Jean-Marie Collot d’Herbois

Jean-Marie Collot d’Herbois (born June 19, 1749, Paris, France—died Jan. 8, 1796, Sinnamary, French Guiana) was a radical democrat and member of the Committee of Public Safety that ruled revolutionary France during the period of the Jacobin dictatorship (1793–94).

The son of a Parisian goldsmith, Collot d’Herbois became a professional actor and a writer of comedies. In 1787 he was manager of a theatre in Lyon, and by 1789—the year the Revolution broke out—he was staging his plays in Paris. He joined the Jacobin Club and, in 1791, gained fame with his Almanach du Père Gérard (“Almanac of Old Gerard”), which set forth principles of constitutional monarchy.

Collot d’Herbois’ acting talents made him an effective agitator among the Parisian lower classes. As a member of a newly formed “revolutionary Commune,” he helped organize the popular insurrection that overthrew the monarchy on Aug. 10, 1792. The following month he became a deputy to the National Convention, in which capacity he voted for Louis XVI’s death without reprieve. Collot d’Herbois and his friend Jean-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne soon became identified with the extreme democrats led by Jacques Hébert. Taking advantage of popular unrest in Paris, the Hébertists forced the Convention to appoint Collot d’Herbois and Billaud-Varenne to the Committee of Public Safety in early September.

On Oct. 30, 1793, Collot d’Herbois and Joseph Fouché were sent to pacify Lyon, where a counterrevolutionary uprising had just been crushed. By organizing mass executions of the Lyonese bourgeoisie, Collot d’Herbois earned a reputation for pitiless bloodshed. Returning to Paris in December, he came into conflict with Robespierre by supporting the Hébertist-inspired “dechristianizers” who were destroying Roman Catholic institutions. Robespierre had the leading Hébertists guillotined in March 1794, but pressure from Collot d’Herbois and Billaud-Varenne also forced him to eliminate Georges Danton, the leader of the Jacobins’ right wing, in April. An attempt on Collot d’Herbois’s life (May 23, 1794) enhanced his popularity, while his energetic advocacy of radical democratic measures within the Jacobin Club led to his emergence as a possible rival to Robespierre and increased the tensions between the two men. As president of the National Convention at the time, Collot d’Herbois declared himself violently opposed to Robespierre and helped bring about the latter’s downfall on 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794). After the abortive Jacobin uprising of 12 Germinal (April 1, 1795), however, Collot d’Herbois was deported to Guiana, where he died of yellow fever.