Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

military and political leader

Date of Birth: 25-Aug-1767

Place of Birth: Decize, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, France

Date of Death: 28-Jul-1794

Profession: writer, poet, politician, revolutionary

Nationality: France

Zodiac Sign: Virgo


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About Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

  • Louis Antoine LĂ©on de Saint-Just (French pronunciation: ?[s?~?yst]; 25 August 1767 – 28 July 1794) was a Jacobin leader during the French Revolution.
  • He was a close friend of Maximilien Robespierre and served as his most trusted ally during the period of Jacobin rule (1793–94) in the French First Republic.
  • Saint-Just worked as a legislator and a military commissar, but he achieved a lasting reputation as the face of the Reign of Terror.
  • He publicly delivered the condemnatory reports that emanated from Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety and defended the use of violence against opponents of the government.
  • He supervised the arrests of some of the most famous figures of the Revolution and saw many of them off to the guillotine.
  • For his unyielding severity, later writers dubbed him the "Angel of Death". From its beginning in 1789, the Revolution enthralled the young Saint-Just, who strove to take a leading role.
  • He became a commander in his local National Guard unit.
  • Shortly after reaching the minimum legal age of 25 in August 1792, he won election as a deputy to the National Convention in Paris.
  • Despite his lack of record or influence, Saint-Just boldly denounced King Louis XVI from the speaker's rostrum and spearheaded a successful movement to have him executed.
  • His audacity brought him political recognition and the lasting favor of Robespierre.
  • Saint-Just joined him on the Committee of Public Safety and later served a term as President of the Convention.
  • Along the way he was a primary draftsman of radical Jacobin legislation such as the VentĂ´se Decrees and the Constitution of 1793. Dispatched as an overseer to the army during its rocky start in the French Revolutionary Wars, Saint-Just imposed severe discipline.
  • At the same time, he ensured that the troops were protected by the new anti-aristocratic order promised by the Revolution.
  • He was credited by many for the army's revival at the front.
  • This success as a reprĂ©sentant en mission led to two more visits to the front, including acclaimed participation in the major Battle of Fleurus. Throughout all his legislative and military work, Saint-Just remained most dedicated to his role as Robespierre's political defender.
  • He publicly denounced enemies of the Jacobin government as conspirators, criminals, and traitors, and he was ruthless in his application of violence.
  • He prepared death sentences for the centrist deputy Jacques Pierre Brissot and his fellow Girondins; for the extremist demagogue Jacques HĂ©bert and his militant supporters; and for his own former colleague Georges Danton and other Jacobin critics of the Terror.
  • As the death toll mounted, opponents ultimately found their footing.
  • Saint-Just and Robespierre were arrested in the bloody coup of 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794) and executed the next day along with many of their allies.
  • In most histories of the Revolution, their deaths at the guillotine mark the end of the Reign of Terror and the beginning of a new phase, the Thermidorean Reaction.

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