Jean-Lambert Tallien was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 political figure of the revolutionary period

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

.

Clerk and journalist

He was the son of the maître d'hôtel

Majordomo (domestic staff)

A majordomo is a person who speaks, makes arrangements, or takes charge for another. Typically, the term refers to the highest person of a household staff, one who acts on behalf of the owner of a typically large residence...

of the Marquis de Bercy, and was born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. The marquis, noticing his ability, had him educated, and got him a place as a lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

's clerk. Supportive of the Revolution, he gave up his desk to enter a printer's office, and by 1791 was overseer of the printing department of the Comte de Provence

Louis XVIII of France

Louis XVIII , known as "the Unavoidable", was King of France and of Navarre from 1814 to 1824, omitting the Hundred Days in 1815...

.

During his employment, he conceived the idea of the journal-affiche

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

, and after the arrest of the king at Varennes

Flight to Varennes

The Flight to Varennes was a significant episode in the French Revolution during which King Louis XVI of France, his wife Marie Antoinette, and their immediate family attempted unsuccessfully to escape from Paris in order to initiate a counter-revolution...

 in June 1791 he placarded

Poster

A poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be...

 a large printed sheet on all the walls of Paris twice a week, under the title of the Ami des Citoyens, journal fraternel.

This enterprise had its expenses paid by the Jacobin Club

Jacobin Club

The Jacobin Club was the most famous and influential political club in the development of the French Revolution, so-named because of the Dominican convent where they met, located in the Rue St. Jacques , Paris. The club originated as the Club Benthorn, formed at Versailles from a group of Breton...

, and made Tallien well known to the revolutionary leaders. He became even more present in politics after organizing, together with Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois

Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois

Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois was a French actor, dramatist, essayist, and revolutionary. He was a member of the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror and, while he saved Madame Tussaud from the Guillotine, he administered the execution of more than 2,000 people in the city of...

, the great Fête de la Liberté

Fête

Fête is a French word meaning festival, celebration or party, which has passed into English as a label that may be given to certain events.-Description:It is widely used in England and Australia in the context of a village fête,...

on 15 April 1792, in honour of the released soldiers of Chateau-Vieux.

Insurrectional Commune

On 8 July 1792, he was the spokesman of a deputation of the section

Sans-culottes

In the French Revolution, the sans-culottes were the radical militants of the lower classes, typically urban laborers. Though ill-clad and ill-equipped, they made up the bulk of the Revolutionary army during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars...

 of the Place Royale which demanded from the Legislative Assembly

Legislative Assembly (France)

During the French Revolution, the Legislative Assembly was the legislature of France from 1 October 1791 to September 1792. It provided the focus of political debate and revolutionary law-making between the periods of the National Constituent Assembly and of the National Convention.The Legislative...

 the reinstatement of the Mayor, Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve

Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve

Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve was a French writer and politician.Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve was the son of a at Chartres. Though it is known that he was trained as a lawyer, very few specifics are known about Petion’s early life, as he was virtually unknown prior to the French Revolution...

, and the Procureur, Louis Pierre Manuel

Louis Pierre Manuel

Louis Pierre Manuel was a French writer and political figure of the Revolution.-Revolutionary:He was born at Montargis, Loiret, and entered the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, becoming tutor to the son of a Paris banker...

. Tallien was one of the most active popular leaders in the storming of the Tuileries Palace

10th of August (French Revolution)

On 10 August 1792, during the French Revolution, revolutionary Fédéré militias — with the backing of a new municipal government of Paris that came to be known as the "insurrectionary" Paris Commune and ultimately supported by the National Guard — besieged the Tuileries palace. King Louis XVI and...

 on 10 August; on that day he was appointed secretary to the insurrectional Commune of Paris

Paris Commune (French Revolution)

The Paris Commune during the French Revolution was the government of Paris from 1789 until 1795. Established in the Hôtel de Ville just after the storming of the Bastille, the Commune became insurrectionary in the summer of 1792, essentially refusing to take orders from the central French...

. He committed himself to his new mission, and habitually appeared at the bar of the Assembly on behalf of the Commune. He was a direct participant in the September Massacres of 1792, which with the help of Georges Danton

Georges Danton

Georges Jacques Danton was leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution and the first President of the Committee of Public Safety. Danton's role in the onset of the Revolution has been disputed; many historians describe him as "the chief force in theoverthrow of the monarchy and the...

