Louis Antoine de Saint-Just
Louis-Antoine-Léon de Saint-Just de Richebourg (born August 25, 1767 in Decize near Nevers , † July 28, 1794 in Paris ) was a French politician at the time of the French Revolution .
After he was elected to the National Convention in 1792 , he gained influence on French politics as a close friend and colleague of Robespierre, especially during the time of the Great Terror . He helped to stabilize the front in the war against Prussia and Austria and played a decisive role in the overthrow of the Girondins and the execution of Georges Dantons . On 9th Thermidor (July 27, 1794) he was overthrown along with Robespierre and his supporters and guillotined the next day .
Life
In the province
The ancestors of Louis Antoine de Saint-Just were farmers on his father's side in Picardy , a fertile area in northern France. His father, Louis Jean de Saint-Just de Richebourg, who died in 1777, was a cavalry captain for the soldiers of the Duke of Berry. His mother, Marie Anne, née Robinot, came from the Nivernais , a wooded area in eastern France. Louis Antoine spent his youth in Verneuil , Decize and Blérancourt (in what would later become the Aisne department ). From 1777 to 1785 he attended the Saint-Nicolas school of the Oratorians in Soissons . To qualify for law school, he was second assistant to the public prosecutor in Soissons in 1786. In October 1787 he started at the University in Reims to study and graduated in April 1788 the university level for the Jurisprudence from.
Like every educated person in France at the time, Saint-Just read the Greek and Roman poets and thinkers. In addition to Plato's state , some biographies, such as that of the Spartan legislature Lycurgus , in Plutarch's (45–125) descriptions of his life , will have given him the first impulses for his own republican thinking. (Plutarch's biographies were read all over Europe at the time, but thanks to a unique translation by Jacques Amyot (1513–1593) from 1559 they had spread the most in France.) He found other ideas and thoughts from French thinkers such as Montesquieu (1689–1755) or Rousseau (1712–1778), who viewed the state of society and the state from different levels.
In May 1789, Saint-Just published his first literary attempt: The Organt , a narrative poem in twenty songs, about which most scholars have judged disparagingly, but which does not quite do it justice. It is the work of a very young person who is still struggling with form and substance, and the few slippery passages in the poem that are held up to him with preference were common at that time, even in more mature works. A second literary attempt is only available in fragments: Arlequin Diogène , a one-act play, a shepherd's play, the only remarkable thing about which is that it is probably Saint-Just's own attitude towards love - “Love is nothing but a vain wish; it means nothing to a big heart. ”- reproduces.
On July 14th, 1789, Saint-Just witnessed the storming of the Bastille in Paris . The organizer had already been banned in June because of lese majesty, and so the young author went into hiding with friends in Paris in order to avoid police pursuits. At the end of July he ventured back to Blérancourt, where he began to be politically active. Despite his youth, he was respected here and soon received honorable recognition. So in June 1790 he was appointed lieutenant colonel of the National Guard in Blérancourt by the municipality (commune) and in July he was appointed Honorary Commander of the National Guard in the entire canton . On August 10, 1790, he wrote his first letter to Robespierre, which was later found under his posthumous papers: “You who maintain the wavering fatherland against the onslaught of tyranny and treacherous activities; She, whom I only know like God, namely from miracles; I turn to you, sir, please help me save my deplorable homeland. "
In the elections to the National Legislative Assembly in 1791, he was elected as a member of his community, but an opponent, the notary Gellé, challenged this election through the legal process because Saint-Just was too young and therefore could not become a member. This was granted and the election resolution of the municipality was revoked by the district. - A year later, however, he was legitimately elected to the National Convention as a member of the Aisne department , and on September 18, 1792, the young member of Parliament, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, arrived in Paris.
Previously, on June 20, 1791, in Paris, he had published L'Esprit de la revolution et de la constitution de France (The Spirit of the Revolution and the Constitution in France). In this work, which consisted of five sections, he thought about the past, present and future of France and was far from as radical as later. For example, he can still imagine kingship as a possible form of government. In fact, the book was a success; the first edition was sold out quickly, and as the revolutionary and politician Bertrand Barère (1755–1841) wrote in his memoirs, it was highly valued by clairvoyant politicians in the constituent assembly. The book ended with the words: When all people are free, all are equal; if they are equal they are righteous.
