About

The daughter of a Treasury official, Lucile Duplessis married Camille Desmoulins in December 1790 after her father had refused him for three years; Robespierre was among the witnesses who signed the register. She kept a journal in the early years of the Revolution, describing waiting with Gabrielle Danton during the insurrection of 10 August 1792 and attending the Convention through the nights of the king’s trial. After her husband’s arrest she wrote to Robespierre appealing to their old friendship. She was arrested on 4 April 1794, accused of conspiring to open the prisons and free the accused, a plot fabricated by a prison administrator using paid informers. She was tried and guillotined on 13 April, aged twenty-four. Only fragments of her writing survive.