Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois

French First Republic state institutions Jacobins and French revolutionary radicals 1749–1796 ○ Died of yellow fever in deportation

Actor turned Montagnard who sat on the Committee of Public Safety and directed the repression of Lyon

Born in Paris in 1749, he toured provincial theatres as an actor and dramatist and in 1787 took over the Lyon playhouse. When the Revolution broke out he returned to Paris, became active in the Jacobin Club, and in 1791 won wide popularity with L'Almanach du Père Gérard. He sat in the Paris Commune during the insurrection of 10 August 1792; on the opening day of the National Convention he was the first to demand the abolition of the monarchy, and he voted for the death of Louis XVI without delay. In September 1793 he entered the Committee of Public Safety with Billaud-Varenne, and at the end of October he was sent with Fouché to Lyon, where he directed mass executions in the rebel city. He joined the overthrow of Robespierre on 9 Thermidor 1794, but in 1795 he was condemned with Barère and Billaud-Varenne to transportation to French Guiana, where he died of yellow fever in 1796.