Radical journalist and publisher of L’Ami du peuple
A physician and scientific writer before the Revolution, he founded L'Ami du peuple in September 1789. Elected to the National Convention in September 1792, he was acquitted by the Revolutionary Tribunal in April 1793 and helped bring down the Girondins. Corday killed him on 13 July 1793.
Originally a physician and scientific writer, Marat published the newspaper L’Ami du peuple during the Revolution. His fierce attacks on alleged counter-revolutionaries and the Girondins made him a radical voice linked to Parisian popular politics and the Mountain. He was assassinated by Charlotte Corday in July 1793.
Career timeline
1743–1789Worked as a physician and scientific writer, publishing experimental studies on optics, electricity and light and political works such as The Chains of Slavery (1774). He received an MD from the University of St Andrews.
1777Appointed in June as physician to the bodyguard of the Comte d'Artois (later Charles X).
1783Resigned his court appointment in April to concentrate on scientific research.
1789When the King called the Estates General in 1788, he abandoned his scientific and medical career and entered revolutionary polemic, anonymously publishing Offrande à la Patrie in February 1789.
1789Launched his own newspaper, the Publiciste parisien, on 12 September, renaming it L'Ami du peuple four days later.
1791After the Champ de Mars massacre and the ensuing crackdown on the radical press, his paper was seized and its printing formes broken up, yet he kept publishing; about 500 issues appeared in 1791.
1792Elected to the National Convention in September. After the fall of the monarchy on 10 August he was appointed one of the Paris Commune's adjoint administrators on its Committee of Surveillance, signed its September circular, and has been credited with drafting it.
1793Indicted on Girondin initiative, he became the first representative of the people tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal in April; defending himself without counsel, he was acquitted.
1793Played an active part in the insurrection of 31 May–2 June that brought down the Girondins, presiding over the Convention and helping determine which deputies were to be arrested.
1793Assassinated on 13 July: Charlotte Corday, a Girondin sympathiser, stabbed him in the chest while he sat in a medicinal bath.
Clergyman and political theorist of Third Estate sovereignty
Amid the 1788–1789 Estates-General crisis he identified the Third Estate with the whole nation, and later ended the Directory through the coup of 18 Brumaire.
A clergyman and political theorist, Sieyès linked the Third Estate to the nation in his 1789 pamphlet What Is the Third Estate? He helped bring the National Assembly into being and later sat with the Plain in the National Convention. Near the end of the Directory he participated in the coup of Brumaire and helped establish the Consulate.
Career timeline
1775–1788Secretary and deputy to the bishop of Tréguier, then vicar general and chancellor of the diocese of Chartres; sat in the Estates of Brittany.
1789Published What Is the Third Estate?; as a Third Estate deputy he pushed for the National Assembly and joined the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
1792–1795Sat in the National Convention, voted for the death of Louis XVI, and served on a diplomatic mission to The Hague in 1795.
1799Made a Director in May; helped lead the coup of 18 Brumaire and became a provisional Consul of the Consulate.
1799–1830Served in the Sénat conservateur, was expelled from the Academy after the Restoration, left for Brussels, and returned to France after the July Revolution.
1836Died in Paris aged 88; unpublished manuscripts credit him with the first use of the term sociologie.
Hébertist general who commanded the Parisian Revolutionary Army
Appointed commander of the Parisian Revolutionary Army in September 1793, he was arrested with Hébert, Vincent, Momoro and others in March 1794 and executed on 24 March.
Born in Soissons, Ronsin served in the army as a young man and after leaving it lived as a playwright and tutor. During the Revolution he became an orator of the Cordeliers Club; in 1793 he took charge of a department of Bouchotte’s War Ministry, was sent to the Vendée and was rapidly promoted to general. In September that year he became commander of the Parisian Revolutionary Army and in November led a detachment to the repression at Lyon. In the course he appears among the Hébertists arrested in March 1794 with Hébert, Vincent, Momoro and others and executed on 24 March. The charge of a military plot built on the Revolutionary Army was the prosecution’s case and should be read as such. The Revolutionary Army was disbanded days after his execution.
