Abdiel. In Milton's Paradise Lost, Abdiel is the seraph who stands against Satan when the latter urges the angels to revolt.
Actaeon. A hunter who becomes the hunted. In Greek myth, Actaeon is hunting deer when he comes to a spring where the virgin goddess Artemis is bathing. She is so angry at his intrusion that she turns him into a stag. His dogs, not recognizing their master, run him down and kill him.
Agio. Agio is the difference in value of money from place to place. For example, if you go to a bank in Paris and ask to buy euros with dollars, you might be quoted a price of $1.17 per euro. But if you wish to sell euros for dollars, they might offer you only $1.15. The difference is the agio. There is another more specialized meaning of the term: coinage at one time had a nominal value based on its precious-metal content. Coins long in circulation become worn and lose weight. The difference between nominal and by-weight value of coinage is also called agio.
Emmanuel Armand de Vignerot du Plessis de Richelieu, Duc d' Aiguillon, 1720-1788. Louis XV's minister for Foreign Affairs and the richest nobleman in France. He earns the special scorn of Carlyle for having, at least in part, anticipated some principles of the revolutionaries. He was an unsuccessful governor of Britanny and, with Terray and Maupou, one of the "triumvirate" of ministers in the last years of Louis XV. He played no important role in the next reign.
Jean-Baptiste-André Amar, 1755-1816. Lawyer of Grenoble, member of the Convention and of the Committee of General Security. He was accused by Robespierre of laxity in the investigation of the East India Company scandal and participated in the coup that brought Robespierre down on 9 Thermidor. He was considered one of the bloodiest executives of the Terror.
Antinous. Slave and lover of the Emperor Hadrian. When Antinous died, Hadrian declared him a god and struck medals in his honor.
Emmanuel-Louis-Henri de Launay, Comte d'Antraigues, 1753-1812. Elected to the Estates General for the nobles of Languedoc with the reputation of a reformer, having written books on constitutional monarchy and the central place of the Third Estate in States-General. Instead, he adopted the traditional positions of the nobles. Launay left France in 1791 and spent the rest of his life in the pay of and in intrigue with foreign powers. He was murdered in London in 1812.
Argus, one of the Giants of Greek mythology. He had 100 eyes, only two of which he could close at the same time. Hera set him to guard Io, who Zeus had turned into a heifer. Hermes, employing a cloak of invisibility, killed Argus and set Io free.
Armida. The name of the Witch-Queen of Damascus in old French romances.
Assignat. The paper money of the revolutionary governments. Originally it was backed by property nationalized from the Church, but for the most part it was only an empty promise to pay. Assignats were the subject of speculation and were deeply discounted. Gold and silver coin of the old regime remained the standard of exchange during the revolution.

Carlyle, following the lead of Burke, frequently uses the assignat as a symbol of the moral as well as the fiscal bankruptcy of the revolution.

According to story, it was Louis XVI's portrait on the 50-livre assignat that caused him to be recognized and arrested at Varennes during his family's flight in June, 1791.

