Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois

Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois was born in 1749 in Paris to an artisan jewellery family.  His pre Revolutionary life saw him join a travelling theatre at the age of seventeen and tour all over France writing and acting.

With the outbreak of the revolution in 1789 Collot sensed change was afoot and returned to Paris.  In 1791 he published L'Almanach du Père Gérard a book which won a prize created by the Jacobins to popularise the new constitution.  He was also famed for campaigning to have a regiment removed from the galleys as a punishment for a mutiny.  He then put on a celebratory feast for them when they returned to Paris.

Collot was a member of the Paris Commune during the attack on Tuileries Palace in Paris.  He was the first member of the Convention to call for the end of the monarchy he also demanded the death of Louis.  He became more and more radical as time progressed as he condemned the Girondins and demanded more and more economic equality.  He then went on to join the Committee of Public Safety.

The Convention sent him to Lyon to deal with a federalist revolt in Lyon.  Here alongside Joseph Fouché he instituted a series of terrifying punishments.  Hundreds of priests and nuns were executed.  He published a work called Instruction where he called for the launch of total revolution and that if equality could not be created through peaceful means then force would be necessary.  He was brought back to Paris as tales surfaced of excessive cruelty reached the Committee of Public Safety.  He survived an assassination attempt and managed to survive the Thermidorian Reaction by opposing Robespierre drowning out Robespierre’s attempts to speak out in defence in the Convention by repeatedly ringing a bell.  However he was permanently associated with Robespierre and the excesses of terror and was indicted to stand trial because of his actions in Lyon.  He managed to survive one trial but at a second trial he was sentenced to transportation to Guiana where he died of yellow fever in 1796.