List of people associated with the French Revolution
This is a
partial list of people associated with the French Revolution, including supporters and opponents. Note that not all people listed here were French
.
A | |||
Reine Audu | Participant in 10 August (French Revolution) .
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Charles Augereau, duc de Castiglione |
Officer throughout the Revolutionary era and Empire; later a general and Marshal of France. | ||
Jean-Pierre-André Amar | Deputy to the National Convention from Isère; member of the Committee of General Security. | ||
B | |||
François-Noël Babeuf | Proto- coup d'etat .
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Jean Sylvain Bailly | President of the Third Estate who administered the Tennis Court Oath; made Mayor of Paris after the storming of the Bastille; guillotined during the Reign of Terror. | ||
Antoine Barnave | Constitutional monarchist and Feuillant; guillotined. | ||
Paul Nicolas, vicomte de Barras |
A Thermidorian; ultimately the Directory régime's executive leader.
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Madame du Barry | Mistress of King Louis XV and famous victim of the guillotine during the Reign of Terror. | ||
François-Marie, marquis de Barthélemy | Briefly a Director; exiled to French Guiana; returned to France during the Empire. | ||
Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte |
General, Ambassador to Vienna and Minister of War; later King of Sweden and Norway. | ||
Joséphine de Beauharnais | Empress; wife of Napoleon Bonaparte .
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Louis Alexandre Berthier |
General; effectively Napoleon Bonaparte's chief of staff. | ||
Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne |
9 Thermidor; later deported to French Guiana .
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Joseph Bonaparte | Eldest Bonaparte brother; supported his brother Napoleon; later made King of Naples and then Spain. | ||
Lucien Bonaparte | Younger brother of Napoleon; President of the Assembly during the Directory; later fell out with Napoleon. | ||
Napoleon Bonaparte |
General; seized power as 18 Brumaire coup. Made virtual dictator as Consul for Life in 1802. Declared Emperor of the French in 1804. Founded the First French Empire .
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Louis Antoine de Bourbon, duc d'Enghien |
Prince of the Blood; son of the Duc de Bourbon; kidnapped and executed by Napoleon .
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Louis François de Bourbon |
Prince of the Blood; briefly emigrated from 1789 to 1790, but returned to France; expelled by Directory ; died in exile.
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Louis Henri, duc de Bourbon |
Prince of the Blood , son of the Prince de Condé and father of the Duc d'Enghien; emigrated.
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Louis Joseph de Bourbon |
Prince of the Blood; composed the Brunswick Manifesto .
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Charles de Bouvens | Orator who had to flee the French Revolution due to his conservative views. | ||
Louis de Breteuil |
Royalist; briefly supplanted Necker in the royal cabinet. | ||
Cardinal Étienne Charles de Brienne | Royalist; President of the Royal Council of Finances shortly before the Revolution. | ||
Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville | Girondist (Brissotin); guillotined.
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Guillaume Marie Anne Brune |
Political journalist; Jacobin; friend of Georges Danton; appointed a general, then Marshal of France; murdered by royalists during the White Terror. | ||
Edmund Burke | English philosopher and politician; author of famous 1790 polemic against the Revolution. | ||
C | |||
Charles Alexandre de Calonne | French Controller-General of Finances from 1783 to 1787, whose discovery of the perilous state of French finances in 1786 precipitated the crisis leading to the Revolution. | ||
Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès |
Moderate; Bonaparte; chief contributor to the Napoleonic Code .
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Pierre Joseph Cambon |
Legislative and the Convention member; directed French financial policy and aided in the Thermidor coup. | ||
Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot |
Mathematician; physicist; 9 Thermidor; a Director; ousted in 18 Fructidor coup.
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Louis Philippe, duc de Chartres |
Eldest son of the Duke of Orleans; defected to Dumouriez in 1793; later King of France.