Astolpho. A legendary figure of French Romance. In Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Astolpho tames the Hippogriff (a flying creature part horse, part lion, part eagle) and, mounted on it, rescues Orlando from an enchantress.
Astræa, the Roman goddess of Justice. She was the daughter of Earth and Heaven. Carlyle uses the phrase "Astræa Redux" frequently and sarcastically; it is Latin for "Justice Restored".
Até. Greek godess of "rash actions and their consequences."
Atlas, a figure of Greek myth, was a Titan, one of the race which challenged Zeus and the Olympians for the supremacy of heaven. As punishment, he was made to hold on his shoulders the pillars which hold the heavens above the earth. One version of the myth says that Atlas lived in northwest Africa (he was the father of the Hesperides). A range of mountains there bears his name and is dominated by the peak of Mount Atlas, "the pillar of Heaven".
atrabiliar, an adjective meaning irritable or bilious — from the Latin for black bile.
Attila the Hun d. 453. He united discordant bands of Scythians into an effective army which in turn defeated the forces of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. One of his few defeats was on the Plains of Chalons where the combined Roman and Visigoth forces of Actius and Theodoric stopped his westward progress.
Augean Stable. The stables of King Augeias of Elis had gone uncleaned for 30 years. It was one of the tasks of Hercules to clean them, which he did by directing a river through them.
Jacques-Mathieu Augeard, 1731-1805, appointments secretary to the Queen. Early in the revolution he urged Marie-Antoinette to flee France. This was discovered and he was forced to emigrate in 1790.
Charles-Marie-Auguste-Joseph de Beaumont, comte d'Autichamp, 1770-1859. Leader of the Royal and Catholic army of the Vendée (and one of the few to survive that distinction). He managed to change sides a couple of times and yet keep his head.
Jean-François Thèrése Louis, comte Beaumont d'Autichamp, 1738-1831. Royalist exile who spent a lot of time at the Russian court.
Azrael, in Moslem and Jewish tradition, the Angel of Death.
François-Noel (dit Gracchus) Baboeuf, 1760-1797. Journalist and one of the fathers of socialism. His papers, first Correspondant Picard and later Le Tribun du Peuple and Eclaireur du peuple, consistently attacked the economic basis of the new order and demanded redistribution of the wealth of the nation. He was accused in 1796 of attempting an insurrection and was arrested; after a trial and appeals he was executed the next year.
Louis Petit de Bachaumont, 1690-1771. French literary hanger-on. He is credited, or blamed, for beginning the journal of the salons of Madame Doublet de Persan; a journal which eventually grew to 36 volumes and which contained most of the literary and political gossip of the day.
Jacques-Charles Bailleul 1762-1843. Girondist-leaning member of the National Convention and author of Almanach des bizarreries humaines, anecdotes of the revolution years. He fled Paris and was arrested, but he survived the Terror and returned to the legislature, later being elected to the 500. Because he voted against the death of the King, he prospered after the Restoration.
Jean Sylvain Bailly, 1736 - 1793, French astronomer and politician, best known for his work on the satellites of Jupiter. He was elected to the States General, was the first President of the National Assembly, and was Mayor of Paris (1791-93). He was executed during the Terror.
Charles Jean Marie Barbaroux, 1767-1794. Lawyer of Marseilles. One of the best speakers of the Convention, at least among the Girondists, he helped suppress the royalist rising at Arles and the ultras in Marseilles. After the arrests of the Girondins, Barbaroux and Pétion led a revolt in Normandy against the Convention in 1793. It failed and he was executed at Bordeaux in 1794. Some say that Barbaroux put the thought of killing Marat into the mind of Charlotte Corday, though she denied it.
Charles de Barentin, 1738-1819. Louis XVI's chancellor and Keeper of the Seals. from 1788. He delivered the royal speech to open the States-General. Barentin's memoirs are an important source of information about the advice Louis received at the end of his reign.
Paul Barras, 1755-1820. Barras was a minor noble and an army officer who advanced himself through the Revolution. As a representative (of the National Convention) on mission in Toulon, he made the acquaintance of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose promoter and later sycophant he became.
Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac, 1755-1841. Revolutionary politician known for the power of his writing. He began as a moderate but became a radical, voting for the execution of Louis XVI and later serving as one of the 12 members of the Committee of Public Safety during the Terror. He had an adventurous life after the Revolution as a secret agent for Napoleon.
Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave, 1761-1793, a provincial politician of Grenoble until elected to the States General. He was a leader of the Jacobin Society (q.v.). His history of the revolution, written in prison before he was guillotined, is one of the first. His correspondence with Marie-Antoinette, encouraging her to urge her husband to support the revolution in return for recognition as a constitutional monarch, was the immediate cause of his execution.
Basoche. A guild of law clerks, from which the French equivalent of barristers were drawn. At the time of the revolution the guild was often at odds with the Parlement.
François, Baron de Bassompierre, 1579-1646, Marshal of France in the reign of Henry IV and the minority of Louis XIV. His memoirs, written during his 14 years of imprisonment by Richelieu, are an important record of the period.
Claude Bazire, 1764-1794, lawyer and deputy for the Côte d'Or in the Legislative Assembly. He was violently anti-monarchist and voted for the death of Louis XVI. Though a member of the Committee of General Security, Bazire ran afoul of Robespierre and was executed on the same day as Danton and Demoulins, April 5, 1794.
Alexandre, Vicomte de Beauharnais, 1760-1794, French General. He was the first husband of Joséphine Tasher de la Pagerie. When Napoleon married the widow, he adopted Beauharnais's son, Eugene, who succeeded him in the empire. Beauharnais was a moderate member of the National Assembly and was guillotined in 1794.
Paul-Augustin Caron Beaumarchais, 1732-1799. Son of a Paris watchmaker, and a watchmaker himself, he prospered to the extend of buying a title of nobility and the name Beaumarchais. He was the leading French dramatist of his day, author of The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville, both of which later were set as operas. He helped finance French advances of war materiel to the colonists during the American Revolution, transactions on which he made a tidy profit.

Beaumarchais had continuing trouble with the courts, mainly over financial matters. He rarely won in court, but his written accounts of the misadventures were an important in fostering distrust of the corrupt courts of the old regime. One Parlementarian, Goezman, who took Beaumarchais's bribe and ruled against him anyway, was ruined when Beaumarchais published an account.

Trying to reprise his earlier success in dealing arms, Beaumarchais in 1792 tried to secure 60,000 muskets from Holland. After being arrested in August, 1792, and barely escaping the September Massacre, he went abroad and did not return to France until 1796.

