Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville
2008-05-14 18:16:23 by Thomas JeffersonDa Wikipedia.
...His activity during this time earned him the reputation of one of the most sinister figures of the Revolution. His office as public prosecutor arguably reflected a need to display the appearance of legality during what was esentilly political command, more than a need to establish actual guilt. Fouquier de Tinville, like Maximilien Robespierre, was known for his ruthless radicalism, and he seldom failed to secure a conviction....
His career ended with the fall of Robespierre at the start of the Thermidorian Reaction. Although he was briefly kept as the new government's prosecutor, even helping in the arrest of Robespierre, Louis de Saint-Just, and Georges Couthon, and being confirmed by Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac and the Convention on July 28, he was arrested after being denounced by Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron.
Imprisoned on August 1, he was brought to trial in front of the Convention. His defense was that he had only obeyed the orders of the Committee of Public Safety:
"It is not I who ought to be facing the tribunal, but the chiefs whose orders I have executed. I had only acted in the spirit of the laws passed by a Convention invested with all powers. Through the absence of its members [on trial], I find myself the head of a conspiracy I have never been aware of. Here I am facing slander, [facing] a people always eager to find others responsible."
After a trial lasting forty-one days, he was sentenced to death and guillotined on 7 May 1795, together with 15 of his accomplices.
...His activity during this time earned him the reputation of one of the most sinister figures of the Revolution. His office as public prosecutor arguably reflected a need to display the appearance of legality during what was esentilly political command, more than a need to establish actual guilt. Fouquier de Tinville, like Maximilien Robespierre, was known for his ruthless radicalism, and he seldom failed to secure a conviction....
His career ended with the fall of Robespierre at the start of the Thermidorian Reaction. Although he was briefly kept as the new government's prosecutor, even helping in the arrest of Robespierre, Louis de Saint-Just, and Georges Couthon, and being confirmed by Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac and the Convention on July 28, he was arrested after being denounced by Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron.
Imprisoned on August 1, he was brought to trial in front of the Convention. His defense was that he had only obeyed the orders of the Committee of Public Safety:
"It is not I who ought to be facing the tribunal, but the chiefs whose orders I have executed. I had only acted in the spirit of the laws passed by a Convention invested with all powers. Through the absence of its members [on trial], I find myself the head of a conspiracy I have never been aware of. Here I am facing slander, [facing] a people always eager to find others responsible."
After a trial lasting forty-one days, he was sentenced to death and guillotined on 7 May 1795, together with 15 of his accomplices.