In Paris
“Europe should learn that you no longer want to see an unfortunate or an oppressor on French territory, that this example on earth is bearing fruit and spreading the love of virtue and happiness! Happiness is a new thought in Europe! "
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Saint-Just was first noticed in Paris when he spoke at the Jacobin Club on October 22, 1792 . The speech received a lot of attention and, under the chairmanship of Danton, the Jacobins decided to have the text printed and forwarded to the individual associations. In the wake of a second speech he gave on November 13 in the Convention in the debate on whether Louis XVI. whether or not to be charged, he was elected to the committee in the Jacobin Club to prepare the new constitution for France. In the great vote on January 15, 1793 in the convent on the fate of the king, he voted for death without delay or appeal. He drew the reasons from Rousseau's Contrat social , a work on the legitimacy of power. (The philosopher Albert Camus commented: "Saint-Just introduced the ideas of Rousseau into history.") The essence of his argument from this was that the king must be caught not by the judgment of a court but by the judgment of the legislative assembly, since the king stands outside the contrat social .
His passionate thinking, with which he wanted to achieve all that he believed to be human happiness, was reflected in all of his public speeches, but most comprehensively in the institutions he began to work on at some point during this time. Wherever, whether in the convent, while traveling, in the army, everywhere he wrote down thoughts he had about a future state, ideas about how they came to him. He wanted to regulate everything in this new France, even childhood and old age; Wedding and funeral. The institutions are full of contradictions: clear thinking contrasts with naive dreams. Saint-Just also thinks about friendship and writes: “Every man at the age of twenty-one is required to explain in the temple who his friends are. When a man gives up a friend, he is required to explain the reasons for it to the people in the temple. "
After Saint-Just had spoken several times in the Convention in April 1793 about a new constitution, he was assigned to the Welfare Committee in May together with Hérault de Séchelles (1759-1794) and Georges Couthon (1755-1794) in order to draft the new constitution became necessary after the abolition of kingship. As early as June, the new legislation, which came mainly from Saint-Just, was ready and approved by the Convention and approved by a large majority in a referendum in July. Because of the ecclesiastical usage in the text, this new constitution was jokingly called L'évangile selon Saint-Just , the Gospel after Saint-Just, in the first year of the Republic . The German writer Hans Peter Richter ruled that no constitution in the world came even remotely intellectually close to Saint-Just's constitution, and therefore demanded “to see its much maligned authors with different eyes.” The new constitution was preceded by a human rights plaque , according to the judges "Expressed a spirit that had not been known until then, and which later compilations of human rights downright denied."
The Constitution of year I was not put into force by the Convention because it was believed that it did not reflect the current situation in France. Because of the prevailing war the abuse of the constitutionally granted freedom was feared. After the war was over, the constitution was supposed to be legally valid, but it never came. Only the oversized human rights plaques were placed everywhere in the public buildings and it is said that Saint-Just pointed to such a plaque during his arrest and said that it was his work after all: “C'est pourtant moi qui fait cela . "
In the autumn of 1793, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just was sent together with Philippe-François-Joseph Le Bas (1764–1794) as Representative en mission in Alsace to monitor the troops. On the 1st Brumaire of the year II of the one and indivisible republic (October 22, 1793), the two “representatives of the people with extraordinary power to the Rhine Army” met in Saverne (Zabern), Bas-Rhin department , one or two days later they were in Strasbourg . They began their work immediately, issuing innumerable edicts and orders, the plain language of which announced that it was now others and not the usual members of the Convention who had come. Their mission actually only required that they observe the events in the Wissembourg (Weißenburg) and Lauterbourg (Lauterburg) area and take whatever measures they considered necessary for the public good, but they took care of everything everywhere. With unequivocal orders and appeals, they reorganized the army, addressed the civil administrations and also directly to the citizens. For example, an order to the Commander-in-Chief of the Rhine Army said: "General, you order all officers of the general rank at the head of your divisions and brigades to sleep and eat in their tents." On October 31, they decreed that the The wealthy Strasbourg had to pay 9 million, of which 2 million would be used to support needy patriots. And in an appeal, the Strasbourg women were asked to give up wearing the German costume because they were French in their hearts. On December 3, 1793, the two representatives returned briefly to Paris. (In between, the Girondins, whose overthrow he helped to bring about, had been executed on October 31st.) On December 9th they were back in Alsace, where they worked on various parts of the Eastern Front. After the French troops entered Landau victoriously on December 28, 1793 , the two representatives of the people had completed their task and returned to Paris.