Nicolas Joseph Beaurepaire, 1740-1792. Commandant of the garrison of Verdun when it was besieged by the Duke of Brunswick in September, 1792. The town government, facing a 60,000-man force and possessing fewer than 40 cannon, voted to surrender of the protests of Beaurepaire. He was found dead, possibly by suicide
Christophe de Beaumont, 1703-1781, Archbishop of Paris. He is best known for his protracted persecution of the Jansenists in the 1750s. The bishop is addressed in the "Lettre à M. de Beaumont" in which Rousseau argues in favor of the free discussion of religion.
Bec d'Ambes. A long narrow point of land at the mouth of the Gironde.
Jeremy Bentham, 1748-1832. English philosopher and writer. Although he was intellectually opposed to the notion of "natural rights", he supported the French Revolution in the spirit of utilitarianism. He was made an honorary citizen of France in 1792.
Louis Alexandre Berthier, 1753-1815. Another of the great French military figures who served in the American Revolution. He was commander of the Versailles National Guard in 1789 and was instrumental in protecting the royal family in October. He also helped the king's aunts escape Versailles in 1791. He left the Army during the period of the Terror, but was reinstated shortly after 9 Thermidor. He rose to greatness as a general under Napoleon, becoming Prince of Wagram and Neufchâtel in 1809.
Louis-Bénigne-François Bertier de Sauvigny, 1737 - 1789. French politician, Intendant of Paris, assassinated together with Foulon.
Claude Louis, Comte Berthollet, 1749-1822. French chemist best known for his work with chlorine and for his contributions to chemical nomenclature.
Antoine-François Bertrand, marquis de Moleville, 1744-1818. Nobleman and Navy Minister in the Constitutional Cabinet. He urged Louis XVI to flee Paris and was accused of being one of the "Austrian Committee", the shadowy circle accused of all sorts of anti-revolutionary plots. He emigrated in 1793.
Pierre-Victor de Besenval, 1721 - 1791, French general. He directly commanded the Swiss Guards in Louis XVI's service and was the general of the Gardes Françaises, which became the national guard under La Fayette. He refused to order his troops to attack the Parisiennes storming the Bastille, July 14, 1789. His memoirs were an important source to Carlyle.
Bicêtre Hospital. The center of medicine and medical training in Paris; comparable perhaps to St. Barts in London except that it was also used as a prison.
Jean Nicolas Billaud Varenne, 1756-1819. Lawyer of La Rochelle. He was a radical Republican and Jacobin, known as "le Rectiligne" for his political rigidness. A member of the Committee of Public Safety from September, 1793, he was one of the most powerful men in France during the Terror. He took part in the overthrow of Robespierre on 9 Thermidor, but was exiled to Guyane. After the restoration in 1815 he took refuge in Haiti where he died.
Armand Louis de Gontaut, duc de Lauzun, later duc de Biron, 1747-1793. Under his title of Lauzun he saw extensive action in the American Revolution and the concurrent English wars. He sat in the States-General for the nobles of Quercy and supported the Third Estate. In 1791 he commanded the Army of Flanders, and in 1792 the Army of the Rhine. He had some successes in the Vendée in 1793 but was accused by Carrier of leniency. He was arrested and guillotined.
Blanc-Gilli, a member of the Legislative Assembly. Little is known about him. Blanc-Gilli was from Marseilles and wrote on economics and tax policy. On December 11, 1791, he submitted a proposal for the abolition of negro slavery in the French colonies, but it never came to the floor. He deserted the Assembly after August 10 and went into hiding.
Philibert-François Rouxel de Blanchelande, 1735-1793. French colonial general and governor. He took Trinidad from the English in 1781, but lost the city of San Domingo (now capitol of the Dominican Republic) to royalist forces in 1792. For this latter he was summoned to Paris where he was condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal.
François-Antoine, comte de Boissy d'Anglas, 1756-1826,. French Protestant politician, elected to represent the Third Estate in the States-General. (His title came after the revolution.) He was an important figure in governments from the time of the Terror, stressing the need for freedom of religion and press.
Chareles, Marquis de Bonchamps, 1760-1793. One of the chief military leaders of the Vendée rebellion. He was a royalist officer garrisoned in southwestern France when he was asked to join and help lead the rebels in 1792. He died in the battle of Cholet, October 17, 1793.
Bonhomme-Richard. The ship loaned John Paul Jones by Louis XVI for use in attacking British shipping. Originally the Duc de Duras, Jones renamed it after the "author" of Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac. It was sunk in the fight with HMS Serapis in 1789, the greatest triumph of Jones's career.
bosky. An adjective meaning "abundant in trees and shrubs".
François Claude Amour Bouillé, 1739-1800. Royalist general and cousin of the Marquis de La Fayette. He distinguished himself in the Caribbean during the English war following the American Revolution and was a favorite of Louis XVI. It was at Bouillé's suggestion that the King and his family attempted to flee the country in April, 1792, an attempt which led to Louis' capture, imprisonment and eventual execution. Bouillé fled to the Austrian lines. He later served in the Russian army.
François Louis Bourdon de l'Oise, d. 1797. An agent of the Paris Parlement who became a whole-hearted supporter of the Revolution. He was by turns a radical and a reactionary. His ruling passion seems to have been opposition to whomever was in power, and it finally got him exiled to French Guiana, where he died.
