Home > List of people associated with the French Revolution

This is a partial list of people involved in the French Revolution. It includes both supporters and opponents of the revolution. It attempts to give identifying facts and ultimate fates. As a rule, the best place to clarify complexities is in the article on the individual in question.

• Charles Pierre François Augereau - officer throughout the Revolutionary era and Empire, general, later Marshal of France.
• François-Noël Babeuf - proto- socialist, guillotined in 1797 after a coup attempt
• Jean Sylvain Bailly - leader of the Third Estate, administered the Tennis Court Oath, made mayor of Paris after the storming of the Bastille, guillotined during the Reign of Terror
• Paul François Jean Nicolas BarrasPaul Francois Jean Nicolas Barras ( June 30, 1755 1829) was a French revolutionary and the main executive leader of the Directory regime of 1795 1799. Descended from a noble family of Provence, he was born at Fox-Amphoux, in today's Var departement''. - MontagnardFor the television series The Mountain see The Mountain (television series). The Mountain (in French La Montagne refers in the context of the history of the French Revolution to a political group, whose members, called Montagnards sat on the highest bench, then a Thermidorian9 Thermidor is a date under the French Revolutionary Calendar. It usually refers to 9 Thermidor Year II July 27 1794. On this day Robespierre and Saint-Just came under a concerted and organised attack from members of the Committee of Public Safety; Robesp, finally the main executive leader during the DirectoryThe Directory (in French Directoire held executive power in France from October 1795 until November 1799 from the end of the Convention to the beginning of the Consulate. Five Directors shared power. In the history of France, this period constitutes the l regime
• Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie BarnaveAntoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave ( October 22, 1761 November 29, 1793), was a French politician, one of the greatest orators of the first French Revolution. He was born at Grenoble in Dauphine, of a Protestant family. His father was an advocate at the - constitutional monarchistA constitutional monarchy is a form of government established under a constitutional system which acknowledges a hereditary or elected monarch as head of state. Modern constitutional monarchies usually implement the concept of trias politica, and have the / FeuillantFeuillant a French word derived from the Latin for leaf, has been used as a tag by two different groups. The first Feuillants were monks of the Cistercian order who established an abbey in the Diocese of Rieux in 1145. The abbey was named Notre-Dame des F (faction)
• François Barthélemy - briefly a DirectorThe Directory (in French Directoire held executive power in France from October 1795 until November 1799 from the end of the Convention to the beginning of the Consulate. Five Directors shared power. In the history of France, this period constitutes the l, exiled to French GuianaGuiana or French Guiana (French Guyane or Guyane francaise is an overseas departement departement d'outre-mer, or DOM of France, located on the Caribbean coast of South America. Guyane Region Guyane Official language French Political statusNon- sovereign,, returned during the Empire
• Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte - General, later king of Sweden
• Louis Alexandre Berthier - General, effectively Napoleon Bonaparte's chief of staff
• Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne - on Committee of Public Safety, more radical Robespierre, but survived on 9 Thermidor; was later deported to French Guiana
• Louis de Breteuil - royalist, briefly supplanted Necker in the royal cabinet
• Cardinal Etienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne - royalist, President of the Royal Council of Finances shortly before the Revolution
• Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville - Girondist (faction), (Girondists are sometimes designated "Brissotins"), guillotined
• Guillaume Marie Anne Brune - political journalist, Jacobin, friend of Georges Danton. Went directly from civilian life to being a general; later marshal of France. Murdered by royalists during the White Terror
• Edmund Burke - English philosopher and politician, author of a famous 1790 polemic against the Revolution
• Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès - a moderate throughout the Revolutionary era, Second Consul under Bonaparte, chief contributor to the Napoleonic Code
• Pierre Joseph Cambon - a rather independent member of the Committee of Public Safety
• Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot - mathematician, physicist, on Committee of Public Safety, turned against Robespierre on 9 Thermidor, a Director, ousted in 18 Fructidor coup
• Jacques Antoine Marie Cazalès - royalist
• François-René de Chateaubriand - royalist
• Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, like Jacques Hébert a devotee of the Cult of Reason , guillotined with Hébert
• André Chénier, poet, guillotined
• Étienne Clavière - Girondist (faction), finance minister in 1792, died in prison 1793
• Jean Marie Collot d'Herbois - actor, part of the insurrectionary Paris Commune (French Revolution), belated Montagnard (faction), on Committee of Public Safety. After the Thermidorian Reaction, was deported to French Guiana, where he died
• Marquis de Condorcet - philosopher, mathematician, loosely associated with the Girondist faction, probably suicide in prison.
• Charlotte Corday - assassin of Marat
• Charles-Augustin de Coulomb - major contributor to the metric system
• Georges Couthon - Montagnard (faction), on Committee of Public Safety, guillotined after 9 Thermidor
• Georges Danton - writer, Jacobin but neither a Girondist nor a Montagnard (factions), on Committee of Public Safety, guillotined 3 months before Robespierre
• Pierre Claude François Daunou - historian, loosely associated with the Girondist faction, survived to serve under the Directory and Empire as well.
• Jacques Louis David - painter, Montagnard (faction), on Committee of General Security , fell from power after 9 Thermidor but survived
• Camille Desmoulins - journalist, Montagnard (faction), close to Danton and shared in his downfall, guillotined
• Denis Diderot - Enlightenment author and atheist philosopher, influential on the Revolution
• Jacques François Dugommier - General
• Charles François Dumouriez - General, sometime Girondist (faction), foreign minister in the Girondist cabinet, eventually defected to the Austrians
• Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours - constitutional monarchist, president of the National Constituent Assembly, eventual exile
• Fabre d'Églantine - author of the names and months of the French Revolutionary Calendar
• Joseph Fesch - Roman Catholic cardinal, closely associated with Napoleon Bonaparte
• Henri Grégoire - revolutionary priest, supporter of Civil Constitution of the Clergy.
