Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois
| Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
19 June 1749 Paris, France |
| Died | 8 June 1796 (aged 46) Cayenne, French Guiana |
| Cause of death | Yellow fever |
| Nationality | French |
| Citizenship | French |
| Occupation | actor, dramatist, essayist, and revolutionary |
| Known for | member of the Committee of Public Safety, execution of more than 2,000 people in Lyon |
| Opponent(s) | King Louis XVI, |
| Parent(s) | Gabriel-Jacques Collot, Jeanne-Agnès Collot née Hannen |
Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois (19 June 1749 – 8 June 1796) was a French actor, dramatist, essayist, and revolutionary. He was a member of the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror and, while he saved Madame Tussaud from the Guillotine, he administered the execution of more than 2,000 people in the city of Lyon.
Born in Paris, Collot left his home in the rue St. Jacques in his teens to join the travelling theatres of provincial France. His moderately successful career as an actor, supplemented by a vigorous outpouring of works for the stage, took him from Bordeaux in the south of France to Nantes in the west and Lille in the north and even into the Dutch Republic, where he met his wife.
In 1784 he became director of the theatre in Geneva, Switzerland, and then at the prestigious playhouse at Lyon in 1787. At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 he dropped everything and returned to Paris, where his lead actor's voice, his writing skills, and his ability to organise and direct large-scale fêtes (civic feasts) were to make him famous.
He contributed to revolutionary agitation from the very beginning; but it was not until 1791 that he became a figure of importance. With the publication of L'Almanach du Père Gérard, a book advocating a constitutional monarchy in popular terms, he suddenly acquired great popularity.
His fame was soon increased by his involvement on behalf of the Swiss of the Château-Vieux Regiment, condemned to the galleys for mutiny at Nancy. Collot d'Herbois' efforts resulted in their freedom; he went to Brest in search of them; and a civic feast was held on his behalf and theirs, which occasioned for a poem by André de Chénier.
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