Career timeline
1772Left the army and worked as a playwright and tutor.
1792Appointed supply commissioner to Dumouriez’s army in Belgium.
1793Took charge of a department of Bouchotte’s War Ministry in April, was sent to the Vendée in May and was promoted to general in July.
1793Became commander of the Parisian Revolutionary Army in September and led a detachment to Lyon in November.
1793–1794Arrested on 17 December and released on 2 February after a Cordeliers campaign.
1794Re-arrested with the Hébertists in March and executed on 24 March.
Enragé priest who demanded controls on subsistence prices
The leading spokesman of the Enragés, he demanded action against the wealthy in the name of poor Parisians' survival, presented the Enragés' programme to the Convention in 1793, and was arrested amid Montagnard and Jacobin attacks.
A priest and radical activist in Paris’s Gravilliers section, Roux became a leading figure among the Enragés. He attacked food monopoly and speculation, demanded forceful price controls and economic equality, and presented the Enragés’ programme to the Convention in 1793. Arrested after attacks from Montagnard and Jacobin leaders, he died by suicide in prison.
Career timeline
1791Elected to the Paris Commune.
1793When food-price riots broke out in Paris, he defended such direct action.
1793Presented the Enragés' programme to the Convention: the 25 June address demanding taxation of necessities and punishment of speculators.
1793Arrested in August, released, then rearrested on 5 September and interned at Sainte-Pélagie.
1794On being sent before the Revolutionary Tribunal, he tried twice to kill himself in prison and died on 10 February.
Leading Girondin orator in the National Convention
On 31 December 1792 he urged an appeal to the people in the trial of Louis XVI and failed; days later a letter he had signed reached the king's enemies as evidence of treason.
A Bordeaux lawyer, Vergniaud became a celebrated orator in the Legislative Assembly and National Convention. He supported the war policy, spoke for the Girondins, and voted for death in the trial of Louis XVI. Arrested after the purge of the Girondins in June 1793, he was executed with other Girondin deputies.
Career timeline
1789Appointed by Bordeaux as an administrator of the Gironde department.
1791.03.29Served as director of the jury at the Gironde criminal court.
1791.08.31Elected deputy to the Legislative Assembly for the Gironde.
1791.10.30Elected president of the Legislative Assembly.
1792.08.10Presided as the Tuileries was stormed and had the king suspended.
1793.01.10Elected president of the National Convention.
1793.01.16Voted for the death of Louis XVI.
1793.06.02Decreed for arrest with the Girondin deputies.
Girondin journalist and deputy who championed revolutionary war
In 1791–92 he led the Legislative Assembly's push for war against Austria, which led to the declaration of war in April 1792. Sentenced on 30 October 1793, he was guillotined the next day.
A journalist and deputy in the Legislative Assembly and National Convention, Brissot also participated in antislavery activism. In 1791–92 he became the chief advocate of foreign war in the name of defending and extending the Revolution and emerged as a leading Girondin. He was arrested after the Girondins’ fall in June 1793 and later executed.
Career timeline
1770s–1780sTrained as a law clerk, then worked as a journalist contributing to the Mercure de France and the Courier de l'Europe.
1788Founded the antislavery Society of the Friends of the Blacks and served as its secretary.
1789Elected a member of the Paris municipality and founded the Patriote français, which he edited until 1793.
1791.10–1792.09Sat in the Legislative Assembly for Seine and, on the diplomatic committee, shaped much of France's foreign policy.
1792.09–1793.10Represented Eure-et-Loir in the National Convention; arrested in June 1793 and executed that October.
Author of the Le Chapelier Law banning guilds and workers’ combinations
On 14 June 1791 the law he moved was adopted, banning guilds and forbidding workers or employers of the same trade to combine for their common interests.
