Louis de Saint-Just
| Louis Antoine de Saint-Just | |
|---|---|
Saint-Just by Prud'hon, 1793 (Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon)
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| Member of the National Convention | |
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In office 20 September 1792 – 27 July 1794 |
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| 38th President of the National Convention | |
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In office 19 February 1794 – 6 March 1794 |
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| Member of the Committee of Public Safety | |
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In office 30 May 1793 – 27 July 1794 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
25 August 1767 Decize, France |
| Died | 28 July 1794 (aged 26) Paris |
| Political party | The Mountain |
| Religion |
Deism (Cult of the Supreme Being) |
Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ʒyst]; 25 August 1767 – 28 July 1794) was a military and political leader during the French Revolution. The youngest of the deputies elected to the National Convention in 1792, Saint-Just rose quickly in their ranks and became a major leader of the government of the French First Republic. He spearheaded the movement to execute King Louis XVI and later drafted the radical French Constitution of 1793.
He became a close friend of Maximilien Robespierre, and served with him as one of the commissioners of the powerful Committee of Public Safety. Dispatched as a commissar to the army during its rocky start in the French Revolutionary Wars, Saint-Just imposed severe discipline, and he was credited by many for the army's subsequent revival at the front. Back in Paris, he supervised the consolidation of Robespierre's power through a ruthless and bloody program of intimidation. In his relatively brief time on the historical stage, he became the enduring public face of the Reign of Terror and was dubbed the "Angel of Death" by later writers. Saint-Just organized the arrests and prosecutions of many of the most famous figures of the Revolution.
Saint-Just was arrested in the violent episode of 9 Thermidor and executed the next day with Robespierre and their allies. In many histories of the Revolution, their deaths at the guillotine mark the end of the Reign of Terror.
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just was born at Decize in the former Nivernais province of central France. He was the eldest child of Louis Jean de Saint-Just de Richebourg (1716–1777), a retired French cavalry officer, knight of the Order of Saint Louis, and of the 20-years younger Marie-Anne Robinot (1736–1811), the daughter of a notary. He had two younger sisters, born in 1768 and 1769. The family later moved north and in 1776 settled in the village of Blérancourt in the former Picardy province, establishing themselves as a countryside noble family living out of the rents from their land. A year after the move, Louis Antoine's father died leaving his mother with the three children. She saved diligently for her only son's education, and in 1779 he was sent to the Oratorian school at Soissons. After a promising start, Saint-Just acquired a reputation as a troublemaker, augmented by infamous stories (almost certainly apocryphal) of how he led a students' rebellion and tried to burn down the school. Nonetheless, he earned his graduation in 1786.
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