Jean-Baptiste Boyer-Fongrède, 1765-1793, Bordeaux lawyer. He was elected to the Convention in September, 1792 and quickly rose to power. He was accused of enriching himself at the expense of the Revolution and beheaded in November, 1793.
Brennus, ancient king of the Gauls. He attacked and sacked Rome in the 4th Century B.C. A second Brennus led the Gauls into Greece and raided the Temple of Apollo at Delphi about a century later.
Louis-Auguste le Tonnelier, baron de Breteuil, 1730 - 1807, Interior Minister in the government of Louis XVI, briefly Controller General in 1789 after the departure of Necker, and a secret contact between the king and European governments after 1790.
Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, 1754-1793. Journalist and provocateur. He is best known for advocating the abolition of negro slavery through the Société de Amis de Noirs. He proposed the first municipal constitution for Paris, which was rejected by the districts. At the beginning of the revolution, he edited the Patriote Français newspaper and became a leading voice of the Girondists (originally called Brissotins), for which he was executed.
Victor-François, duc de Broglie, 1715-1804. Marshal of France and son of a Marshal, he distinguished himself in the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War. He was Louis XVI's minister of war at the end of the reign and commanded the "Army of the Princes" against the Revolution in 1792.
George Bryan "Beau" Brummell, 1778-1840. English dandy and fashion-setter.
Brunhilde, queen of the Franks (545-613). Wife of Sigebert, mother and regent of Childebert II. She is said to have instigated a war of 40 years' duration over the murder of her sister.
Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, 1735-1806. Commander in chief of the joint Prussian and Austrian armies on the frontiers of France in 1792. His famous manifest of July 28, 1792, in which he declared the coalition's goal to be "to put an end to the anarchy in the interior of France, to check the attacks upon the throne and the altar, to reestablish the legal power, to restore to the king the security and the liberty of which he is now deprived and to place him in a position to exercise once more the legitimate authority which belongs to him;" and threatened that "if the least violence be offered to their Majesties the king, queen, and royal family, and if their safety and their liberty be not immediately assured, they will inflict an ever memorable vengeance by delivering over the city of Paris to military execution and complete destruction, and the rebels guilty of the said outrages to the punishment that they merit;" was probably one of the chief causes of the overthrow of the monarchy on August 10. Brunswick had mixed success against the French. He was defeated at Valmy in 1792, but in 1793 he drove the French back from the Rhine at Kaiserslautern and Pirmasens. In 1806 he was wounded at Auerstedt and later died of his wounds.
Pierre de Ruel, Marquis de Beurnonville, 1752-1821. French general. He was a commander in the early victories of the Republic. Recalled to Paris, he denounced his old command Dumouriez and was sent to watch him in 1793. Beurnonville was captured, along with Camus, in Dumouriez's treason and was held by the Austrians until 1795. He returned to the Army after his captivity and rose to high rank under the Directory and nobility under Napoleon.
Georges Louis Leclerc,Comte de Buffon, 1707-1788. Mathmetician and natural historian, discoverer of the Binomial Theorem. He is best known for his work in probability theory. His widow became the mistress of Philippe Égalité and is credited with convincing Orléns not to emigrate to America in 1789.
François Nicholas Léonard Buzot, 1760-1794. French lawyer of Evreux. Elected to the Estates-General for the third estate, he was instrumental in the nationalization of Church property. In the National Convention he proposed two important measures: the formation of a National Guard to protect the Convention; and a death sentence for emigrées who refused to return. He voted for the death of Louis XVI but with the appeal of the people. Buzot was extremely unpopular with the Mountain and the Paris Commune and was forced to flee Paris when the Girondists were proscribed in June, 1793. He tried to organize a Federalist coup against the Convention but failed and committed suicide.
Pierre-Jean-George Cabanis, 1757-1808. French philosopher and physiologist, a specialist in diseases of the pancreas and liver.
Thérésa Cabarrus, 1773-1835. Ci-devant Comtesse de Fontenai, she was in prison in Bordeaux when she met Tallien, who fell in love with her. Her arrest in Paris is given by Baroness Orczy in one of her Pimpernel books as the proximate cause of Tallien's successful plot against Robespierre. Cabarrus married Tallien but later divorced him and subsequently married twice again.
Georges Cadoudal, 1771-1804. Son of a miller in Bretagne, he rose to command one of the rebel armies of La Vendée. The later part of his life was consumed in plots to kill Napoleon, for which he was finally executed in 1804.
Giuseppe Balsamo Cagliostro, 1743 - 1795. Italian montebank who posed as a nobleman. Dumas wrote a novel "Joseph Balsamo" which fictionalized his rôle in the Revolution.
Ça Ira, a poem composed about April, 1790 by a street singer named Ladrée and sung to the Carillon National, a court dance tune. It was the anthem of the Revolution. The title is said to have been a favorite saying of Benjamin Franklin who, when frequently asked how the American Revolution was going, would reply Ah, ah, ça ira, ça ira!. The phrase eludes precise translation into English. Literally it means "that will go", with the implication that it will go well. I have seen it rendered as "It will be OK", "We will succeed", "We will speed", etc.