A lawyer from Rennes, he was elected to the Estates-General for the Third Estate in 1789, helped found the Breton Club, and as president of the Constituent Assembly in August 1789 presided over the night session of 4 August that abolished feudalism. On the constitutional committee he drafted much of the 1791 Constitution. The law bearing his name, adopted on 14 June 1791, banned guilds and workers’ combinations, a prohibition that lasted until 1864. In September 1791 he also presented a law restricting concerted political action by popular societies. Suspected during the Terror for his Feuillant ties, he was guillotined on 22 April 1794.
Career timeline
1789Elected to the Estates-General for the Third Estate of the sénéchaussée of Rennes; a founder of the Breton Club.
1789As president of the Constituent Assembly in August he presided over the night of 4 August; joined the constitutional committee in late September.
1791The Le Chapelier Law was adopted on 14 June; after the Champ de Mars massacre in July he left the Jacobins for the Feuillants.
1791Carried a law of 30 September restricting concerted political action by popular societies.
1794Arrested, he was guillotined in Paris on 22 April.
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
Jacobin politician who argued for subsistence rights and revolutionary government
On 9 Thermidor, 27 July 1794, Convention deputies arrested him with about 90 others; he was executed without trial.
A lawyer and National Convention deputy during the French Revolution, Robespierre served on the Committee of Public Safety. His 1792 speech on subsistence placed access to necessities first while recognizing legitimate property and trade. His February 1794 report defended virtue and terror as principles of revolutionary government. This was a participant’s justification of repression; decisions made by the Convention and its committees cannot all be treated as his personal orders. He was executed after his defeat at Thermidor.
Career timeline
1789Elected deputy to the Estates-General for Artois
1780Graduated in law and was admitted to the Arras bar
1792Elected deputy to the National Convention
1793–1794Served on the Committee of Public Safety, a leading figure of the revolutionary government
Revolutionary leader associated with the Cordeliers and Indulgents
From Cordeliers orator to minister of justice after the monarchy fell on 10 August 1792, and a disputed figure in responsibility for the September Massacres. He sat on the first Committee of Public Safety in 1793, later led the Indulgents demanding an end to the Terror, and was guillotined in 1794.
A prominent Cordelier, Danton became minister of justice after the monarchy fell in August 1792. He rallied support for defence of the Republic and served on the first Committee of Public Safety in 1793. Later associated with calls to moderate the Terror and stabilize the Revolution, he clashed with the ruling committee and was executed in April 1794.
Career timeline
1789–1792Rose to prominence in the radical politics of the Cordeliers district, earning the nickname 'the Thunderer', and became president of the Cordeliers Club in 1790.
1792Became minister of justice after the fall of the monarchy on 10 August and appealed for resistance in his 2 September 'daring' speech.
1793Backed the creation of the Revolutionary Tribunal in March and was appointed to the first Committee of Public Safety on 6 April.
1793–1794After losing his committee seat in June, he became the leading Indulgent demanding an end to the Terror, and was tried and executed in April 1794 on charges of conspiracy and venality.
Feuillant politician and advocate of judicial reform
One third of the triumvirate of which the Assembly said, “What Duport thinks, Barnave says, Lameth does”, he led the 1791 Feuillant split, arguing the Revolution was over and the constitutional order should be stabilised.
A magistrate and National Assembly deputy, Duport promoted jury trial and criminal-justice reform. He formed the “triumvirate” with Barnave and Lameth and helped organize the Feuillants in 1791. After the monarchy fell in 1792 he went into exile and died in Switzerland.
Career timeline
1778Admitted as an advocate in the Parlement de Paris, and appointed a councillor in that same parlement, remaining in office until 1790.
1787–1788Founded the "Parti des nationaux" in 1787, demanding that the Estates-General be convened, and in 1788 organised the Société des Trente against the distinction between the three orders.
1789Elected deputy for the Paris nobility to the Estates-General on 13 May; in late June joined the Third Estate among the 47 liberal nobles.
1789–1791Formed the "triumvirate" with Barnave and Alexandre de Lameth in the Constituent Assembly, and as rapporteur of the criminal jurisprudence committee advanced the reform of the judiciary (report of 29 March 1790) and the introduction of the jury (8 February 1791); presided over the Assembly from 14 to 26 February 1791.
