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Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville

Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville (10 June 1746 – 7 May 1795) was the Chief Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal of the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror. He was himself guillotined due to his role in the terror.

Biography[]

Antoine Quentin Fouqier-Tinville was born in Herouel, Aisne, France on 10 June 1746, and he worked as a lawyer and a clerk before the French Revolution broke out. He joined the French National Guard on its formation in 1789, and Fouquier-Tinville and his cousin Camille Desmoulins became leaders of the sans-culotte movement. On 10 March 1793, he was appointed Chief Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal after it was formed, and he was nicknamed "Purveyor to the Guillotine" for his zeal. He was kept as the tribunal's prosecutor by the Thermidorians even after the Thermidorian Reaction, during which he had helped with the prosecution of Maximilien Robespierre, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, Georges Couthon, and the other leaders of the Jacobin Club. On 7 May 1795, Fouquier-Tinville and 15 other tribunal members were guillotined.

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