List of people associated with the French Revolution Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
This is a partial list of people involved in the French Revolution. It includes both supporters and opponents of the revolution. It attempts to give identifying facts and ultimate fates. As a rule, the best place to clarify complexities is in the article on the individual in question.
- Charles Pierre François Augereau - officer throughout the Revolutionary era and Empire, general, later Marshal of France.
- François-Noël Babeuf - proto-socialist, guillotined in 1797 after a coup attempt
- Jean Sylvain Bailly - leader of the Third Estate, administered the Tennis Court Oath, made mayor of Paris after the storming of the Bastille, guillotined during the Reign of Terror
- Paul François Jean Nicolas Barras - Montagnard, then a Thermidorian, finally the main executive leader during the Directory regime
- Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave - constitutional monarchist / Feuillant (faction)
- François Barthélemy - briefly a Director, exiled to French Guiana, returned during the Empire
- Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte - General, later king of Sweden
- Louis Alexandre Berthier - General, effectively Napoleon Bonaparte's chief of staff
- Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne - on Committee of Public Safety, more radical Robespierre, but survived on 9 Thermidor; was later deported to French Guiana
- Louis de Breteuil - royalist, briefly supplanted Necker in the royal cabinet
- Cardinal Etienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne - royalist, President of the Royal Council of Finances shortly before the Revolution
- Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville - Girondist (faction), (Girondists are sometimes designated "Brissotins"), guillotined
- Guillaume Marie Anne Brune - political journalist, Jacobin, friend of Georges Danton. Went directly from civilian life to being a general; later marshal of France. Murdered by royalists during the White Terror
- Edmund Burke - English philosopher and politician, author of a famous 1790 polemic against the Revolution
- Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès - a moderate throughout the Revolutionary era, Second Consul under Bonaparte, chief contributor to the Napoleonic Code
- Pierre Joseph Cambon - a rather independent member of the Committee of Public Safety
- Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot - mathematician, physicist, on Committee of Public Safety, turned against Robespierre on 9 Thermidor, a Director, ousted in 18 Fructidor coup
- Jacques Antoine Marie Cazalès - royalist
- François-René de Chateaubriand - royalist
- Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, like Jacques Hébert a devotee of the Cult of Reason, guillotined with Hébert
- André Chénier, poet, guillotined
- Étienne Clavière - Girondist (faction), finance minister in 1792, died in prison 1793
- Jean Marie Collot d'Herbois - actor, part of the insurrectionary Paris Commune (French Revolution), belated Montagnard (faction), on Committee of Public Safety. After the Thermidorian Reaction, was deported to French Guiana, where he died
- Marquis de Condorcet - philosopher, mathematician, loosely associated with the Girondist faction, probably suicide in prison.
- Charlotte Corday - assassin of Marat
- Charles-Augustin de Coulomb - major contributor to the metric system
- Georges Couthon - Montagnard (faction), on Committee of Public Safety, guillotined after 9 Thermidor
- Georges Danton - writer, Jacobin but neither a Girondist nor a Montagnard (factions), on Committee of Public Safety, guillotined 3 months before Robespierre
- Pierre Claude François Daunou - historian, loosely associated with the Girondist faction, survived to serve under the Directory and Empire as well.
- Jacques Louis David - painter, Montagnard (faction), on Committee of General Security, fell from power after 9 Thermidor but survived
- Camille Desmoulins - journalist, Montagnard (faction), close to Danton and shared in his downfall, guillotined
- Denis Diderot - Enlightenment author and atheist philosopher, influential on the Revolution
- Jacques François Dugommier - General
- Charles François Dumouriez - General, sometime Girondist (faction), foreign minister in the Girondist cabinet, eventually defected to the Austrians
- Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours - constitutional monarchist, president of the National Constituent Assembly, eventual exile
- Fabre d'Églantine - author of the names and months of the French Revolutionary Calendar
- Joseph Fesch - Roman Catholic cardinal, closely associated with Napoleon Bonaparte
- Henri Grégoire - revolutionary priest, supporter of Civil Constitution of the Clergy.
- Jacques Hébert - polemical writer, editor of Le Père Duchesne , guillotined late in Reign of Terror for advocating yet more radical measures than those in place
- Marie Jean Hérault de Séchelles - on Committee of Public Safety, revised Condorcet's Constitution of 1793, close to Danton and shared in his downfall, guillotined
- Lazare Hoche - ascended from corporal to general in the early years of the Revolution, died in 1797 of tuberculosis*Joséphine de Beauharnais - Empress, wife of Napoleon
- François Christophe Kellermann - longtime officer, became general early in the Revolution, hero of Valmy, marshal of France, employed in the administration of the army under the Empire
- Jean-Baptiste Kléber - Revolutionary general, assassinated in Cairo 1800
- Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - Bonapartist general, author of Les Liaisons dangereuses
- Lafayette - general, constitutional monarchist / Feuillant (faction)
- Jean Lannes - rose through the ranks to become general, marshal of France. Close to Napoleon Bonaparte, killed during the campaign of 1809
- Antoine Lavoisier - a major contributor to the metric system; guillotined for his role as a tax collector.
