Maximilien de Robespierre

Maximilien de Robespierre (1758–1794) was a lawyer from Arras and a leader of the Jacobins, remembered above all for the Reign of Terror. A scholarship took him to the Collège Louis-le-Grand in 1769, where he admired Rousseau. As a lawyer he made his name in the lightning-rod case of 1783.

Elected to the Estates-General in 1789 and the Convention in 1792, he campaigned for male suffrage and against the slave trade, gaining the nickname Incorruptible. He helped justify the execution of Louis XVI in 1793 and joined the Committee of Public Safety. In February 1794 he declared terror to be prompt, severe and inflexible justice.

The Hébertists were guillotined in March and Danton and Desmoulins in April. The Law of 22 Prairial stripped the Revolutionary Tribunal of defence counsel. On 27 July 1794 (9 Thermidor) the Convention turned against him; he was guillotined without trial the next day.