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What people did, and whom they served in that activity.

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Cordeliers Club people 1

Jacques René Hébert

Jacques René Hébert

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