On 7th Pluviôse (January 26, 1794), Saint-Just and Le Bas left Paris again to join the Northern Army. There they encountered conditions similar to those they had already encountered in Alsace with the Rhine Army and proceeded against it in a tried and tested manner. With their measures, they contributed not insignificantly to the success of the coming campaign. But this time Saint-Just did not wait for the most important processes to be completed and on 24th Pluviôse (February 12th 1794) returned to Paris, where he was elected chairman by the convention on February 19th. - On 8 Ventôse (February 26, 1794) he gave a speech about the suspects in custody, which is considered to be one of his best speeches. In this and another speech on the 13th Ventôse (March 3, 1794) he then presented the so-called " Ventôse Laws " to the convention , which provided that all guilty parties were expropriated and their property fell to the poor and deserving citizens. A few days later, Saint-Just spoke about subversive efforts abroad and corresponding plans in France, with which he was preparing an attack against Hébert . He then finally demanded a decree from the convention that made it possible to arrest the conspirators in the ranks of the revolutionaries. The convention agreed and Hébert and his followers were arrested the following night and sentenced and executed on the 4th Germinal (March 24, 1794).
Another speech followed on Ventôse 27 (March 17, 1794), this time against Hérault de Séchelles, who is said to have delivered secret documents to the enemy. (He was later convicted and executed along with Danton and others.) - On Germinal 11 (March 31, 1794), Saint-Just gave a speech against Danton and Desmoulins . (Robespierre is said to have written the core of this speech.) It was not difficult to find charges against these two outstanding figures of the revolution. Especially Danton, with his frequent changing sides and his corruptibility, was vulnerable to attack. Saint-Just demanded that the defendants be brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal because they wanted to reinstate kingship. This was granted and on April 16, 1794, Danton and Desmoulins were sentenced and executed. - Louis Antoine de Saint-Just gave his last major speech before the Convention, probably drafted by him together with the committee, on the 26th of Germinal (April 15, 1794), on law and order. On one of the most important points he applied for the general police to be reorganized. From now on she should see her real task in monitoring the officials. After a long debate, the proposal was accepted and from then on the general police were represented on the welfare committee. (According to Richter, this change, which now also threatened members of the convention, contributed significantly to his overthrow.)
On the 10th Floréal (April 29, 1794) Saint-Just left Paris and went to the Northern Army, where he continued the preparations for an attack that had begun at the beginning of the year. He also made strategic considerations, which he discussed and enforced with the Commander-in-Chief , Jean-Baptiste Jourdan (1762-1833). He then took part in various battles. So on the eastern flank of the front of Fleurus, where the crossing over the Sambre only succeeded in the seventh attempt and then Charleroi , the largest fortress that had blocked progress at this point, could finally be locked in and seven days later in the morning of the 7th Messidor (June 25, 1794). Saint-Just took delivery of the Charleroi itself. His behavior was described in a report by a high French officer. When an Austrian officer brought a letter, Saint-Just did not open it and said that he was expecting not a sheet of paper but that of the city. The parliamentarian said that his troops would be dishonored if they surrendered unconditionally. To which Saint-Just replied verbatim: “We can neither honor nor dishonor you, any more than you can honor or dishonor the French nation. There is nothing in common between you and us. ”Then he curtly demanded that the fortress be surrendered unconditionally, which the Austrian commander followed soon after. Also in the actual battle of Fleurus the next day, he took an active part and "led the columns incessantly to attack" and thus to victory, through which the English had to go back to Holland and the Austrians to the Rhine and a lasting one Success of the revolutionary army was assured. It has often been suggested, and certainly not exaggerated, that the victory of Fleurus was the victory of Louis Antoine de Saint-Just. Even Saint-Just's opponents, such as the French writer and politician Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869), spoke of him with great appreciation in this context.
