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biography
| name: |
Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de
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pronunciation:
[rohbspyair]
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1758–94)
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| biography:
| French revolutionary leader, born in Arras, N France. He became a lawyer, was elected to the States General (1789), became a prominent member of the Jacobin Club, and emerged in the National Assembly as a popular radical, known as ‘the Incorruptible’. In 1791 he was public accuser, and in 1792 presented a petition to the Legislative Assembly for a Revolutionary Tribunal. Elected first deputy for Paris in the National Convention, he emerged as leader of the Mountain, strenuously opposed to the Girondins, whom he helped to destroy. In 1793 he became a member of the Committee of Public Safety, and for three months dominated the country, introducing the Reign of Terror and the cult of the Supreme Being. But as his ruthless exercise of power increased, his popularity waned. He was attacked in the Convention, arrested, and guillotined on the orders of the Revolutionary Tribunal. |
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