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Pierre Gaspard Chaumette | Cult of Reason devotee; guillotined, as was fellow devotee Jacques Hébert. | ||
André Chénier | Poet; guillotined. | ||
Jean Chouan | Royalist counter-revolutionary. | ||
Étienne Clavière | Girondist ; finance minister 1792; died in prison by suicide 1793.
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Anacharsis Cloots | Philosopher and writer; guillotined. | ||
Jean Marie Collot d'Herbois |
Actor; 9 Thermidor revolt, where he died.
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Marquis de Condorcet | Philosopher; mathematician; Girondist associate; died in prison.
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Charlotte Corday | Assassinated Marat; guillotined. | ||
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb | Scientist; metric system pioneer. | ||
Georges Couthon | 9 Thermidor .
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D | |||
Georges Danton | Writer; Girondist nor a Montagnard; Committee of Public Safety member; guillotined.
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Pierre Claude François Daunou | Historian; loosely associated with the . | ||
Jacques-Louis David | Painter; 9 Thermidor .
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Louis Charles Antoine Desaix |
General; killed while leading the French to victory during the Battle of Marengo (1800) .
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Camille Desmoulins | Journalist; Montagnard; Danton associate; guillotined. | ||
Denis Diderot | atheist philosopher; influenced Revolutionary theory.
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Jacques François Dugommier | General; National Convention deputy. Killed in 1794 at the Battle of the Black Mountain | ||
Charles François Dumouriez | General; sometime Girondist and Foreign Minister in the Girondist cabinet; eventually defected to Austria .
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Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours | Constitutional monarchist; National Constituent Assembly president; eventually exiled. | ||
Roger Ducos | Deputy from Landes; member of the Council of Five Hundred; vice-president of the Consulate Senate. | ||
E | |||
Grace Elliott | Louis Philippe II, duc d'Orléans ; resident in Paris throughout the Revolution.
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Antoine Joseph Marie d'Espinassy | Politician, Knight, General and Deputy; Royal of Signes and Revolutionary. | ||
F | |||
Fabre d'Églantine | Author of the French Revolutionary Calendar ; guillotined.
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Joseph Fesch | Napoleon Bonaparte .
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Joseph Fouché | Jacobin deputy; Minister of Police under Napoleon.
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Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville | Public Prosecutor during the Reign of Terror; subsequently guillotined (1795). | ||
G | |||
Olympe de Gouges | Writer; advocate of gender equality; guillotined. | ||
Henri Grégoire | Revolutionary priest; supported Civil Constitution of the Clergy. | ||
H | |||
Jacques Hébert | Polemicist; editor of Le Père Duchesne ; guillotined.
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Marie Jean Hérault |
Constitution of 1793; Danton associate; guillotined.
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Lazare Hoche |
Soldier rapidly promoted to General during early years of Revolution. | ||
Pierre-Augustin Hulin | Ex-royal soldier and one of the first revolutionaries to enter the Bastille; later general under Bonaparte .
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I | |||
J | |||
Jean-Baptiste Jourdan | General; victor at the battles of Wattignies and Fleurus .
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K | |||
François Christophe Kellermann |
Promoted to General early in the Revolution; Battle of Valmy hero; Marshal of France; army administrator during Empire years. | ||
Jean-Baptiste Kléber | Revolutionary general; assassinated in 1800. | ||
L | |||
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos | Bonapartist general; author of Les Liaisons dangereuses .