During this time in Paris Robespierre took a decisive step towards the overthrow of the regime when he pushed through the adoption of the Prairial Laws (June 10, 1794) in the Convention, by which the MPs felt threatened with death. They now enjoyed no protection and could be summoned to the tribunal at any time. These laws "so monstrously contradicted the ideals of their proponents that several Saint-Justs biographers felt obliged to absolve him." In fact, on the day it was voted on in the National Assembly, he was in the army in the north. Pierre Jean Louis Victor Thuillier (1765–1794), one of his friends, reported that Saint-Just read the law of the 22nd Prairial with displeasure in the garden of the headquarters in Marchienne-au-Pont in front of Charleroi and commented: “You can't do something hard and propose wholesome law, of which intrigue, crime and frenzy do not seize upon whim and passion in order to make an instrument of death out of it. "
On the 12th Messidor (June 30, 1794), Saint-Just returned to Paris, which he never left. He refused to announce the victory of Fleurus before the convention: “I think very highly of proclaiming victories, but I don't want them to be used as a pretext for vanity. The day of Fleurus has been announced, and others who have said nothing about it have been there; There was talk of sieges and others who said nothing about them were in the trenches. ”In his place, Barère then took on this task and received the storms of enthusiasm from the MPs. But otherwise there was no such unanimity in political life. The situation was muddled and groups and individuals in the Convention and in the committees were irreconcilable. There have been countless arrests and executions since the Prairial Laws came into effect. Robespierre, now more hated and feared than ever, no longer appeared in public. He did not attend any committee or Convention meetings for over a month. It was not until the 8th Thermidor (July 26, 1794) that he appeared again at the convent and gave a two-hour speech in which he accused and suspected, but did not mention any names when asked, which meant that every member of parliament felt threatened and many a conspiracy made ready. That evening Robespierre spoke for the last time in the Jacobin Club. At the same time, Saint-Just was working in the Welfare Committee's office on a speech that he intended to give to the Convention the next day in order to resolve the precarious situation.
The session of the Convention on Thermidor 9 (July 27, 1794) opened at 11 a.m. and at 12 p.m. Saint-Just spoke. He presented himself as a neutral who did not want to prefer any particular direction: “I do not belong to any of the rival parties; I'll fight them all However, they will only disappear completely through constitutions that guarantee man his rights, set limits to rule and bend human pride under the yoke of public freedom without the possibility of repentance. ”Then he was elected by the MPs determined to overthrow Robespierre prevented from continuing to speak. There was great commotion and eventually Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon and others were arrested and taken away. They were liberated by the Paris Commune, but did not use their freedom for the violent crackdown on the Convention that many expected. As if paralyzed, "they waited for the coup de grace instead of rushing down to the Place de Grève and leading the rebel fighters." At 2 a.m., the National Guard under MP Barras took the town hall with a surprise attack.
On the evening of the 10th Thermidor (July 28, 1794) were Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon and 19 of their followers in the Plaza of the Revolution under the guillotine executed. Charles Henri Sanson (1739–1806), executioner of Paris, described the last moments in Saint-Just's life as follows: “When it was Saint-Just's turn to climb up, he embraced Couthon, and at Robespierre temporarily he only said: "Farewell." His voice showed no excitement. "
reception
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just worked directly in the French Revolution for just 22 months. Along with Robespierre, Saint-Just was the most exposed representative of those radical revolutionary MPs who wanted to defend the republic through a reign of terror under the slogan "virtue and terror" in a phase of internal and external threats. In this respect, Saint-Just was on a par with the “incorruptible”, and in some opinion even superior. The French historian Jules Michelet (1798–1874), an avid supporter of the revolution, is of the opinion that Saint-Just, to whom he attributes a splendid spirit and a real statesmanship, would have become a dangerous competitor for Robespierre without Thermidor. The French doctor and politician René Levasseur (1747–1834) is of a similar opinion: "I, who have observed the events of that time very closely, I almost want to assure you that Saint-Just was more involved than Robespierre himself." And Lazare Carnot says that "Saint-Just was far superior to his friend", but that "his conceit went beyond measure."
