Jean-Baptiste Carrier

Born

16 March 1756

Died

16 December 1794

A lawyer and Convention deputy, Carrier was sent to Nantes in October 1793, amid the War in the Vendée, overcrowded prisons and a severe epidemic. During his mission, large numbers of prisoners were executed by firing squad or drowned in the Loire. Carrier authorised and defended these measures, which were carried out through local officials, committees and armed bodies. Recalled in February 1794, he was prosecuted after Thermidor and guillotined on 16 December. Although personally implicated in the violence, Carrier also became a convenient scapegoat: his trial concentrated public blame upon one representative while leaving the responsibility of the wider revolutionary administration less fully examined.

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