Ah ! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,   Ah, it's coming, coming, coming,
Le peuple en ce jour sans cesse répète:   The people are constantly singing.
Ah ! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   Ah, it's coming, coming, coming,
Malgré les mutins, tout réussira!   Despite the rascals, all succeeds.
 
Nos ennemis confus en restent là,   Our enemies increasingly confused,
Et nous allons chanter Alléluia:   We will sing Alleleuhia.
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming.
Quand Boileau jadis du clergé parla.   When Boileau spoke about the priests
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,   It is coming, coming, coming
Comme un prophète il a prédit cela.   Like a prophet he predicted this.
En chantant ma chansonnette   In singing my song
Avec plaisir on dira,   With pleasure I say
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira.   It is coming, coming, coming.
 
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira  
Suivant les maximes de l'Évangile   As the Gospels say
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming.
Du législateur tout s'accomplira   And the Legislature will achieve
Celui qui s'élève on abaissera   Who is first will be last
Et qui s'abaisse l'on élèvera   And the last first.
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming.
Le vrai catéchisme nous instruira   The true catechism will instruct us
Et l'affreux fanatisme s'éteindra   And dreadful fanaticism will disappear
Pour être à la loi docile   ???
Tout Français s'exercera   ???
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira  
 
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming.
Pierrot et Margot chantent à la guinguette   Punch and Judy sing it in the tavern:
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming.
Réjouissons-nous le bon temps viendra   We'll rejoice for the good times are coming
Le peuple français jadis à quia   The French people were once dirt
L'aristocrate dit mea culpa   Now the aristocrats admit their fault.
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming.
Le clergé regrette le bien qu'il a   The Church now regrets its wealth;
Par justice la Nation l'aura   Via justice it will be the Nation's
Par le prudent La Fayette   By the work of the wise Lafayette
Tout trouble s'apaisera   All trouble will be quelled.
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming.
 
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming.
Par les flambeaux de l'auguste assemblée   By the guiding light of the august Assembly
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming.
Le peuple armé toujours se gardera   The people, armed, will protect
Le vrai d'avec le faux l'on connaîtra   The truth against falsehood
Le citoyen pour le bien soutiendra   And the Citizens will support the good.
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming.
Quand l'aristocrate protestera   When the aristocrats complain
Le bon citoyen au nez lui rira   The Citizens will ridicule them
Sans avoir l'âme troublée   Without remorse
Toujours le plus fort sera   And always more strongly.
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming.
 
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming.
Petits comme grands sont soldats dans l'âme   The small and the great are soldiers in their spirits
Ah ! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming.
Pendant la guerre aucun ne trahira   During the war there will be no traitors
 
S'il voit du louche hardiment parlera   When a slacker is seen he will be denounced.
Ah ! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming.
La Fayette dit vienne qui voudra   Lafayette says, "Follow who will!"
Le patriotisme leur répondra   Patriotism will respond
Sans crainte ni feu ni flamme   Fearing nor fire nor flame
Le Français toujours vaincra   The French will always conquer.
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira.   It is coming, coming, coming.

These additional couplets were improvised at the Féte de la Fédération in July 1790 and were always sung thereafter:

Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira! Ah! ça ira!   It is coming, coming, coming!
Les aristocrates à la lanterne!   Aristrocrats to the lamp iron!
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira   It is coming, coming, coming,
Les aristocrates on les pendra!   The atistocrats must be hung!
Le despotisme expirera   Tyranny will die
La liberté triomphera   Liberty will triumph,
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!   It is coming, coming, coming!
Nous n'avons plus ni nobles ni prêtrres   We'll be rid of nobles and priests,
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!   Ah, it's coming, coming, coming.
L'Egalité partout régnera   Equality will reign everywhere
L'esclave autrichien le suivra   The Austrian slaves will follow it
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!   It is coming, coming, coming.
Et leur infernale clique   And their infernal cliques
Au diable s'envolera.   With the devil will fly away.

Some pro-feuillant verses which have been associated with the song are

Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira! Ah! ça ira!   It is coming, coming, coming!
Voilà le refrain qu'on repètera,   That is the refrain they all will repeat
La Fayette etois bon content d'ça,   Lafayette is well pleased with it,
Louis Seize de joie en pleura,   Louis XVI weeps for joy,
Autour de l'autel on dansa   Round the altar we will dance
Quel spectacle que çelui là.   What a scene that will be!
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira! Ah! ça ira!   It is coming, coming, coming!
Le Roi de lè loi le gardien sera.   The king will be guardian of the law.
La douce Égalité renaitra,   Sweet equality will be reborn,
Notre felecité s'ensuivra,   Our happiness will ensue,
La liberté triomphera,   Liberty will triumph,
Et dans cent ans l'on redira   And in 100 years they will still sing
Ah! Ça ira, ça ira, ça ira! Ah! ça ira!   It is coming, coming, coming!
Charles Alexandre de Calonne, 1734-1802. French politician. He came to power as controller of finances after the disgrace of Turgot and Necker and the failures who followed them. His solution to the financial crisis was a general land tax, in support of which he convinced Louis XVI to convene the first Assembly of Notables, which dismissed his proposal out of hand. Calonne was disgraced and replaced as Comptroller by Brienne.
Pierre Joseph Cambon, 1756-1820. Lawyer of Monpelier. Elected to the Legislative Assembly, he took an interest in the public finance and was for the most part in charge of the treasury from the inception of the Republic until 1795. Cambon was hated by Robespierre, and the public controversy between them in Thermidor of the Year II led to Robespierre's overthrow. Cambon tried to retire, but his renown and deep involvement in the affairs of the treasury kept him under attack by the Royalists after Thermidor. He had little peace in the last 25 years of his life.
Cambyses, Achaemenid Persian ruler of the 6th century B.C. The name was that of two kings: one the father, the other the son, of Cyrus the Great. The younger Cambyses conquered Egypt and assumed the throne of the Pharoahs. He is said to have been a drunkard and to have done and spoken terrible things while in his cups.
M. Campan, referred to by Carlyle as "Usher" or master-of-ceremonies. This is probably the husband of Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan.
Jeanne-Louise Henriette Campan (née Genêt), 1752-1822. Waiting lady to Marie-Antoinette from 1770 until the Queen's imprisonment in 1792. Her mémoires, published in 1823 as Mémoires sur la vie de Marie-Antoinette, suivis de souvenirs et anecdotes sur le règne de Louis XIV et de Louis XV, are frequently cited by Carlyle and are available in English translation at Project Gutenberg.
Armand Gaston Camus, 1740-1804. Archivist of the Constituent Assembly and the Legislative Assembly. He was captured by the Austrians in April 1793 while on mission to watch Dumouriez; and was released in 1795 in exchange for Louis XVI's daughter. He spent the rest of his life in the archives, avoiding politics.
Emilie Julie Candeille, 1767-1834. Actress, playwright and composer. Perhaps best known for her opera Catherine, ou la belle fermiere. She was the star performer of the Theatre Français during the Terror. She was inadvertently of use to the Jacobins for purposes of display.
La Carmagnole. One of the favorite songs of the Revolution. It was both a song and a dance, the steps often being performed by crowds following prisoners to the guillotine.