The French philosopher and writer Albert Camus (1913-1960) dealt almost exclusively with the thoughts and actions of Saint-Just in his book The Man in the Revolte ( L'Homme révolté ) in the essays about the phenomena in the French Revolution ; Robespierre, Danton, and others appear only marginally. Camus is undoubtedly impressed by Saint-Just, whatever the imbalance and confusion he claims to have found in the “decadent young man”. For example, in the essay Der Terror , Camus wrote , after commenting on the primitive style in the appeals for mass murder by Jean Paul Marat (1743–1793), almost apologetically, if ultimately critically: “We don't want the great one for a second either Merge the figure of a Saint-Just with the sad Marat, Rousseau's ape, as Michelet rightly says. However, Saint-Just's tragedy is to have sometimes joined in Marat's calls for higher reasons and demands. ”At another point it says somewhat more harshly:“ Such a persistently serious, diligently cold, logical, unshakable figure leaves all imbalance and confusion suspect. Saint-Just invented the seriousness that made the story of the last two centuries into such a boring, dark novel. "Anyone who jokes at the head of government," he says, "strives for tyranny." An amazing word, especially when you think of what the mere charge of tyranny was paid for back then, and which in any case prepares the age of the pedantic Caesars. ”And a few sentences further:“ Saint-Just proclaims ... the great principle of Tyrannies of the 20th century: "He who supports the republic as a whole is a patriot, and whoever fights it in detail is a traitor."
The French historian and philosopher Hippolyte Taine (1828–1893), a critic of the radical phase of the revolution, expressed himself very polemically in his book Les origines de la France contemporaine (The emergence of modern France) about Saint-Just: “In his Speeches make the lies palpable in glaring lights and with screaming shamelessness. He doesn't even bother to put on them the thinnest cloak of probability. For the gallows of the Girondists, Dantons, Fabre d'Églantines and his other opponents, the first rope he found is sufficient; All Saint-Just needs for his accusation speeches is club gossip and an inquisition catechism, and they're done. His brain can't get beyond this. He is an extravagant Phrasendrescher, an artificial glow spirit whose whole talent can be attributed to the rare lighting up a dark imagination. "Something mellow is the verdict of the French author Dénise Béatrix Centore-Bineau Saint-Just's book L'Esprit de la revolution et de la constitution de France :
“This is Saint-Just's first political work. He wrote it when he was twenty-two or twenty-three years old, and his thoughts were already reaching beyond the revolution, France and his time. He outlined a lesson by uniting the scattered fragments of the revolutionary mess and brightening the future. If Thermidor's ax had not broken the ascending line of his talent, Saint-Just would have left a complete social and political foundation for his country and humanity. Michelet put it when he wrote of Saint-Just: 'France will never take comfort in the loss of such hope'. "
Saint-Just is the main character in the story Der Kommissar am Rhein by the German writer Willi Bredel and in the drama named after him by the Danish writer Karl Gjellerup . The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche described the revolutionary as the “devilish Saint-Just” in a poem from his youth in 1862. The book Saint-Just et la force des choses (Saint-Just and the power of things) by the French historian Albert Ollivier was made into a film in 1975 under the direction of Pierre Cardinal.
The British historian Norman Hampson (1922–2011) saw Saint-Just as the prototype of the revolutionary fanatic who, because of his conviction in the "good cause", pushed ahead ever more radical measures of repression and thus anticipated the totalitarian forms of rule of the 20th century:
“He had ascended into a fantasy world of false absolute values in which the virtue of government contrasted with the depravity of those whose enthusiasm for government policy left much to be desired. He took not only the integrity of the government, but also that of its innumerable representatives for granted [...] The ideal state might be based on consensus, but he was the man who would make the rules that others had to obey. He would see that the people would become worthy of the society he had developed for their good. If Lucifer's sin was spiritual arrogance, which almost casually led him to use evil as a necessary means to a lofty end, then Saint-Just was Lucifer. "
Works
French editions
- Esprit de la revolution et de la constitution de France , Beuvin Verlag, Paris 1791
- Fragmens sur les institutions republicaines , Techener Verlag, Paris 1831
- Œuvres completes , Gallimard Publishing House, Paris 2004
German editions
- Past writings and speeches , Verlag Balde, Kassel 1852
- Speeches by Saint-Just: Series Redner der Revolution , Neuer Deutscher Verlag, Berlin 1925
literature
Older biographies
- Édouard Fleury: Etudes révolutionnaires: Saint-Just et la terreur. 2 volumes, Paris 1852.
- Ernest Hamel: Histoire de Saint-Just, député à la Convention Nationale. Paris 1859.
Recent work
- D. Contore-Bineau: Saint-Just: 1767–1794 , Payot, Paris 1936
- Ralph Korngold: Saint-Just , B. Grasset, Paris 1937
- Hans von Hentig: Terror. On the psychology of the seizure of power. Robespierre, Saint-Just, Fouché . Vienna 1970
- Albert Ollivier: Saint-Just et la force des choses , Gallimard, Paris 1966
- Albert Soboul: Saint-Just , Éditions Messidor, Paris 1988
- Friedrich Sieburg : Robespierre , German Book Association, Berlin / Darmstadt / Vienna 1960
- Norman Hampson: Saint-Just. Archangel of Death . Steidl, Göttingen 1992, ISBN 3-88243-232-2 .
