François Hanriot

François Hanriot was born in 1761 into a poor family in the western suburbs of Paris. Hanriot held various different positions including doing secretarial work he tended to lose these positions reasonably quickly.  When the Revolution broke out he was working as a tax clerk he lost his position when he joined the riot and helped burn down the offices he had been working in a short time previously.

He became increasingly well known for his anti-aristocratic outlook.  He was involved in the attack on the Tuileries Palace on August 10th 1792 he was then elected commander of his section’s National Guard Battalion on the first day of the September Massacres. He was promoted to command the Paris National Guard in May 1793.  On the 2nd of June 1793 he took 80,000 men and 160 cannon and surrounded the National Convention to demand the expulsion of the Girondins.  The Girondins were removed and subsequently many were executed.

He offered his resignation after these events but was turned down and promptly re-elected.  He quickly rose to the position of Brigadier then finally General on the 19th September 1793.  Despite controlling Paris with his National Guard and loyal san culottes events turned against him.  When Robespierre accused unnamed members of the Convention of being counter revolutionaries he was shouted down and then ordered to be arrested.  Hanriot came to his rescue with sans culottes and National Guardsmen.  Robespierre, Couthon, Saint Just and other loyal Robespierre were to march on the Convention only for more troops to be called out against them.  They retreated to the Hotel De Ville and were surrounded.  It would appear Hanriot fell out of a side window where he found lying in a large pile of manure.  He was executed alongside Robespierre on 28th July in 1794.