Finance specialist who led the Convention’s finance committee
On 26 July 1794 (8 Thermidor), when Robespierre named him among the enemies in charge of the finances, he answered at once from the tribune that the man paralysing the Convention’s will was Robespierre himself.
From a Montpellier cotton-merchant family, he drew up a petition for a republic after the flight to Varennes in 1791. In the Legislative Assembly and the Convention he led the finance committee and oversaw the treasury, and in August 1793 presented the plan for the Great Book of the Public Debt consolidating the state’s debts. His push to end state pay for the clergy set him against the deist Robespierre. When Robespierre named him on 8 Thermidor he replied at once, a clash often counted among the triggers of Robespierre’s fall the next day. He was nonetheless pursued in the Thermidorian Reaction, and exiled as a regicide in 1816 he died near Brussels.
Career Timeline
- 1791After the flight to Varennes he petitioned the Assembly to proclaim a republic, and was elected to the Legislative Assembly.
- 1792Re-elected to the Convention and joined its finance committee in October.
- 1793Presented the plan for the Great Book of the Public Debt on 24 August.
- 1794On 26 July (8 Thermidor) answered from the tribune Robespierre, who had named him in his speech.
- 1816–1820Exiled to Belgium under the law against regicides; died near Brussels in 1820.