   
Madam' Veto avait promis   Lady Veto has promised
De faire égorger tout Paris    To slit the throats of all Paris
Mais son coup a manqué   But her blow has missed
Grâce à nos canonniers.   Thanks to our gunners;
 
Dansons la Carmagnole   Let us dance the Carmagnole
Vive le son (bis)   Long live the sound!
Dansons la Carmagnole   Let us dance the Carmagnole
Vive le son du canon !   Long live the sound of the Cannon.
Dansons la Carmagnole   Let us dance the Carmagnole
Vive le son (bis)   Long live the sound!
Dansons la Carmagnole   Let us dance the Carmagnole
Vive le son du canon!   Long live the sound of the Cannon.
 
Monsieur Veto avait promis (bis)   Sir Veto has promised
D'être fidèle à son pays   To be faithful to his country.
Mais il y a manqué,   But he failed
Ne faisons pas de quartier.   ???
 
Antoinette avait résolu (bis)   Antoinette has resolved
De nous faire tomber sur le cul (bis)   To overcome us,
mais son coup a manqué,   But her blow missed us,
Ne faisons pas de quartier.
  ???
 
Amis, restons unis (bis)   Friends, let us remain calm.
Ne craignons pas nos ennemis (bis)   Do not fear our enemies
S'ils viennent nous attaquer,   If they attack,
Nous les ferons sauter.   We will make them jump.
 
