Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles

French First Republic state institutions Jacobins and French revolutionary radicals 1759–1794 ✕ Guillotined

Noble-born magistrate who co-drafted the Constitution of 1793, handled diplomacy for the Committee of Public Safety and died with Danton

Born in Paris in 1759 into a well-known noble family, he became Advocate General at the Parlement of Paris with the help of the queen's circle. An early convert to revolutionary ideas, he took part in the storming of the Bastille in July 1789, was elected deputy for Paris to the Legislative Assembly and presided over it in September 1792. In the National Convention he moved to the extreme left and, with Saint-Just, drafted the Constitution of 1793. He entered the Committee of Public Safety in June 1793 and dealt mainly with diplomacy, but after a mission to Alsace he was suspected of collusion with foreign agents and left the committee at the end of the year. In 1794 he was condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal together with Danton and Desmoulins and guillotined on 5 April.