1791Led the Feuillant split in July, was the chief architect of the decree of 27 September granting full emancipation to the Jews, and took part in the 24 September revocation of the rights of free men of colour.
1792After the fall of the monarchy on 10 August he left his post as president of the criminal tribunal of the Seine, was arrested, then released and fled into exile via England and Switzerland.
1798Forced abroad again after the 18 Fructidor coup (4 September 1797), he died of tuberculosis at Gais in Switzerland.
Revolutionary journalist associated with both the Bastille rising and Indulgents
Journalist and Convention deputy whose 1789 call to arms at the Palais-Royal helped set off the Bastille rising; he died on the guillotine with Danton after Le Vieux Cordelier demanded clemency and an end to the Terror.
On 12 July 1789 Desmoulins called the Palais-Royal crowd to arms, helping mobilize the unrest that preceded the storming of the Bastille. A Cordelier journalist, he later campaigned against the Girondins, but in late 1793 used Le Vieux Cordelier to call for clemency and an easing of the Terror. He was executed with Danton in April 1794.
Career timeline
1785Admitted as an advocate in the Parlement of Paris, but a stammer and weak connections hampered practice
1789Began radical pamphleteering and journalism with La France Libre, the Discours de la lanterne and the Révolutions de France et de Brabant
1790Joined the Club des Cordeliers and became a prominent member
1792Became Secretary-General to Justice Minister Danton, then was elected deputy for Paris to the National Convention in September
1793Led the attack on the Girondins in the Histoire des Brissotins, then from December published Le Vieux Cordelier demanding clemency and an easing of the Terror
1794Arrested on 31 March, tried as a Dantonist and executed on 5 April
Girondins
1760–1794
✕ Died by suicide while in hiding
Girondin deputy who argued after Varennes that the king could be tried
After the flight to Varennes in 1791 he cited English precedent in the Constituent Assembly to argue that the king could be tried; Barnave answered him in his speech of 15 July.
A lawyer from Évreux, Buzot was elected for the Third Estate to the Estates-General in 1789 and in the Constituent Assembly demanded the nationalization of church property. After the flight to Varennes in 1791 he cited English precedent to argue that the king could be tried; Barnave replied that England, having no written constitution, could not serve as a model. Re-elected to the National Convention in 1792, he became a leading Girondin orator under the influence of Madame Roland, attacked Marat and proposed a guard drawn from the departments to protect the Convention. Proscribed with the Girondins on 2 June 1793, he fled to Normandy and helped organize the revolt there. He later hid near Bordeaux and in 1794 was found dead with Pétion, most likely by suicide.
Career timeline
1789Elected for the Third Estate of the bailliage of Évreux to the Estates-General; called for the nationalization of church property.
1791After Varennes, cited English precedent to argue that the king could be tried; Barnave rebutted him.
1792Presided over the criminal tribunal at Évreux, then was elected to the National Convention for the Eure and joined the Girondins.
1793Proscribed with the Girondins on 2 June; fled to Normandy and helped organize the revolt against the Convention.
1794Found dead with Pétion after hiding near Bordeaux.
Politician who moved from the revolutionary triumvirate to the Feuillants
He joined the Third Estate in 1789 but, through the triumvirate and the Feuillants, sought to stabilise the Revolution behind a constitutional monarchy; when the monarchy fell in 1792 he emigrated.
An aristocratic officer and veteran of the American War of Independence, Lameth joined the Third Estate in 1789 and supported the abolition of privilege. He formed the “triumvirate” with Barnave and Duport before becoming a Feuillant defender of constitutional monarchy. After exile and return, he served as a prefect under Napoleon and later as a liberal deputy.
Career timeline
1777–1785Entered the king's bodyguard corps and served as a cavalry officer; in 1782 he fought in the American War of Independence as a colonel under Rochambeau.