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Marie Thérèse, princesse de Lamballe |
Friend of Marie Antoinette; victim of the September Massacres. | ||
Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette |
General; constitutional monarchist, co-wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. | ||
Claire Lacombe | Feminist revolutionary, founder of the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women. | ||
Alexandre-Théodore, comte de Lameth | Leading Feuillant; formed "Triumvirate" with Barnave and Duport; eventually emigrated. | ||
Charles Malo François Lameth | Brother of Alexandre de Lameth; Feuillant; emigrated. | ||
Jean Lannes | Soldier rising through ranks to become general; Marshal of France; close to Bonaparte. Killed at Aspern-Essling in 1809. | ||
Arnaud de Laporte |
High royal government official, headed up antirevolutionary activities; second political victim of the guillotine. | ||
Marquis de Launay |
Royalist governor of the Bastille; killed after its storming. | ||
Antoine Lavoisier | Scientist; metric pioneer; tax collector; guillotined. | ||
Charles Leclerc | General; close to Bonaparte; served in Haiti. | ||
Philippe-François-Joseph Le Bas | Deputy to the National Convention from Pas-de-Calais; Robespierrist and close ally of Saint-Just; committed suicide at Robespierre's downfall. | ||
Louis Michel le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau |
Former noble; voted to execute Louis XVI ; assassinated one day before the execution of Louis XVI.
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Louis Legendre | Deputy for the Seine, present at various events. Eventual President of the Convention, member of the Council of Ancients and Council of Five Hundred. | ||
Jacques-Donatien Le Ray |
Promoted French support for the American Revolution. | ||
Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet | Girondist faction.
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Toussaint L'Ouverture |
Commander of Haitian rebels fighting against French occupying forces; captured and imprisoned by Napoleon's government. | ||
Louis XVI of France |
French king at outbreak of Revolution; deposed; guillotined. | ||
Louis XVII of France |
The "Lost Dauphin" | ||
Nicolas, Comte Luckner | German-born Marshal of France; commanded troops for the First Republic; guillotined during the Reign of Terror. | ||
M | |||
Stanislas-Marie Maillard | National Guardsman; the first revolutionary to enter the fortress in the Storming of the Bastille | ||
Guillaume-Chrétien de Malesherbes | Louis XVI 's defense counsel at his trial, although not known as a royalist; guillotined.
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Jean-Paul Marat | Radical journalist; Montagnard; assassinated by Charlotte Corday. | ||
François-Séverin Marceau |
Soldier who participated in the storming of the Bastille; later a general. | ||
Marie Antoinette | Queen consort of France; deposed, guillotined. | ||
André Masséna | General; victor at the Battle of Zürich. Became Marshal of the Empire in 1804. | ||
Jean-Sifrein Maury | French cardinal; Archbishop of Paris; royalist. | ||
Théroigne de Méricourt |
Radical agitator, organizer. | ||
Philippe-Antoine Merlin ("Merlin de Douai") |
Bonapartist .
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Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau ("Mirabeau") |
Represented the Estates-General of 1789 , despite being a noble; remained a major political figure throughout the rest of his life.
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Antoine-François Momoro | Printer, publisher, and Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité ; guillotined.
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Charles, baron de Montesquieu ("Montesquieu") |
Enlightenment political philosopher; influenced Revolutionary thinking
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Jean Victor Marie Moreau | General; victor at the Battle of Hohenlinden. | ||
Gouverneur Morris | American minister to France; witness and diarist of the early Revolution, 1792–94. | ||
Jean-François-Auguste Moulin | General; member of the Directory. | ||
Jean Joseph Mounier | Monarchist deputy; president of the National Constituent Assembly, 1789. | ||
Joachim Murat | Prominent cavalry general; became Napoleon's brother-in-law; later made King of Naples. Executed by firing squad in 1815. | ||
N | |||
Jacques Necker | Liberal royalist; Director-General of Finance whose dismissal precipitated the storming of the Bastille. | ||
O | |||
Louis Philippe II, duc d'Orléans |
First Prince of the Blood ; supported the Revolution, taking the name Philippe Egalité; voted to execute his cousin the King; later guillotined on suspicion of plotting to become King.
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Louis Philippe d'Orléans | King of the French .
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P | |||
Thomas Paine | American revolutionary writer; moved to France during French Revolution but subsequently fell out of favor; arrested, imprisoned and sentenced to death during Reign of Terror, but survived. | ||
Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve | Girondists; committed suicide during Reign of Terror .