Oui, nous nous souviendrons toujours (bis)   Yes we will always remember
Des sans-culottes des faubourgs (bis)   The sans-coulottes of the suburbs.
A leur santé buvons,   Drink to the health
Vivent ces francs lurons.
  Of those honest boys.
Canute, (or Knud, or Knut), 996?-1035, the first Viking king of all England. Canute ruled over an empire that included England, Denmark, Norway and parts of Sweden. He is perhaps best known for teaching his courtiers a lesson about flattery and religion. When they told him he was so mighty a King that the very tides would obey him, he had his throne set on a beach. As the tide rose, he ordered the waves to advance no further, with the expected result. The lesson was that the powers of kings are puny compared to the laws and might of God.
Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot, 1753-1823. French soldier. He was a Captain of Engineers at the start of the Revolution. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly for Pas de Calais; ruled France as a member of the Committee of Public Safety in 1793 and 1794; was instrumental in the French victories on the eastern front in those years; and became a great general under Napoleon. His grandson was a President of the Third Republic, his son the minister of education in the Second Republic.
Jean-Louis Carra, 1742-1793. Journalist and politician. With Mercier he founded the widely-read journal Annales Patriotiques in October, 1789. He was a Girondist member of the Convention and was executed at their fall.
Carraccio, a war-cart, drawn by oxen, used by the medieval states of Italy. It bore the standard of the state and an altar upon which priests said mass before battle. Signal-trumpets were blown from it. It was usually surrounded by the best troops of the army.
Jean-Baptiste Carrier,1756-1794. Anti-monarchist lawyer. He was a member of the National Convention and made a reputation for himself of atrocious cruelty by his suppression of the counter-revolution in Nantes. He conspired in the fall of Robespierre but was himself guillotined in November, 1794.
Jean-François Carteaux, 1751-1815, an artist (not a very good one) who because a general. He was transferred from a command in the Alps to defeat the Provençal rebels at Orange, July 16, 1793. He occupied Marseilles August 25, 1793 and began the seige of English-occupied Toulon (though he was arrested and replaced by General Dugommier). He escaped death in the Terror and was reinstated to commands in the Northwest. Bonaparte appointed him Administrator of the National Lottery.
Caryatides. Decorative figures carved into the structural supports of buildings. The Louvre has some of the most beautiful examples.
Jean-Baptiste Cavaignac, 1762-1829. Member of the Convention for Lot, he was almost uninteruptedly "on mission" to the provinces, most notably at Brest with Pinet, and with the Army of the Eastern Pyrenees in 1794. He escaped charges of repression after the fall of the Jacobins and went on to be a minor functionary in the Empire.
Cassandra, daughter of Priam, the king of Troy. The god Apollo fell in love with her and promised her the gift of prophecy if she would have sex with him. Prophecy given, she withheld her favor. Apollo allowed her to keep her power, but added the curse that no one would believe her.
Court of Cassation. The highest criminal appeals court under the Constituent, organized in April, 1791.
Armand Charles Augustin, duc de Castries, 1756-1842. Son of Louis XVI's Navy Minister, he commanded a regiment under Rochambeau in the American Revolution. He fled France after a celebrated duel with Charles Lameth in 1790, and raised a corps of emigrants in the pay of England. After the revolution he held important positions in the government of Louis XVIII.
Jacques Cathelineau, 1759-1793. A wool merchant and church sexton of the Vendée, known at the "Saint of Anjou". When he heard of a rising against the Convention after the execution of the King, he raised an army from the peasants of Le Pin and brought them in support. In July he was proclaimed general of the Catholic and Royal Army. He died of wounds suffered in the attack on Nantes.
Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazales, 1758-1805. He is remembered most for his eloquent defense of monarchy in the Constituent Assembly. Despite his dedication to monarchy, he argued for an English-style system. After the execution of the king, he emigrated.
Jacques Cazotte, 1719-1792. Author of Le Diable Amoureux (The Devil in Love). He saw the revolution as Satanic. A disciple of the Illuminati, Cazotte claimed powers of prophecy. Discovery of some of his "prophetic" letters concerning the revolution led to his arrest as a Royalist. He was executed September 25. There is still something of a cult surrounding him.
Guiseppe Antonio Giachimo Cerutti, 1738-1792. Italian Jesuit who taught at the Jesuit college at Lyons. He was one of the Paris electors for the States General and a friend of Mirabeau. He was publisher, with Rabaut Saint-Etienne and Philippe Antoine Grouvelle of the journal Feuille villageoise. Cerutti preached Mirabeau's funeral sermon in 1791.
François Chabot, 1757-1794. Franciscan friar who became a radical member of the Legislative Assembly; the "Cordelier Trio" consisted of Chabot, Bazire and Merlin de Thionville. Chabot is chiefly known for revolutionary saying like "Christ was the first sanscoulotte". He was caught up in the Foreign Plot -- he and Bazire exchanged accusations -- and was guillotined in April, 1794.
Joseph Chalier, 1747-1793, merchant of Lyons. After 1789 he was one of the leading men in Lyons, organizing the National Guard, regulating the finances of the town, etc. But in November, 1792 he was defeated for Mayor by a conservative, Nievre-Chol. With the aid of the Jacobin Club of which he was a principal, he tried to regain control of the city but failed. The new mayor had him arrested in May and guillotined in July, 1793. He was considered a martyr by the Jacobins.
Claude Chalot, a wine merchant of Saint-Antoine, found himself in charge of one of the few cannon in the possession of the Bastille's besiegers. He later provided a primitive drawing of the siege.
La Chalotais, Louis-René de Caradeuc de. The leader of the Breton Parlement, whose prolonged challenge to the royal power was a contributing factor in Maupeou?'s dissolution of the Parlements.
Aubin Bigorie de Chambon, 1757-1793. A local politician in the department of Corrèze, Chambon was elected to the Convention where he voted for the death of the King with the appeal to the people. When Pétion refused reelection, Chambon was chosen Mayor of Paris (he had earlier been Mayor of Uzerches); but his vote for the appeal to the people led to his proscription along with the Girondins. He fled to his home district of Lubersac where he was murdered.
Sébastien-Roch Nicholas de Chamfort, 1741-1794. French author and Academician, a favorite in the court of Louis XVI but also a strong Republican. Carl Sandburg remembers him in a poem:
There's Chamfort. He's a sample.
Locked himself in his library with a gun,
Shot off his nose and shot out his right eye.
And this Chamfort knew how to write
And thousands read his books on how to live,
But he himself didn't know
How to die by force of his own hand — see?
They found him a red pool on the carpet
Cool as an April forenoon,
Talking and talking gay maxims and grim epigrams.
Well, he wore bandages over his nose and right eye,
Drank coffee and chatted many years
With men and women who loved him
Because he laughed and daily dared Death:
"Come and take me."

Chamfort is credited with an early motto of the revolution: "Guerre aux châteaux; paix uax chaumières" (War to the castles; peace to the cottages).

Luc-Antoine de Champagneux, 1744-1807. Editor of the patriotic newspaper Mail of Lyons. A friend of Roland, he held jobs in the Girondist government in 1792. He spent 13 months in prison but returned to important positions in the Interior Ministry after the fall of Robespierre.
Charenton. A suburb of Paris, on the right bank of the Seine where it received the Marne. It lies between the river and the Bois de Vincennes.
Jacques Charles, 1746-1823. French physicist. He was the first to ascend beneath a hydrogen balloon (1783).
Charles, Comte d'Artois, 1757 - 1836. The younger of Louis XVI's two brothers. He reigned as Charles X. He is often referred to as "Monseigneur".
François-René de Châteaubriand, 1768-1848. One of France's best-known writers. He spent the early part of the Revolution in America, which remained a source of inspiration and imagery his entire career. Returning in 1792, he was a staunch royalist. Châteaubriand fought in Condé's army, was wounded at Thionville, and escaped to England. His reputation secured by his Les génie du Christianisme, Châteaubriand became involved in politics, serving all the governments after 1802 as a minister or ambassador.
(Marie-Anne de Nesle) Duchesse de Chateauroux. The mistress of Louis XV at the time of his illness at Metz in 1744.
Charlemagne (742-814). King of the Franks (but not a Merovingian — his father Pepin having stopped that line), his invasion of Rome in support of Pope Leo III resulted in his being named Emperor of the West in 800 and established the Holy Roman Empire.