- Jörg Monar: Saint-Just: son, thinker and protagonist of the revolution. Bouvier, Bonn 1993, ISBN 3-416-02466-4 ( digitized version ).
- Bernard Vinot: Saint-Just . Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-608-93106-6 .
- Jean-Pierre Gross: Saint-Just. Sa politique et ses missions. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris 1976, ISBN 2-7177-1278-X .
Web links
- Bavarian State Library Esprit de la révolution et de la constitution de France , French first edition from 1791
- Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Report fait an nom du comité de salut public , a report by Saint-Just, published in May 1794
- Internet Archive Œuvres completes ( complete works of Saint-Just), French first edition from 1908
- Literature by and about Louis Antoine de Saint-Just in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans Peter Richter : Saint-Just and the French Revolution. Engelbert, Balve / Sauerland 1975, p. 56
- ↑ Speech of November 13, 1792 against Louis XVI. in a German translation
- ↑ Albert Camus: Man in the Revolte (1977), p. 96
- ^ Friedrich Sieburg: Robespierre (1960), p. 171
- ^ Hans Peter Richter: Saint-Just and the French Revolution. Engelbert, Balve / Sauerland 1975, p. 80.
- ^ Hans Peter Richter: Saint-Just and the French Revolution. Engelbert, Balve / Sauerland 1975, p. 98.
- ↑ Albert Soubol: The Great French Revolution (1979), p 309
- ↑ Speech of March 31, 1794 against Danton and others in a German translation
- ^ Speech of April 15, 1794 on law and order in a German translation
- ^ Hans Peter Richter: Saint-Just and the French Revolution. Engelbert, Balve / Sauerland 1975, p. 113.
- ↑ Albert Soboul: The Great French Revolution. An outline of their history (1789–1799) . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1979, p. 370.
- ^ Hans Peter Richter: Saint-Just and the French Revolution. Engelbert, Balve / Sauerland 1975, p. 115.
- ^ "La loi de prairial apparaît si monstrueusement contradictoire avec les idéaux affirmés par ses promoteurs que plusieurs biographes se sont efforcés d'en disculper Saint-Just." Bernard Vinot : Saint-Just . Fayard, Paris 1985. ISBN 978-2-213-01386-2
- ^ Hans Peter Richter: Saint-Just and the French Revolution. Engelbert, Balve / Sauerland 1975, p. 119.
- ↑ Albert Soboul : The Great French Revolution. An outline of their history (1789–1799) . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1979, p. 370.
- ↑ Max Gallo: Robespierre: The story of a great loneliness (1970), p. 287
- ↑ Albert Soboul: The Great French Revolution. An outline of their history (1789–1799) . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1979, p. 377.
- ^ Jules Michelet: History of the French Revolution II (2009), p. 57; P. 778.
- ^ Hans Peter Richter: Saint-Just and the French Revolution. Engelbert, Balve / Sauerland 1975, p. 52.
- ↑ Albert Camus: Man in the Revolte (1977), p. 104.
- ^ Albert Camus: Man in the Revolte (1977), p. 103.
- ^ Hans Peter Richter: Saint-Just and the French Revolution. Engelbert, Balve / Sauerland 1975, p. 33.
- ^ Hans Peter Richter: Saint-Just and the French Revolution. Engelbert, Balve / Sauerland 1975, pp. 60 and 12.
- ^ Friedrich Nietzsche: Saint-Just
- ^ Norman Hampson: Saint-Just. Archangel of Death . Steidl, Göttingen 1992, ISBN 3-88243-232-2 pp. 202 and 251
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Joseph-Nicolas Barbeau du Barran |
President of the French National Convention February 19, 1794 - March 6, 1794 |
Philippe Rühl |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Saint-Just, Louis Antoine de |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Saint-Just de Richebourg, Louis Antoine Léon de (full name); the pale angel of the guillotine; the Archangel of Terror (Archange de la terreur) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French writer, revolutionary and politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 25, 1767 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Decize at Nevers |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 28, 1794 |
| Place of death | Paris |