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Pierre Philippeaux | Montagnard; Danton associate; guillotined. | ||
Philippe Egalité | See Orléans, Louis Philippe II, duc d' above.
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Charles Pichegru |
General; member of the Council of Five Hundred; conspirator in the Coup of 18 Fructidor. | ||
Claude Antoine, comte Prieur-Duvernois ("Prieur de la Côte-d'Or") |
Engineer; 9 Thermidor; Council of Five Hundred member during Directory .
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Pierre Louis Prieur ("Crieur de la Marne") |
National Constituent Assembly secretary; Committee of Public Safety member; exiled following Bourbon Restoration. | ||
Louis, comte de Provence |
Louis XVI 's younger brother; emigrated 1791; declared himself Louis XVIII, King of France in 1795, but did not actually assume the throne until 1814.
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Q | |||
R | |||
Jean-François Rewbell | Deputy; Feuillant; member of the Directory. | ||
Maximilien Robespierre | 9 Thermidor .
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Comte de Rochambeau | Senior general and former commander of French troops during the Armee du Nord for the Republic ; imprisoned during the Reign of Terror but not executed.
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Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière |
Girondist ; interior minister in 1792; committed suicide in 1793 following his wife's condemnation.
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Madame Roland (Manon-Jeanne Roland, née Philpon) |
Jean-Marie Roland's wife; author of influential Revolutionary writings under Roland's name; salonière ; guillotined.
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Gilbert Romme | Initially a French Republican Calendar ; condemned after Girondists' return to power; committed suicide before execution.
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau | Enlightenment political philosopher; influenced Revolutionary thinking.
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Jacques Roux | Hébertist leader of the Enragés faction; member of Paris Commune; arrested during Reign of Terror; committed suicide before trial. | ||
S | |||
Marquis de Sade | Author of erotica and philosophy; imprisoned on charges of sodomy and poisoning at the outbreak of the Revolution; released 1790; elected to the National Convention; escaped execution during the Reign of Terror. | ||
Jean Bon Saint-André |
Montagnard; Committee of Public Safety member; later became a naval officer and administrator. | ||
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just | 9 Thermidor .
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Joseph Servan | General; Minister of War. | ||
Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès | Although a Bonaparte .
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Madame de Staël |
Daughter of Jacques Necker; salonière and writer; adopted moderate Revolutionary position; opposed Napoleon. | ||
T | |||
Jean Lambert Tallien |
Thermidorian .
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Madame Tallien (Thérésa Tallien, née Teresa Cabarrús) |
Her moderating influence on her husband 9 Thermidor , earning her the moniker Notre-Dame de Thermidor ("Our Lady of Thermidor").
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Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord ("Talleyrand") |
Clergyman and diplomat; initially a royalist, then revolutionary; co-wrote the Bonaparte and the Bourbon Restoration .
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Gui-Jean-Baptiste Target | Lawyer and politician; deputy of the Estates-General of 1789; survived Reign of Terror to become Directory politician.
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Jean Baptiste Treilhard | Deputy from Paris; held multiple high-ranking offices including Director. |
U | |
V | |||
Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud | Girondist leader; guillotined.
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Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac |
Robespierre; later a Bonapartist .
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Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) |
Enlightenment author and philosopher whose writings influenced Revolutionary thinking.
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See also
- Glossary of the French Revolution
- List of historians of the French Revolution
Further reading
- Ballard, Richard. A New Dictionary of the French Revolution (2011) excerpt and text search
- Fremont-Barnes, Gregory, ed. The Encyclopedia of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars: A Political, Social, and Military History (3 vol. 2006)
- Furet, Francois, et al. eds. A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1989) long articles by scholars excerpt and text search
- Hanson, Paul R. Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution (2004)
- Ross, Steven T.Historical Dictionary of the Wars of the French Revolution (1998)
- Scott, Samuel F. and Barry Rothaus, eds. Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution (2 vol. 1985) full text online