François-Nicolas Vincent
François-Nicolas Vincent (French pronunciation:
Leadership
The son of a prison concierge and a native
Downfall
Jacques Hébert, writer and publisher of the La Pere Duchesne, led Vincent, among others, on a campaign against what they deemed the soft 'moderation' of the Committee of Public Safety, along with attempts to aid in the 'de-Christianization' of France. Vincent supported the overthrow of Maximilien Robespierre and when he and his fellow Hébertists became active enough in their opposition, Robespierre reacted with an arrest and trial for 'treasonous activity'. The Hébertists, along with some of their close friends and companions, were charged with attempting to overthrow the Committee of Public Safety to ensure the re-establishment of the monarchy and conspiring with foreigners to take down the Republic. No physical evidence was given to support these allegations but, even so, Vincent and his fellow Hébertists were found guilty and sentenced to death. On 24 March 1794, at the age of twenty-seven, François-Nicolas Vincent was beheaded at the guillotine along with Hébert, Ronsin, Momoro, and the other leaders of the Hébertist faction.[2]
References
- ^ The Oxford History of the French Revolution; William Doyle; Clarendon Press, 1989; p.267. |"...Vincent, secretary general of the war ministry...."
- ^ Doyle, 1989; p.270. |"The trial took place on 21–4 March, its result a foregone conclusion. Among those who went to the scaffold with Pere Duchesne on the afternoon of the twenty-fourth were Vincent, Ronsin, and the leader of section Marat, Momoro."
- Andress, David. The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006) ISBN 978-0-374-27341-5
- Andress, David. French Society in Revolution 1789-1799. (Manchester University Press, 1999) ISBN 978-0-7190-5191-3
- Brown, Howard G. War, Revolution, and the Bureaucratic State: Politics and Army Administration in France 1791-1799. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) ISBN 978-0-19-820542-5
- Furet, François, and Mona Ozouf. A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution. (Harvard University Press, 1989) ISBN 978-0-674-17728-4
- McNamara, Charles B. "The Hebertists; study of a French Revolutionary 'faction' in the reign of terror, 1793-1794". (New York : Fordham University, 1974).