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| Reine Audu |
Participant in The Women's March on Versailles and the 10 August (French Revolution).
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| Charles Augereau, duc de Castiglione |
Officer throughout the Revolutionary era and Empire; later a general and Marshal of France.
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| Jean-Pierre-André Amar |
Deputy to the National Convention from Isère; member of the Committee of General Security.
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| François-Noël Babeuf |
Proto-socialist, guillotined in 1797 after an attempted coup d'etat.
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| Jean Sylvain Bailly |
President of the Third Estate who administered the Tennis Court Oath; made Mayor of Paris after the storming of the Bastille; guillotined during the Reign of Terror.
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| Antoine Barnave |
Constitutional monarchist and Feuillant; guillotined.
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| Paul Nicolas, vicomte de Barras |
A Montagnard, then Thermidorian; ultimately the Directory régime's executive leader.
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| Madame du Barry |
Mistress of King Louis XV and famous victim of the guillotine during the Reign of Terror.
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| François-Marie, marquis de Barthélemy |
Briefly a Director; exiled to French Guiana; returned to France during the Empire.
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| Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte |
General, Ambassador to Vienna and Minister of War; later King of Sweden and Norway.
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| Joséphine de Beauharnais |
Empress; wife of Napoleon Bonaparte.
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| Louis Alexandre Berthier |
General; effectively Napoleon Bonaparte's chief of staff.
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| Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne |
Committee of Public Safety member; survived 9 Thermidor; later deported to French Guiana.
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| Joseph Bonaparte |
Eldest Bonaparte brother; supported his brother Napoleon; later made King of Naples and then Spain.
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| Lucien Bonaparte |
Younger brother of Napoleon; President of the Assembly during the Directory; later fell out with Napoleon.
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| Napoleon Bonaparte |
General; seized power as First Consul in the 18 Brumaire coup. Made virtual dictator as Consul for Life in 1802. Declared Emperor of the French in 1804. Founded the First French Empire.
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| Louis Antoine de Bourbon, duc d'Enghien |
Prince of the Blood; son of the Duc de Bourbon; kidnapped and executed by Napoleon.
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| Louis François de Bourbon |
Prince of the Blood; briefly emigrated from 1789 to 1790, but returned to France; expelled by Directory; died in exile.
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| Louis Henri, duc de Bourbon |
Prince of the Blood, son of the Prince de Condé and father of the Duc d'Enghien; emigrated.
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| Louis Joseph de Bourbon |
Prince of the Blood; composed the Brunswick Manifesto.
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| Charles de Bouvens |
Orator who had to flee the French Revolution due to his conservative views.
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| Louis de Breteuil |
Royalist; briefly supplanted Necker in the royal cabinet.
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| Cardinal Étienne Charles de Brienne |
Royalist; President of the Royal Council of Finances shortly before the Revolution.
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| Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville |
Girondist (Brissotin); guillotined.
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| Guillaume Marie Anne Brune |
Political journalist; Jacobin; friend of Georges Danton; appointed a general, then Marshal of France; murdered by royalists during the White Terror.
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| Edmund Burke |
English philosopher and politician; author of famous 1790 polemic against the Revolution.
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| Charles Alexandre de Calonne |
French Controller-General of Finances from 1783 to 1787, whose discovery of the perilous state of French finances in 1786 precipitated the crisis leading to the Revolution.
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| Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès |
Moderate; Second Consul under Bonaparte; chief contributor to the Napoleonic Code.
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| Pierre Joseph Cambon |
Legislative and the Convention member; directed French financial policy and aided in the Thermidor coup.
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| Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot |
Mathematician; physicist; Committee of Public Safety member; "Organizer of Victory"; turned against Robespierre on 9 Thermidor; a Director; ousted in 18 Fructidor coup.
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| Louis Philippe, duc de Chartres |
Eldest son of the Duke of Orleans; defected to Austria with Dumouriez in 1793; later King of France.
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| Pierre Gaspard Chaumette |
Cult of Reason devotee; guillotined, as was fellow devotee Jacques Hébert.
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| André Chénier |
Poet; guillotined.
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| Jean Chouan |
Royalist counter-revolutionary.