- Charles Leclerc - General, close to Napoleon Bonaparte, served in Haiti
- Louis LePeletier de Saint Fargeau - ex-noble, voted for the execution of Louis XVI, assassinated shortly thereafter.
- Jacques-Donatien Le Ray - a key figure in engineering French support for the American Revolution, but an émigré during the French Revolution.
- Robert Lindet - a rather independent member of the Committee of Public Safety, but opposed the Girondist faction
- Louis XVI of France - king at the start of the Revolution, deposed, guillotined
- Louis XVII of France - the "lost dauphin"
- François-Séverin Marceau - General
- Marie Antoinette - queen at the start of the Revolution, deposed, guillotined
- Jean-Paul Marat - radical journalist, Montagnard (faction), assassinated by Charlotte Corday
- Jean-Sifrein Maury - royalist
- Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes - while not particularly a royalist, was the former king's defense counsel at his trial.
- Philippe-Antoine Merlin - a Director, later a Bonapartist
- Honoré Mirabeau - Although noble, entered the Estates-General of 1789 as a representative of the Third Estate and was a major figure until his 1791 death from natural causes
- Montesquieu - Enlightenment political philosopher, influential on the Revolution
- Jean Victor Marie Moreau - general, with a complicated career full of intrigues
- Napoleon Bonaparte - General, then First Consul, then Emperor
- Jacques Necker - liberal royalist, Director-General of Finances at start of Revolution
- Olympe de Gouges - writer, advocate of gender equality, guillotined.
- Thomas Paine - American revolutionary writer, imprisoned and sentenced to death during Reign of Terror, but survived
- Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve - insurrectionary mayor of Paris, on the firstCommittee of Public Safety, loosely connected to the Girondist faction, ultimately a suicide during the Reign of Terror
- Pierre Phélippeaux - Montagnard (faction)
- Philippe-Egalité - Duke of Orleans, constitutional monarchist, voted for the execution of his own cousinLouis XVI; guillotined on (probably false) suspicions of intriguing
- Claude Antoine, comte Prieur-Duvernois (a.k.a. Prieur de la Côte-d'Or) - engineer, on Committee of Public Safety, close to Carnot, turned against Robespierre on 9 Thermidor, under the Directory he sat in the Council of Five Hundred
- Pierre Louis Prieur (a.k.a. Prieur de la Marne) - on Committee of Public Safety
- Maximilien Robespierre - Montagnard (faction), on Committee of Public Safety, prominent in Reign of Terror, guillotined after 9 Thermidor.
- Jean Marie Roland de la Platière - Girondist (faction), interior minister in 1792, committed suicide in 1793
- Madame Roland (born Manon Jeanne Philpon) - wife of Jean Marie Roland, author of many writings under his name, salonière, guillotined
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Enlightenment political philosopher, influential on the Revolution
- Jacques Roux - Hebertist
- Marquis de Sade - erotic and philosophic author
- Jean Bon Saint-André - Montagnard (faction), on Committee of Public Safety, later a naval officer
- Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just - on Committee of Public Safety - Montagnard (faction), on Committee of Public Safety, close to Robespierre, prominent in Reign of Terror, guillotined after 9 Thermidor
- Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès - Although a member of the clergy, entered the Estates-General of 1789 as a representative of the Third Estate. Author of pamphlet "What is the Third Estate?". Instigated the coup of 18 Brumaire, but was outflanked by Napoleon Bonaparte
- Madame de Staël - salonière, writer, daughter of Jacques Necker
- Jean Lambert Tallien - Montagnard, then a leading Thermidorian
- Madame Tallien - "Notre-Dame de Thermidor", she played interesting roles in different stages of the Revolution
- Talleyrand - clergyman and diplomat; first a royalist, then one of the authors of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and a constitutional bishop, eventually Foreign Minister under Napoleon.
- Gui-Jean-Baptiste Target - lawyer, generally associated with Directory-era politics.
- Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud - Girondist (faction) leader, guillotined.
- Louis Charles Antoine Desaix de Veygoux - general, died in battle 1800
- Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac - Girondist, then a Montagnard (factions), on Committee of Public Safety, drew up the 9 Thermidor report outlawing Robespierre; later a Bonapartist.
- Voltaire -- Enlightenment author, deist/agnostic philosopher, influential on the Revolution
See also
- For groups and factions, see Glossary of the French Revolution
- List of Historians of the French Revolution
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