundred and overturn the Directory, then took effective power as First Consul.
Born into an Italian-descended Corsican family, he was commissioned in the French royal artillery in 1785, supported the Revolution of 1789, and rose through his victories over royalists at Toulon in 1793 and Vendémiaire in 1795. The Italian campaign of 1796 made him a national hero, and in November 1799 the Brumaire coup overthrew the Directory and made him First Consul; in 1804 he became emperor of the First Empire. He won at Austerlitz in 1805 but was ruined by the Russian campaign of 1812 and Leipzig in 1813, was exiled to Elba in 1814, and after the Hundred Days lost at Waterloo and died on Saint Helena in 1821. His reforms such as the Napoleonic Code and public education endure, while the plunder of occupied lands, suppression of the press and deportation or imprisonment of critics, and the restoration of slavery in the colonies make him a contested figure.
Career timeline
1785Commissioned as an artillery second lieutenant in the French royal army.
1793Led the recapture of Toulon and was promoted to brigadier general.
1795Suppressed the royalist rising of Vendémiaire.
1796–1797Commanded the Army of Italy, defeating Austrian forces.
1798–1799Commanded the Egyptian and Syrian expedition.
1799Overthrew the Directory in the Brumaire coup and became First Consul.
1804–1814Ruled as emperor of the French First Empire.
1815Returned to power for the Hundred Days and was finally defeated at Waterloo.
French Revolutionary Wars general and commander of the Guadeloupe expedition
Commander of the Guadeloupe expedition Napoleon sent in 1801–1802; he suppressed Delgrès's resistance but died of yellow fever at Basse-Terre on 3 September 1802, and the insurgency continued until 1804.
Born in Metz in 1770, he joined his father's Conti Dragoon Regiment as a cadet at five. A supporter of the Revolution, he rose from second lieutenant in 1791 to captain in 1793 and chef d'escadron in 1794, and Kléber made him a brigade general in 1796. He served under Hoche in the Army of Sambre and Meuse and distinguished himself at Neuwied. In 1800 he commanded a division in Moreau's Army of the Rhine, leading the flank envelopment at Hohenlinden on 3 December that decided the victory. After the army was dissolved in 1801 he became inspector-general of cavalry of the Batavian Republic. In 1801–1802 Napoleon named him commander of the Guadeloupe expedition; he suppressed Delgrès's resistance and enforced the forcible reinstatement of slavery. He died of yellow fever at Basse-Terre on 3 September 1802.
