Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois

Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois

Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois (* around 1750 in Paris , † January 8, 1796 in Guiana ), French revolutionary, actor, member of the National Convention and Welfare Committee , organized mass executions in Lyon, helped to overthrow Robespierre , and in 1795 to deport him to Guiana condemned, died there.

Life

The mass executions in Lyon in December 1793 on the orders of Collot d'Herbois: an engraving by Choffard after Duplessis-Bertaux

Born the son of a goldsmith, Collot felt called to be an actor. He went to the theater and traveled through France , Holland and Belgium as an actor before coming to Geneva and taking over the theater management. Since 1787 he called himself Collot d'Herbois.

When the French Revolution broke out, he hurried back to Paris and was a passionate street speaker. His brochure Almanac du Père Gérard (1792) earned him a prize from the Jacobin Club . During the events of August 10, 1792, he forced his way into the Paris municipal council, helped prepare the September murders and was then elected to the national convention.

When the convention met, he first advocated the establishment of the republic and, a month later, demanded the death penalty for emigrants. He had also applied for the trial of the king and also demanded the death penalty without delay. On June 13, 1793, Collot d'Herbois became president of the convent and joined the welfare committee in September of the same year .

After the capture of Lyons , Robespierre and Fouché sent him to this city in November as Representative en mission . After being booed here as an actor years ago, he now found the opportunity to retaliate through the mass executions that earned him the nickname "Mitrailleur" ( grape-shooter ) and even a charge by the city at the convention. But he kept himself upright by doubling the terrorism he also turned against the Dantonists .

His reputation rose even more when an assassination attempt on Collot d'Herbois on May 23, 1794 . Robespierre, whose envy was aroused, now tried to overthrow him, thus urging Collot d'Herbois to commit the conspiracy which, on Thermidor (July 27), became perishable for Robespierre himself. But with the reaction that followed, Collot d'Herbois did not escape punishment either. First excluded from the convent, after the riot of April 12th (April 1st), Collot was sentenced to deportation to the penal camp in French Guiana , where he died on January 8th, 1796.

Works

• L'Almanach du Père Gérard. Paris, 1791 (Reprint as Etrennes aux amis de la Constitution française, ou entretiens du Père Gerard avec ses concitoyens . Paris, 1792)

literature

• Michel Biard: Collot d'Herbois: Legends noires et Révolution. Presses Universitaires de Lyon, Lyon 1995, ISBN 2-7297-0512-0 .

predecessor	Office	successor
François-René-Auguste Mallarmé Jean-Antoine Louis	President of the French National Convention June 13, 1793–27. June 1793 July 19, 1794–3. August 1794	Jacques-Alexis Thuriot de Larosière Philippe-Antoine Merlin