1789Elected deputy of the nobility of Péronne to the Estates-General, he rallied to the Third Estate and was among the promoters of the abolition of privilege on the night of 4 August.
1789–1791With Barnave and Duport he formed the triumvirate leading the Assembly's left; on 20 November 1790 he was elected president of the Assembly.
1791–1792A founding Jacobin and then a Feuillant leader defending constitutional monarchy; promoted maréchal de camp in the Army of the North in May 1792, he crossed to the enemy with Lafayette on 10 August and was interned by Austria.
1800–1814Returning to France, he served as prefect of the Basses-Alpes, Rhin-et-Moselle, Roer and Pô, was made a Baron of the Empire in 1810, and became lieutenant general and prefect of the Somme in 1814.
1820–1827Under the Restoration he sat as a liberal opposition deputy for Seine-Inférieure and then Seine-et-Oise, fighting the Villèle ministry.
Leading Feuillant orator who sought to preserve constitutional monarchy
On 15 July 1791 he defended the king’s inviolability: “Are we going to end the Revolution, or begin it again?” One step further, he warned, would destroy the monarchy, and one step further toward equality would destroy property.
A Third Estate deputy and leading National Assembly orator, he formed the “triumvirate” with Duport and Lameth. After the Flight to Varennes he helped lead the Feuillants in defence of constitutional monarchy and secretly advised the royal family. Papers revealing those contacts contributed to his conviction and execution.
Career timeline
1789Elected deputy of the Third Estate for Grenoble to the Estates-General; defended the union of the orders and voting by head.
1790Elected president of the Constituent National Assembly; became mayor of Grenoble the same year.
1791Escorted the royal family from Varennes to Paris, then helped form the Feuillants and defended the king’s inviolability.
1792–1793Denounced in August 1792; imprisoned at Grenoble and Fort Barraux, condemned for treason by the Revolutionary Tribunal and executed in Paris in November 1793.
Paris Commune prosecutor prominent in dechristianisation
As the Commune’s procurator he linked social policy to sans-culotte pressure, advanced the Terror and dechristianisation, opposed women’s political activity, and split with Robespierre before his 1794 execution.
As procurator of the Paris Commune, Chaumette was involved in urban policies on prices, relief, and public education as well as radical popular politics. He became a prominent promoter of dechristianisation in 1793 and was close to Hébert and Cordelier networks. He was arrested after the government’s purge of the Hébertists and executed in April 1794.
Career timeline
1790As a member of the Jacobin Club, he edited the radical Revolutions de Paris journal.
1792In August he became chief procurator of the Paris Commune and was delegated to inspect the prisons with power of arrest during the insurrection of 10 August.
1792Elected president of the Commune on 31 October, he defended the municipality before the National Convention and was re-elected on 2 December.
1793He helped lead the attack on the Girondins and in October acted as prosecutor at their trial alongside Hébert.
1793In September, amid the subsistence crisis, he led popular mobilisation and contributed to the establishment of the Terror.
1793He led the dechristianisation campaign, organising the Festival of Reason of 10 November.
1794Arrested on 13 March, after the Hébertists’ arrest on 4 March; convicted over the Luxembourg prison plot and guillotined on 13 April.
Committee of Public Safety member and theorist of revolutionary government
The youngest deputy ever elected to the National Convention and Robespierre's closest ally, he pushed to confiscate the property of the Republic's enemies for poor patriots. He fell with Robespierre on 9 Thermidor.
The youngest deputy in the National Convention, Saint-Just became a leading Montagnard and close ally of Robespierre. On the Committee of Public Safety he served on missions to the armies and delivered reports against the Girondins, Hébertists, and Dantonists. He defended a strongly centralized revolutionary government and was arrested with Robespierre on 9 Thermidor and executed the next day.