, would eventually be elected a member of the National Convention. He announced the September Massacres

September Massacres

The September Massacres were a wave of mob violence which overtook Paris in late summer 1792, during the French Revolution. By the time it had subsided, half the prison population of Paris had been executed: some 1,200 trapped prisoners, including many women and young boys...

 in terms of apology and praise, and he sent off the famous circular

Flyer (pamphlet)

__notoc__A flyer or flier, also called a circular, handbill or leaflet, is a form of paper advertisement intended for wide distribution and typically posted or distributed in public place....

 of 3 September to the French provinces, recommending them to take similar action. At the same time, he had several people imprisoned in order to save them from the violence of the mob, and protected several suspects himself.

Convention and missions

At the close of the month he resigned his post on being elected, in spite of his youth, a deputy to the National Convention

National Convention

During the French Revolution, the National Convention or Convention, in France, comprised the constitutional and legislative assembly which sat from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 . It held executive power in France during the first years of the French First Republic...

 by the département of Seine-et-Oise

Seine-et-Oise

Seine-et-Oise was a département of France encompassing the western, northern, and southern parts of the metropolitan area of Paris. Its préfecture was Versailles and its official number was 78. Seine-et-Oise was abolished in 1968....

, and he began his legislative career by defending the conduct of the Commune during the massacres. He took his seat upon The Mountain

The Mountain

The Mountain refers in the context of the history of the French Revolution to a political group, whose members, called Montagnards, sat on the highest benches in the Assembly...

, and showed himself one of the most vigorous Jacobins, particularly in his defence of Jean-Paul Marat

Jean-Paul Marat

Jean-Paul Marat , born in the Principality of Neuchâtel, was a physician, political theorist, and scientist best known for his career in France as a radical journalist and politician during the French Revolution...

, on 26 February 1793; he voted in favor of capital punishment

Capital punishment

Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

 for King Louis XVI

Louis XVI of France

Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....

, and was elected a member of the Committee of General Security

Committee of General Security

The Committee of General Security was a French parliamentary committee which acted as police agency during the French Revolution that, along with the Committee of Public Safety, oversaw the Reign of Terror....

 on 21 January 1793.

After a short mission in the western provinces he returned to Paris, and took an active part in the coups d'état

Coup d'état

A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

of 31 May and 2 June, which resulted in the overthrow of the Girondist

Girondist

The Girondists were a political faction in France within the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention during the French Revolution...

s. For the next few months he kept a low profile, but on 23 September 1793, he was sent with Claude-Alexandre Ysabeau on his mission to Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

. This was the month in which the Reign of Terror

Reign of Terror

The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...

 was organized under the superintendence of the Committees of Public Safety

Committee of Public Safety

The Committee of Public Safety , created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793, formed the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror , a stage of the French Revolution...

 and General Security. Tallien was of the most notorious envoys sent over to establish the Terror in the provinces, and soon established a revolutionary grip on Bordeaux. The young Tallien, who was barely 24, became notorious for his administration of justice in Bordeaux through his bloody affinity to “feed ‘la sainte guillotine’.” Tallien’s methodology of subjugation at Bordeaux has been described as “fear and flour”: the guillotining of Girondist leaders and exploitation of food shortages by withholding bread from the already-hungry province.

However, after the initial days of his mission in Bordeaux, Tallien began to shift away from his bloody Terrorist tendencies. This tendency may be due to his romantic involvement with Thérésa Cabarrús, the stunning daughter of Francisco Cabarrús and former wife of the émigré Marquis de Fontenay. Tallien not only spared her life but fell in love with her. As she was extremely wealthy and desired by many, it is possible that she became involved with Jean Tallien in order to save her neck from the guillotine at Bordeaux and influence Tallien to show lenience towards her émigré associates. Tallien suggested, “It is better to marry than to be beheaded.” After Tallien became involved with Cabarrús, there was a notable decline in the number of executions in Bordeaux. Thérésa was a moderating influence, and from the lives she saved by her entreaties she received the name of Notre-Dame de Thermidor ("Our Lady of Thermidor") after the onset of the Thermidorian Reaction

Thermidorian Reaction

The Thermidorian Reaction was a revolt in the French Revolution against the excesses of the Reign of Terror. It was triggered by a vote of the Committee of Public Safety to execute Maximilien Robespierre, Antoine Louis Léon de Saint-Just de Richebourg and several other leading members of the Terror...

 (27 July 1794). Tallien was even elected president of the Convention on 24 March 1794. Maximillian Robespierre certainly took notice of Talliens “royalist” behavior and recalled him to Paris.

Thermidor

Maximilien Robespierre

Maximilien Robespierre

Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre is one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. He largely dominated the Committee of Public Safety and was instrumental in the period of the Revolution commonly known as the Reign of Terror, which ended with his...