• Jacques Hébert - polemical writer, editor of Le Père Duchesne, guillotined late in Reign of Terror for advocating yet more radical measures than those in place
• Marie Jean Hérault de Séchelles - on Committee of Public Safety, revised Condorcet's Constitution of 1793 , close to Danton and shared in his downfall, guillotined
• Lazare Hoche - ascended from corporal to general in the early years of the Revolution, died in 1797 of tuberculosis* Joséphine de Beauharnais - Empress, wife of Napoleon
• François Christophe Kellermann - longtime officer, became general early in the Revolution, hero of Valmy, marshal of France, employed in the administration of the army under the Empire
• Jean-Baptiste Kléber - Revolutionary general, assassinated in Cairo 1800
• Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - Bonapartist general, author of Les Liaisons dangereuses
• Lafayette - general, constitutional monarchist / Feuillant (faction)
• Jean Lannes - rose through the ranks to become general, marshal of France. Close to Napoleon Bonaparte, killed during the campaign of 1809
• Antoine Lavoisier - a major contributor to the metric system; guillotined for his role as a tax collector.
• Charles Leclerc - General, close to Napoleon Bonaparte, served in Haiti
• Louis LePeletier de Saint Fargeau - ex-noble, voted for the execution of Louis XVI, assassinated shortly thereafter.
• Jacques-Donatien Le Ray - a key figure in engineering French support for the American Revolution, but an émigré during the French Revolution.
• Robert Lindet - a rather independent member of the Committee of Public Safety, but opposed the Girondist faction
• Louis XVI of France - king at the start of the Revolution, deposed, guillotined
• Louis XVII of France - the "lost dauphin"
• François-Séverin Marceau - General
• Marie Antoinette - queen at the start of the Revolution, deposed, guillotined
• Jean-Paul Marat - radical journalist, Montagnard (faction), assassinated by Charlotte Corday
• Jean-Sifrein Maury - royalist
• Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes - while not particularly a royalist, was the former king's defense counsel at his trial.
• Philippe-Antoine Merlin - a Director, later a Bonapartist
• Honoré Mirabeau - Although noble, entered the Estates-General of 1789 as a representative of the Third Estate and was a major figure until his 1791 death from natural causes
• Montesquieu - Enlightenment political philosopher, influential on the Revolution
• Jean Victor Marie Moreau - general, with a complicated career full of intrigues
• Napoleon Bonaparte - General, then First Consul, then Emperor
• Jacques Necker - liberal royalist, Director-General of Finances at start of Revolution
• Olympe de Gouges - writer, advocate of gender equality, guillotined.
• Thomas Paine - American revolutionary writer, imprisoned and sentenced to death during Reign of Terror, but survived
• Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve - insurrectionary mayor of Paris, on the first Committee of Public Safety, loosely connected to the Girondist faction, ultimately a suicide during the Reign of Terror
• Pierre Phélippeaux - Montagnard (faction)
• Philippe-Egalité - Duke of Orleans, constitutional monarchist, voted for the execution of his own cousin Louis XVI; guillotined on (probably false) suspicions of intriguing
• Claude Antoine, comte Prieur-Duvernois (a.k.a. Prieur de la Côte-d'Or) - engineer, on Committee of Public Safety, close to Carnot, turned against Robespierre on 9 Thermidor, under the Directory he sat in the Council of Five Hundred
• Pierre Louis Prieur (a.k.a. Prieur de la Marne) - on Committee of Public Safety
• Maximilien Robespierre - Montagnard (faction), on Committee of Public Safety, prominent in Reign of Terror, guillotined after 9 Thermidor.
• Jean Marie Roland de la Platière - Girondist (faction), interior minister in 1792, committed suicide in 1793
• Madame Roland (born Manon Jeanne Philpon) - wife of Jean Marie Roland, author of many writings under his name, salonière, guillotined
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Enlightenment political philosopher, influential on the Revolution
• Jacques Roux - Hebertist
• Marquis de Sade - erotic and philosophic author
• Jean Bon Saint-André - Montagnard (faction), on Committee of Public Safety, later a naval officer
• Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just - on Committee of Public Safety - Montagnard (faction), on Committee of Public Safety, close to Robespierre, prominent in Reign of Terror, guillotined after 9 Thermidor
• Marie Thérèse Louise de Savoie-Carignan, princesse de Lamballe - victim of the September Massacres who was raped, dismembered and beheaded
• Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès - Although a member of the clergy, entered the Estates-General of 1789 as a representative of the Third Estate. Author of pamphlet "What is the Third Estate?". Instigated the coup of 18 Brumaire, but was outflanked by Napoleon Bonaparte
• Madame de Staël - salonière, writer, daughter of Jacques Necker
• Jean Lambert Tallien - Montagnard, then a leading Thermidorian
• Madame Tallien - "Notre-Dame de Thermidor", she played interesting roles in different stages of the Revolution
• Talleyrand - clergyman and diplomat; first a royalist, then one of the authors of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and a constitutional bishop, eventually Foreign Minister under Napoleon.
• Gui-Jean-Baptiste Target - lawyer, generally associated with Directory-era politics.
• Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud - Girondist (faction) leader, guillotined.
• Louis Charles Antoine Desaix de Veygoux - general, died in battle 1800
• Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac - Girondist, then a Montagnard (factions), on Committee of Public Safety, drew up the 9 Thermidor report outlawing Robespierre; later a Bonapartist.
• Voltaire -- Enlightenment author, deist/ agnostic philosopher, influential on the Revolution