Career timeline
1792.09–1794.07Deputy of the National Convention (for Aisne; youngest member)
1792.11–1793Reports condemning the Girondins; speech demanding the King's execution
1793.05–1794.07Member of the Committee of Public Safety
1793.11–1794Representative on mission to the armies, overseeing the Rhine and North armies
Radical French prime minister at the end of the First World War who pressed harsh terms on Hungary at the Paris Peace Conference
A physician turned journalist from the Vendée, he became mayor of the 18th arrondissement of Paris in 1870 and the next year tried to broker a compromise between the Paris Commune and the government. A key figure of the Independent Radicals, he advocated the separation of church and state. As interior minister in 1906 he ordered repressive policies toward the workers’ movement and was nicknamed “the Tiger”, and he was prime minister in 1906–1909 and 1917–1920. Appointed in November 1917 at one of the darkest hours of the war, he demanded total victory over Germany and achieved the Treaty of Versailles at the Paris Peace Conference. Seeking to weaken Hungary as Germany was weakened, he brought about the stringent terms of the Treaty of Trianon. He died in 1929.
Veteran founder of French Marxist socialism who entered the Union sacrée government in 1914
After war began in 1914, Guesde left the socialist antiwar camp and entered the French government as minister without portfolio. At Stuttgart in 1907 he had rejected special antiwar measures apart from the socialist struggle; wartime office brought that position into government practice.
A journalist exiled for supporting the Paris Commune, he drafted the programme of the French Workers’ Party with Marx in 1880 and became the standard-bearer of French Marxism. He long opposed the reformist Jaurès and took part in founding the unified Socialist Party (SFIO) in 1905. At Stuttgart in 1907 he argued that class struggle would abolish war and that no special anti-war action was needed. In August 1914, seeing France itself in danger, he joined the Union sacrée government as a minister without portfolio and stayed until 1916.
Career timeline
1880Drafted the French Workers’ Party programme with Karl Marx; the party adopted it at its founding congress in November.
1907At the Second International’s Stuttgart Congress, presented the French minority’s resolution rejecting special antiwar measures apart from the general socialist struggle.
1914–1916Entered the French government as minister without portfolio after war broke out and served until 1916.
French socialist leader who united the left, founded L'Humanité, and was assassinated fighting to prevent the Great War
"In the vat of the Republic, prepare the wine of the Social Revolution!" — to winegrowers at the Maraussan cooperative, 1 May 1905
Jean Jaurès was the central figure in the unification of French socialism, leading the French Socialist Party from 1902 and merging it with Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France in 1905 to create the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO). Through L'Humanité, the daily he founded in 1904, he championed reformist social democracy, while during the Dreyfus Affair he stood as the republican conscience against anti-Semitism and militarism. His Marxist class analysis in the multi-volume Socialist History of the French Revolution (1900–1903) left a lasting mark on French revolutionary historiography. In July 1914, he fought to prevent world war through an international general strike with the German Social Democrats, but was assassinated by nationalist Raoul Villain three days before France entered the conflict.
Career timeline
1885Elected to Chamber of Deputies as Opportunist Republican for Tarn
1892–1893Supported Carmaux miners' strike; re-elected as Independent Socialist deputy
1898–1902Leading Dreyfusard voice; edited La Petite République
1902Founded and led the French Socialist Party
1904Founded L'Humanité
1905Unified French socialist parties into SFIO
1900–1903Published Socialist History of the French Revolution
1914Assassinated while leading international anti-war general strike campaign
French Socialist deputy who joined the Union sacrée government as Minister of Public Works in 1914
Born in Bonnières-sur-Seine in Seine-et-Oise, he took a doctorate in law and practised as a lawyer, and as a journalist edited La Petite République. He joined the Blanquist-leaning Central Revolutionary Committee and followed its successor parties into the SFIO in 1905. From 1893 until his death he was re-elected as a Socialist deputy for a working-class district in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. Author of the 1911 pacifist pamphlet Faites un roi, sinon faites la paix, he nevertheless entered Viviani’s Union sacrée government in August 1914 as Minister of Public Works, and kept the post under Briand until December 1916. At the Congress of Tours in 1920 he voted against joining the Third International. He died of a cerebral haemorrhage in Chamonix in 1922.