's own political ideas implied his readiness to strike at many of his colleagues in the committees, and Tallien was one of the men condemned. Robespierre's rivals were determined to strike first. When Tallien was recalled, Thérésa Cabarrús was recaptured and imprisoned. She set to face trial and likely would have been executed. She sent a letter to Tallien on 26 July, which included a dagger and a note accusing him of weakness for not attempting to free her. Thérésa stated, “I die in despair at having belonged to a coward like you.”
The movement was successful: Robespierre and his friends were guillotine

Guillotine

The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...

d, and Tallien, as the leading Thermidorian, was elected to the Committee of Public Safety. He was instrumental in suppressing the Revolutionary Tribunal

Revolutionary Tribunal

The Revolutionary Tribunal was a court which was instituted in Paris by the Convention during the French Revolution for the trial of political offenders, and eventually became one of the most powerful engines of the Reign of Terror....

 and the Jacobin Club; he attacked Jean-Baptiste Carrier

Jean-Baptiste Carrier

Jean-Baptiste Carrier was a French Revolutionary, known for his cruelty to his enemies, especially to clergy.-Biography:...

 and Joseph Le Bon

Joseph le Bon

Joseph Le Bon was a French politician.He was born at Arras. He became a priest in the order of the Oratory, and professor of rhetoric at Beaune. He adopted revolutionary ideas, and became a curé of the Constitutional Church in the department of Pas-de-Calais, where he was later elected as a député...

, who had been representatives of Robespierre to Nantes

Nantes

Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....

 and Arras respectively, and he fought with energy against the insurgents of Prairial (20 May 1795). Tallien’s actions and his motivation behind his shifting loyalties have been described as, “His only claim to a place in history was to have realized that people were sick of the terror, that the inevitable reaction was imminent, and that it was better to be a part of it than to be crushed by it.” In all these months he was supported by Thérèse, whom he married on 26 December 1794, and who became the leader of the social life of Paris. This cemented Talliens transition from the infamous Terrorist at Bordeaux to the “reformed terrorist” of the Thermidorean reaction.
On 18th Thermidor, in order to Secure the release of his mistress, to gain popular support, and to popularize his image as a Thermidorean (rather than a Jacobin), Tallien stated, “There is not a single man in prison today who does not claim to be an ardent patriot and who has not been an enemy of Robespierre’s.” In the next 5 days, nearly 500 prisoners, many of which were moderates or right wing opposition to Robespierre and the leftist Jacobins, were released. Tallien and the Thermidoreans almost immediately repealed the law of 22 July, ending the power of the Committee of Public Safety the right to arrest representatives without a hearing. In addition, measures were passed causing one fourth of the Committee to be up for election each month, with a one month period between the terms that deputies could serve on the Committee. For Tallien's role in 9 Thermidor, he was elected to the Committee of Public Safety. In a complete reversal of his earlier positions, Tallien appealed to the new rising class of the “Jeunesse Doree” (“gilded youth”), who viewed him as their leader, by stating “I sincerely admit that I had rather see twenty aristocrats set at liberty today and re-arrested tomorrow than see a single patriot left in chains.” In addition, Tallien helped pass a measure that would publish the lists of the freed prisoners, helping ensure that the National Convention would be accountable for any imprisonments. Furthermore, promoted a compromise that prevented a list of those who acted as guarantees for the loyalty of released prisoners. This prevented him from being publicly accountable for the release of his mistress and future wife. Shortly after, Tallien and his allies Freron and Lecointre were removed from the Jacobin clubs.

On the 23rd of Fructidor, an assassination attempt was made on Tallien. The minor gunshot wound and knife wound gave Tallien and his allies the necessary public support to begin their attacks on the Jacobin clubs. With the threat of a Jacobin-Terroristé plot in the air, Tallien and Freron used public proclamations and physical intimidation (through the Jeunessee Doree) to wipe the central Parisian Jacobin club out of existence. At this point the complete tranfomation of Jean-Lambert from an embodiment of the Terror to a right wing leader and orator. Tallien began campaigning for free speech in 1795. This increased his popularity with the Jeunesee Doree, as many Jeunesee were journalists. He reestablished his paper, L’Ami des citoyens, and contributed to the unified attack of the right wing on the remaining leftists. Although the journalistic freedom officially gave the left wing the legal opportunity to also mount an attack through the press, it is important to note that the right wing was far more unified. The Thermidoreans had even managed to get right wing journalists into high positions on the left wing newspapers. In addition, through much of the White Terror, the Thermidoreans did nothing to stop the monarchist resurgence.

