Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne

Portrait of Billaud-Varennes by Jean-Baptiste Greuze , around 1790

Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne , also Jean Nicolas , (born April 23, 1756 in La Rochelle , † June 3, 1819 in Port-au-Prince ) was a French revolutionary . He was the main author of the September murders in 1792, brought Queen Marie Antoinette to the Revolutionary Tribunal as President of the Convention and was deported to Guiana in 1795 , from where he fled in 1816.

Life

The son of a lawyer entered the order of the Oratorians after his youth , became prefect of studies at Juilly, showed humility and piety for a while, but had to leave the institution again in 1783.

In 1785 he became a lawyer in Paris, married the illegitimate daughter of the general leaseholder of Verdun and thus gained some fortune and reputation. He joined the revolution with great zeal and worked for it by writing provocative pamphlets. In 1791 he was appointed Judge of the 4th Arrondissement of Paris and he allied with Georges Danton , Jean-Paul Marat and Maximilien de Robespierre . He headed the Jacobin Club and was one of the initiators of the Tuileries Tower . Together with Danton he was one of the authors of the September murders. In the convent he demanded the king's execution within 24 hours, helped overthrow the Girondins and charged de Custine , Houchard and many other generals and most of the officials with whom he had come into contact on inspection trips.

During the Reign of Terror , Billaud-Varenne was President of the Convention and a member of the Welfare Committee ; At his request, the Duke of Orléans , the Queen and a host of other victims were brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal , which he always admonished not to spare the heads. Although Robespierre was only a creature for a long time, he participated in his fall from the 9th Thermidor .

After the reign of terror came to an end on April 1, 1795, he was sentenced to deportation to Cayenne . He did not accept the amnesty granted to him in 1799 and stayed in Sinnamary . In 1816 he came to New York, but saw himself rejected everywhere with contempt and therefore fled to Santo Domingo, where he received a small pension from President Pétion . He died on June 3, 1819 in Port au Prince. The memoirs published under his name in 1821 are spurious.

Works

• Despotisme des ministres de France, combattu par les droits de la Nation, par les loix fondamentales, par les ordonnances… . Paris 1789 document électronique
• Mémoires écrits au Port-au-Prince en 1818, contenant la relation de ses voyages et aventures dans le Mexique, depuis 1815 jusqu'en 1817 . Paris 1821 [fake]
• Alfred Begis (ed.): Billaud Varenne membre du comité de salut public: Mémoires inédits et Correspondance. Accompagnés de notices biographiques sur Billaud Varenne et Collot d'Herbois . Librairie de la Nouvelle Revue, Paris 1893.

literature

• Auguste Kuscinski: Dictionnaire des conventionnels . Société de l'Histoire de la Révolution française, Rieder, Paris 1916. New edition: Editions du Vexin français, Brueil-en-Vexin 1973.
• Robert R. Palmer: Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution . Princeton University Press, Princeton 1941. New edition: Princeton Classic Editions 2005, ISBN 0691121877 .
• Jacques Guilaine: Billaud-Varenne: l'ascète de la Révolution (1756-1819) . Fayard, Paris 1969.
• Arthur Conte: Billaud Varenne: Géant de la Révolution . Orban, Paris 1989.
• Tom Malone: ​​"Billaud-Varenne - Lawyer of Terror". BOD, Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-7347-3899-9 .

Web links

Commons : Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

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