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| Étienne Clavière |
Girondist; finance minister 1792; died in prison by suicide 1793.
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| Anacharsis Cloots |
Philosopher and writer; guillotined.
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| Jean Marie Collot d'Herbois |
Actor; Paris Commune member; belated Montagnard; Committee of Public Safety member; deported to French Guiana after 9 Thermidor revolt, where he died.
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| Marquis de Condorcet |
Philosopher; mathematician; Girondist associate; died in prison.
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| Charlotte Corday |
Assassinated Marat; guillotined.
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| Charles-Augustin de Coulomb |
Scientist; metric system pioneer.
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| Georges Couthon |
Montagnard; Committee of Public Safety member; guillotined following 9 Thermidor.
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| Georges Danton |
Writer; Jacobin, but neither a Girondist nor a Montagnard; Committee of Public Safety member; guillotined.
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| Pierre Claude François Daunou |
Historian; loosely associated with the Girondists faction; served both Directory and Empire.
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| Jacques-Louis David |
Painter; Montagnard; Committee of General Security member; survived fall from power following 9 Thermidor.
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| Louis Charles Antoine Desaix |
General; killed while leading the French to victory during the Battle of Marengo (1800).
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| Camille Desmoulins |
Journalist; Montagnard; Danton associate; guillotined.
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| Denis Diderot |
Enlightenment author; atheist philosopher; influenced Revolutionary theory.
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| Jacques François Dugommier |
General; National Convention deputy. Killed in 1794 at the Battle of the Black Mountain
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| Charles François Dumouriez |
General; sometime Girondist and Foreign Minister in the Girondist cabinet; eventually defected to Austria.
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| Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours |
Constitutional monarchist; National Constituent Assembly president; eventually exiled.
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| Roger Ducos |
Deputy from Landes; member of the Council of Five Hundred; vice-president of the Consulate Senate.
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| Grace Elliott |
Scottish courtesan; former mistress of Louis Philippe II, duc d'Orléans; resident in Paris throughout the Revolution.
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| Antoine Joseph Marie d'Espinassy |
Politician, Knight, General and Deputy; Royal of Signes and Revolutionary.
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| Fabre d'Églantine |
Author of the French Revolutionary Calendar; guillotined.
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| Joseph Fesch |
Cardinal; closely associated with Napoleon Bonaparte.
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| Joseph Fouché |
Jacobin deputy; Thermidorian; Minister of Police under Napoleon.
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| Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville |
Public Prosecutor during the Reign of Terror; subsequently guillotined (1795).
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| Olympe de Gouges |
Writer; advocate of gender equality; guillotined.
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| Henri Grégoire |
Revolutionary priest; supported Civil Constitution of the Clergy.
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| Jacques Hébert |
Polemicist; editor of Le Père Duchesne; guillotined.
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| Marie Jean Hérault |
Committee of Public Safety member; revised Condorcet's Constitution of 1793; Danton associate; guillotined.
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| Lazare Hoche |
Soldier rapidly promoted to General during early years of Revolution.
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| Pierre-Augustin Hulin |
Ex-royal soldier and one of the first revolutionaries to enter the Bastille; later general under Bonaparte.
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| Jean-Baptiste Jourdan |
General; victor at the battles of Wattignies and Fleurus.
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| François Christophe Kellermann |
Promoted to General early in the Revolution; Battle of Valmy hero; Marshal of France; army administrator during Empire years.
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| Jean-Baptiste Kléber |
Revolutionary general; assassinated in 1800.
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| Pierre Choderlos de Laclos |
Bonapartist general; author of Les Liaisons dangereuses.
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| Marie Thérèse, princesse de Lamballe |
Friend of Marie Antoinette; victim of the September Massacres.
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| Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette |
General; constitutional monarchist, co-wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
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| Claire Lacombe |
Feminist revolutionary, founder of the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women.
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| Alexandre-Théodore, comte de Lameth |
Leading Feuillant; formed "Triumvirate" with Barnave and Duport; eventually emigrated.
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| Charles Malo François Lameth |
Brother of Alexandre de Lameth; Feuillant; emigrated.