Eventually, the Thermidoreans ordered that all émigrés and émigré supporters hand over their weapons and expel all foreigners from the country. However, there is evidence that Tallien was arranging a compromise with Spain and would support the imposition of Louis XVIII as a monarchist “without the abuses” In July of 1795, a large division of émigrés, with support from the British, attempted to invade through Quiberon. However, the General Hoche outmaneuvered the émigrés and trapped them on the end of a Peninsula. Tallien was sent by the National Convention to the scene. Partially because Tallien had been corresponding with the Bourbons in Spain, he set up military commissions under to try all of the émigré prisoners. Under current law, all of the émigrés were convicted and summarily executed. Tallien was held responsible, and lost support from the jeunesse doree and the right wing which were supporting him. His political influence and relevance were thus greatly reduced.

Council of Five Hundred and Egypt campaign

After the beginning of the French Directory

French Directory

The Directory was a body of five Directors that held executive power in France following the Convention and preceding the Consulate...

, Tallien's political importance came to an end, for, although he sat in the Council of Five Hundred

Council of Five Hundred

The Council of Five Hundred , or simply the Five Hundred was the lower house of the legislature of France during the period commonly known as the Directory , from 22 August 1795 until 9 November 1799, roughly the second half of the period generally referred to as the...

, the moderates viewed him as an enforcer of the Terror, and the extreme party as a renegade. Madame Tallien also rejected him, and became the mistress of the rich banker Gabriel-Julien Ouvrard

Gabriel-Julien Ouvrard

Gabriel-Julien Ouvrard was a French financier who was born in Moulins d'Antières at Cugand on October 11, 1770 and who died in London in October 1846.- Revolution :...

.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

, however, who is said to have been introduced by him to Paul Barras, took him to on his military expedition to Egypt

French Revolutionary Wars: Campaigns of 1799

By 1799, the French Revolutionary Wars had resumed after a period of relative peace in 1798. The Second Coalition had organized against France, with Great Britain allying with Russia, Austria, the Ottoman Empire, and several of the minor German and Italian states...

 of June 1798 as part of the political economy section of the Institut d'Égypte

Institut d'Égypte

The Institut d’Égypte was a learned academy formed by Napoleon Bonaparte to carry out research during his Egyptian campaign.-Early work:It first met on 24 August 1798, with Gaspard Monge as president, Bonaparte himself as vice-president and Joseph Fourier and Costaz as secretaries...

, and after the capture of Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, he edited the official journal there, the Décade Égyptienne. General Jacques François Menou sent him back to France, and on his passage he was captured by a British

Kingdom of Great Britain

The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...

 cruiser and taken to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, where he had a good reception among the Whigs

British Whig Party

The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...

 and was received by Charles James Fox

Charles James Fox

Charles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...

.

Later years

On returning to France in 1802 he obtained a divorce from Thérésa (who in 1805 married François-Joseph-Philippe de Riquet

François-Joseph-Philippe de Riquet

François-Joseph-Philippe de Riquet , comte de Caraman was the 16th Prince de Chimay from 24 July 1804 to 1843....

), and was left for some time without employment. In the end, through the interventions of Joseph Fouché

Joseph Fouché

Joseph Fouché, 1st Duc d'Otrante was a French statesman and Minister of Police under Napoleon Bonaparte. In English texts his title is often translated as Duke of Otranto.-Youth:Fouché was born in Le Pellerin, a small village near Nantes...

 and Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, he was appointed consul at Alicante

Alicante

Alicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...

, and remained there until he lost the sight of one eye from yellow fever

Yellow fever

Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....

.

Back in Paris, he lived on half-pay until the fall of the Empire

First French Empire

The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...

 and the Bourbon Restoration

Bourbon Restoration

The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon  – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...

 (1815), when he received the favour of not being exiled like the other regicide

Regicide

The broad definition of regicide is the deliberate killing of a monarch, or the person responsible for the killing of a monarch. In a narrower sense, in the British tradition, it refers to the judicial execution of a king after a trial...

s (those who had voted for the king's execution). In his latter years, all of his political and financial supporters had abandoned him and his final days were spent in poverty. He was forced to sell his books in order to buy bread. In a great twist of irony

Irony

Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...

, Tallien had to accept a pension of 100 sous a month from Louis XVIII, as he was “dying of hunger.” He died of leprosy

Leprosy

Leprosy or Hansen's disease is a chronic disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Named after physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen, leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions...

on 16 November 1820.

Works

• Discours sur les causes qui ont produit la Révolution française (Paris, 1791, 8 vols.)
• Mémoire sur l'administration de l'Égypte a l'arrivée des Français