Jacques-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne
Date of Birth
April 23, 1756
Date of Death
June 3, 1819
About
A member of the Committee of Public Safety from September 1793, Billaud-Varenne advocated a strongly centralised revolutionary government and played an important part in shaping the institutions and coercive policies of Year II. He joined the move against Robespierre at Thermidor, but was later condemned for his own role in the revolutionary government and deported to French Guiana in 1795. He refused an offer of pardon from Napoleon, eventually settled in Haiti and died there in 1819.