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| Jean Lannes |
Soldier rising through ranks to become general; Marshal of France; close to Bonaparte. Killed at Aspern-Essling in 1809.
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| Arnaud de Laporte |
High royal government official, headed up antirevolutionary activities; second political victim of the guillotine.
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| Marquis de Launay |
Royalist governor of the Bastille; killed after its storming.
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| Antoine Lavoisier |
Scientist; metric pioneer; tax collector; guillotined.
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| Charles Leclerc |
General; close to Bonaparte; served in Haiti.
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| Philippe-François-Joseph Le Bas |
Deputy to the National Convention from Pas-de-Calais; Robespierrist and close ally of Saint-Just; committed suicide at Robespierre's downfall.
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| Louis Michel le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau |
Former noble; voted to execute Louis XVI; assassinated one day before the execution of Louis XVI.
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| Louis Legendre |
Deputy for the Seine, present at various events. Eventual President of the Convention, member of the Council of Ancients and Council of Five Hundred.
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| Jacques-Donatien Le Ray |
Promoted French support for the American Revolution.
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| Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet |
Committee of Public Safety member; opposed Girondist faction.
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| Toussaint L'Ouverture |
Commander of Haitian rebels fighting against French occupying forces; captured and imprisoned by Napoleon's government.
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| Louis XVI of France |
French king at outbreak of Revolution; deposed; guillotined.
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| Louis XVII of France |
The "Lost Dauphin"
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| Nicolas, Comte Luckner |
German-born Marshal of France; commanded troops for the First Republic; guillotined during the Reign of Terror.
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| Stanislas-Marie Maillard |
National Guardsman; the first revolutionary to enter the fortress in the Storming of the Bastille
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| Guillaume-Chrétien de Malesherbes |
Louis XVI's defense counsel at his trial, although not known as a royalist; guillotined.
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| Jean-Paul Marat |
Radical journalist; Montagnard; assassinated by Charlotte Corday.
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| François-Séverin Marceau |
Soldier who participated in the storming of the Bastille; later a general.
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| Marie Antoinette |
Queen consort of France; deposed, guillotined.
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| André Masséna |
General; victor at the Battle of Zürich. Became Marshal of the Empire in 1804.
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| Jean-Sifrein Maury |
French cardinal; Archbishop of Paris; royalist.
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| Théroigne de Méricourt |
Radical agitator, organizer.
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Philippe-Antoine Merlin
("Merlin de Douai") |
Director; later a Bonapartist.
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Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau
("Mirabeau") |
Represented the Third Estate in the Estates-General of 1789, despite being a noble; remained a major political figure throughout the rest of his life.
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| Antoine-François Momoro |
Printer, publisher, and section leader; Hébertist; originator of the phrase Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité; guillotined.
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Charles, baron de Montesquieu
("Montesquieu") |
Enlightenment political philosopher; influenced Revolutionary thinking
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| Jean Victor Marie Moreau |
General; victor at the Battle of Hohenlinden.
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| Gouverneur Morris |
American minister to France; witness and diarist of the early Revolution, 1792–94.
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| Jean-François-Auguste Moulin |
General; member of the Directory.
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| Jean Joseph Mounier |
Monarchist deputy; president of the National Constituent Assembly, 1789.
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| Joachim Murat |
Prominent cavalry general; became Napoleon's brother-in-law; later made King of Naples. Executed by firing squad in 1815.
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| Jacques Necker |
Liberal royalist; Director-General of Finance whose dismissal precipitated the storming of the Bastille.
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| Louis Philippe II, duc d'Orléans |
First Prince of the Blood; supported the Revolution, taking the name Philippe Egalité; voted to execute his cousin the King; later guillotined on suspicion of plotting to become King.
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| Louis Philippe d'Orléans
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Prince of the Blood; son of Louis Philippe II, duc d'Orléans; Jacobin; General; broke with the Republic in 1793; exiled from France the same year; later King of the French.
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| Thomas Paine |
American revolutionary writer; moved to France during French Revolution but subsequently fell out of favor; arrested, imprisoned and sentenced to death during Reign of Terror, but survived.
