Armand Barbès

Society of the Seasons (Société des Saisons) Russian revolutionary democrats 1809–1870 → Died in exile

Republican revolutionary who founded the Society of the Seasons with Blanqui and was again sentenced to life after 15 May 1848

Born at Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe in 1809, he joined the republicans in Paris in 1828. Arrested for the first time in 1834 as a member of the Society of the Rights of Man, he formed the secret Society of the Seasons with Blanqui and Martin Bernard and led its rising of 12 May 1839. Sentenced to death, he had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment through Victor Hugo's intervention and was held at Mont-Saint-Michel. Freed by the revolution of 1848, he formed the Club of the Revolution against Blanqui, led his National Guard legion against the workers' demonstration of 16 April and entered the Constituent Assembly for the Aude on 23 April. On 15 May he joined in proclaiming a new government at the Hôtel de Ville, was arrested and in 1849 was sentenced to life by the High Court at Bourges. Pardoned in 1854, he never returned and died at The Hague in 1870.

Also known as: Bayard of Democracy