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Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville ( 1746 - May 7, 1795), a French revolutionist, was born at Hérouel, a village in the départment of the Aisne.Originally a procureur attached to the Châtelet at Paris, he sold his office in 1783, and became a clerk under the lieutenant-general of police. He seems to have adopted revolutionary ideas early on, but little is known of the part he played at the outbreak of the Revolution. When the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris was established on March 10, 1793, he was appointed public prosecutor to it, an office that he filled until July 28, 1794.
His activity during this time earned him the reputation of one of the most terrible and sinister figures of the Revolution. His function as public prosecutor was not so much to convict the guilty, but to see that the proscriptions ordered by the faction for the time being in power were carried out with a due regard to a show of legality. He was as ruthless and as incorrupt as Robespierre himself; he could be moved from his purpose neither by pity nor by bribes; nor was there in his cruelty any of that quality which made the ordinary Jacobin rage by turns ferocious and sentimental. It was this very quality of passionless detachment that made him so effective an instrument of the Terror. He had no forensic eloquence; but the cold obstinacy with which he pressed his charges was more convincing than any rhetoric, and he seldom failed to secure a conviction.
His horrible career ended with the fall of Robespierre and the terrorists on the 9th Thermidor. On August 1Some entries on this page have been duplicates from June 28. The correct dates for such events need to be determined. August 1st is the 213th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (214th in leap years), with 152 days remaining. Events 527 Justinian I, 1794 he was imprisoned by order of the Convention and brought to trial. His defense was that he had only obeyed the orders of the Committee of Public SafetyThe Committee of Public Safety ( French: Comite de Salut Public , set up by the National Convention on April 6, 1793, formed the de facto executive government of France during the Reign of Terror ( 1793 1794) of the French Revolution. Under war conditions; but, after a trial which lasted forty-one days, he was condemned to death, and guillotineLons-le-Saunier, 1878 The guillotine is a machine used for the application of capital punishment by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame (approx 4m high) from which is suspended a heavy triangular blade (approx 40kg). The blade is hauled to td on the 7th of May, 1795.
See Mémoire pour A. Q. Fouquier ex-accusateur public près le tribunal révolutionnaire, etc. (Paris, 1794); Domenget. Fouquier-Tinville et le tribunal révolutionnaire (Paris, 1878); H Wahoo, Histoire du tribunal révolutionneire de Paris (1880-1882) (a work of general interest, but not always exact); George Lecocq, Notes et documents sur Fouquier-Tinville (Paris, 1885). See also the documents relating to his trial enumerated by M TourneuxJean Maurice Tourneux ( July 12, 1849 1917), French man of letters and bibliographer, son of the artist and author JFE Tourneux, was born in Paris. He began his career as a bibliographer by collaborating in new editions of the Supercheries litteraires of in Bibliographie de l'histoire de Paris pendant la Revolution Française, vol. i. Nos. 4445-4454 (1890).
This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Fouquier-Tinville, Antoine Quentin
Fouquier-Tinville, Antoine Quentin