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| Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve |
Insurrectionary mayor of Paris; member of first Committee of Public Safety; associated with Girondists; committed suicide during Reign of Terror.
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| Pierre Philippeaux |
Montagnard; Danton associate; guillotined.
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| Philippe Egalité |
See Orléans, Louis Philippe II, duc d' above.
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| Charles Pichegru |
General; member of the Council of Five Hundred; conspirator in the Coup of 18 Fructidor.
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Claude Antoine, comte Prieur-Duvernois
("Prieur de la Côte-d'Or") |
Engineer; Committee of Public Safety member; Carnot associate; turned against Robespierre on 9 Thermidor; Council of Five Hundred member during Directory.
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Pierre Louis Prieur
("Crieur de la Marne") |
National Constituent Assembly secretary; Committee of Public Safety member; exiled following Bourbon Restoration.
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| Louis, comte de Provence |
Louis XVI's younger brother; emigrated 1791; declared himself Louis XVIII, King of France in 1795, but did not actually assume the throne until 1814.
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| Jean-François Rewbell |
Deputy; Feuillant; member of the Directory.
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| Maximilien Robespierre |
Montagnard; Committee of Public Safety member; prominent during Reign of Terror; guillotined after 9 Thermidor.
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| Comte de Rochambeau |
Senior general and former commander of French troops during the American Revolution, commander of the Armee du Nord for the Republic; imprisoned during the Reign of Terror but not executed.
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| Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière |
Girondist; interior minister in 1792; committed suicide in 1793 following his wife's condemnation.
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Madame Roland
(Manon-Jeanne Roland, née Philpon) |
Jean-Marie Roland's wife; author of influential Revolutionary writings under Roland's name; salonière; guillotined.
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| Gilbert Romme |
Initially a Girondist politician, then Montagnard; designed French Republican Calendar; condemned after Girondists' return to power; committed suicide before execution.
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| Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
Enlightenment political philosopher; influenced Revolutionary thinking.
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| Jacques Roux |
Hébertist leader of the Enragés faction; member of Paris Commune; arrested during Reign of Terror; committed suicide before trial.
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| Marquis de Sade |
Author of erotica and philosophy; imprisoned on charges of sodomy and poisoning at the outbreak of the Revolution; released 1790; elected to the National Convention; escaped execution during the Reign of Terror.
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| Jean Bon Saint-André |
Montagnard; Committee of Public Safety member; later became a naval officer and administrator.
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| Louis Antoine de Saint-Just |
Committee of Public Safety member; Montagnard; close associate of Robespierre; prominent in Reign of Terror; guillotined after 9 Thermidor.
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| Joseph Servan |
General; Minister of War.
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| Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès |
Although a cleric, entered the Estates-General of 1789 as a representative of the Third Estate; author of pamphlet What is the Third Estate?; instigated the 18 Brumaire coup, but outflanked by Bonaparte.
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| Madame de Staël |
Daughter of Jacques Necker; salonière and writer; adopted moderate Revolutionary position; opposed Napoleon.
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| Jean Lambert Tallien |
Montagnard; later a leading Thermidorian.
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Madame Tallien
(Thérésa Tallien, née Teresa Cabarrús) |
Her moderating influence on her husband Jean Lambert Tallien saved lives in the wake of 9 Thermidor, earning her the moniker Notre-Dame de Thermidor ("Our Lady of Thermidor").
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Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
("Talleyrand") |
Clergyman and diplomat; initially a royalist, then revolutionary; co-wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy; survived 9 Thermidor to become Foreign Minister under Directory, Bonaparte and the Bourbon Restoration.
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| Gui-Jean-Baptiste Target |
Lawyer and politician; deputy of the Third Estate in the Estates-General of 1789; survived Reign of Terror to become Directory politician.
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| Jean Baptiste Treilhard |
Deputy from Paris; held multiple high-ranking offices including Director.
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| Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud |
Girondist leader; guillotined.
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| Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac |
Girondist, then Montagnard; Committee of Public Safety member; drew up 9 Thermidor report outlawing Robespierre; later a Bonapartist.
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Voltaire
(François-Marie Arouet) |
Enlightenment author and philosopher whose writings influenced Revolutionary thinking.
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