Jean-Baptiste Drouet (French revolutionary)

Jean-Baptiste Drouet (January 8, 1763 – April 11, 1824) was a French politician of the 1789 Revolution, chiefly noted for the part he played in the arrest of King Louis XVI during the Flight to Varennes.

Born at Sainte-Menehould, Marne, he served for seven years in the army, and afterwards helped his father in his duties as postmaster of Sainte-Menehould. The carriages conveying the royal family on their flight to the frontier stopped at his door on the evening of June 21, 1791; and the passengers, travelling under assumed names, were recognized by Drouet, who immediately took steps which led to their arrest and detention on reaching Varennes.

For this service the Legislative Assembly awarded him 30,000 francs, but he appears to have declined the reward. In September 1792 he was elected deputy to the National Convention, and took his place with the most violent group.

He voted for the death of the king without appeal, showed virulent hostility to the Girondins, and proposed the slaughter of all British residents in France after the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars and the formation of the First Coalition against France. Sent as commissioner to the Army of the North, he was captured at the siege of Maubeuge in 1793 and imprisoned at Spielberg in Brno, Southern Moravia, until the close of the conflict in 1795. He returned to France in December 1795, exchanged with other revolutionaries against Marie Thérèse of France (Madame Royale), daughter of Louis XVI.

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