Career timeline
1890–1897Editor of La Petite République
1893Elected deputy for the Seine
1905Joined the SFIO
1914–1916Minister of Public Works (Union sacrée government)
1920Voted against joining the Third International at Tours
The brain of Action Française, the royalist theorist who denied the republic itself in the name of integral nationalism
'It is the revenge of Dreyfus!', on hearing his life sentence in the court at Lyon, 27 January 1945
A poet and polemicist from Martigues in Provence, deaf from his youth, who led Action Française for half a century after the movement formed out of the Dreyfus affair. His 'integral nationalism' called for the restoration of the monarchy and the abolition of the parliamentary republic, and named Jews, Protestants, Freemasons and foreigners as the 'four confederate states' eating France from within. The movement survived the Vatican's condemnation of 1926, and in 1938 he was elected to the Académie Française. Through January 1934 his paper named 'the thieves' day after day, and on the morning of 6 February it called on its readers to come to the Chamber that evening. He welcomed Pétain's accession in 1940 as a 'divine surprise', backed Vichy, and denounced resisters and Jews in print throughout the occupation. In January 1945 he was sentenced to life imprisonment and national degradation for collusion with the enemy.
Career timeline
1868–1890Born at Martigues; loses his hearing; begins writing in Paris
1899–1908Joins Action Française out of the Dreyfus affair; the daily is founded in 1908
1908–1939Theorist of integral nationalism, shaping the whole of the French far right
1926The Vatican condemns Action Française
1934.01–02Press offensive over the Stavisky affair; calls for the demonstration of 6 February
1938Elected to the Académie Française
1940–1944Backs Vichy; denounces resisters and Jews in print
1945.01Sentenced to life and national degradation for collusion with the enemy
1952Released in ill health and dies at Tours the same year
Leader who took the SFIO majority into the Comintern at Tours in 1920, founding the French Communist Party, and ran L’Humanité
At the 1920 Tours Congress, he backed SFIO affiliation with the Comintern, led the majority split, and helped found the French Communist Party. Arrested in 1923 for opposing France’s Ruhr occupation, he was cleared by the Senate sitting as a High Court.
Born in Paimpol in Brittany, he joined Guesde’s French Workers’ Party in 1891 and the unified SFIO in 1905, and from 1918 ran L’Humanité for the rest of his life. As his supporters swung towards the October Revolution after the war, he led the vote to join the Comintern at the Tours congress of 1920 and became a founder of the French Communist Party. He was jailed in 1923 for denouncing the French occupation of the Ruhr. A deputy and senator, he remained the party’s elder statesman until his death in 1958.
Career timeline
1892Joined the Gironde section of the French Workers’ Party, founded by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue.
1905Took part in the founding congress of the unified Socialist Party (SFIO) and became its propaganda delegate.
1918Elected director of L’Humanité, which he led until his death in 1958.
1920At the Tours Congress, supported SFIO affiliation with the Comintern and helped found the French Section of the Communist International (SFIC), predecessor of the French Communist Party.
1923Arrested for opposing France’s Ruhr occupation and brought before the Senate sitting as a High Court; it ruled there was no case to answer.
1936Elected senator for the Seine, becoming the first senator from the French Communist Party.
French socialist and teachers’ union activist who led the Committee for the Third International
He organised internationalist socialists against the war and served as secretary of the Committee for the Third International during the founding of the French Communist Party.
A teacher, Loriot joined the Socialist Party in 1901 and became active in the teachers’ union. During the First World War he opposed support for the war and backed the Zimmerwald position, serving as secretary of the Committee for the Resumption of International Relations and later the Committee for the Third International. At the Tours Congress in 1920 he joined the leadership of the newly formed French Communist Party.
Career timeline
1901Joined the Socialist Party
1917Became secretary of the Committee for the Resumption of International Relations
1919Secretary of the Committee for the Third International
1920Elected to the Executive Committee of the newly formed Communist Party and as international secretary at the Tours Congress
1925Active in opposition to the party’s Bolshevisation
1926Left the party and joined the revolutionary syndicalist movement