Carlyle seems under the impression that Charlesmagne was buried at Salzburg, but most sources say Aachen (Aix la Chapelle).

Charles the Bold, 1433-1477. Last ruling Duke of Burgundy, son of Philip the Good. He ruled an area far larger than Burgundy; it included large parts of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxumbourg and north-eastern France. He occupied Lorraine in 1473 but was not happy in its possession. He was killed in battle by Swiss and Lorrainers.
François-Athanase Charette, 1763-1796. A naval officer who refused to take the oath to the constitution, he joined the Vendén rebellion and commanded one of its most effective armies. He also ensured the ultimate failure of the Vendée by refusing to cooperate with other elements of the royalist army. He was shot at Nantes in 1795 and dies of those wounds the next year.
Charter-chest. A safe-box where legal title to land, honours or other rights were kept. The discovery of old family charter-chests continues to be a source of new information about pre-revolutionary France. Rights held by charter often meant that the masses had no rights at all.
Châtelet, literally "little castle", was originally a fortification guarding the Right Bank approach to a bridge. It became a prison and eventually the headquarters of the Paris police. An action carried out "by the Châtelet" had the authority of the government of Paris.
Florent-Louis-Marie, duc de Châtalet-Lomont, (1727-1793). In 1789 he was commander of the Paris Detachment of the Gardes Français, a unit of some 3600 men and officers. It was on his order that the soldiers fired on the Réveillon rioters on April, and it was his orders they refused to obey in July. Châtalet was a liberal, voting for the joint meeting of the Estates and for the abolishment of tithes.
Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, 1763-1794. One of the most radical of the Cordeliers, he supported Hébert (though he renounced him when Robespierre turned against him) and was an influential leader of the Paris Commune. Carlyle gives him the epithet "Anaxagores" because he was irreligious -- something of which the Greek philosopher Anaxagores was accused -- and was an advocate of the "cult of reason".
Bernard-François, marquis de Chauvelin, 1766-1832. A volunteer with Rochambeau in the American Revolution, he became a courtier at Versailles. Talleyrand brought him to London where he became Ambassador in 1792. He was jailed during the Terror but avoided execution. Chauvelin was elected to the Tribune in 1800 and the Chamber of Deputies in 1816.
André Chénier, 1762-1794, son of a French diplomat and a Greek mother, brother of Marie-Joseph Blaise Chénier with whom he is sometimes confused. Andreé returned to France from England in 1790. From November 1791 to July 1792 he wrote extensively for the Journal de Paris. By most accounts a poet and classicist who wished merely to be left alone, he was mistakenly arrested during the terror and executed even though there was no warrant for him. His life in prison before the guillotine was the subject of an opera Andrea Chénier by Umberto Giordano.
Marie-Joseph Blaise Chénier, 1764-1811. Playwright and politician, younger brother of André Chénier. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly, the National Convention and the Council of 500. Despite his position, he was unable to save his brother from the guillotine, and he was under fear of arrest himself for his supposed "moderate" views.
Claude Chappe d'Auteroche, 1763-1805. Engineer and ci-devant priest who, with his four brothers, developed several successful mechanical telegraph systems. The first of importance was a semaphore system installed between Paris and Lille in 1793. By 1852, systems on the same principal (but improved design) connected all corners of France.
Etienne-François, Duc de Choiseul. Soldier and nobleman whose preferment was due mainly to his favor with Madame Pompadour, whom he warned of the plots of a rival mistress. He was a chief ambassador of the French court and instrumental in gaining French support for the American Revolution. His dismissal by Louis XV is reckoned by some a great error of the reign.
Jérôome Champion de Cicé, 1735-1810. Archbishop of Bourdeaux and a delegate of the clergy in the States General. He wrote significant parts of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. Cicé served as Chancellor (Garde de Sceaux) in the post-Bastille cabinet of Louis XVI.
Lucius Quinctius, 'Cincinnatus' was a Roman patrician land-owner appointed Dictator of Rome around 450 B.C. when the city was threatened by the Aequians. He "set aside his plough", assumed leadership of the armies and defeated the enemy. As soon as the emergency was over, before the end of his 6-month dictatorship, he resigned and returned to his farm.
Étienne Clavière, 1735-1793. Swiss financier who settled in Paris after the failure of the popular revolt in Geneva, 1782. Once a speech writer for Mirabeau, he became finance minister in the Girondist cabinet, but committed suicide in 1793 to avoid Jacobin persecution.
Jean Pierre Louis Hanet Clery. Valet to Louis XVI and to his son after the King's death. He left a memoir of his service in the royal household. Clery was the only servant allowed the king during his imprisonment which Clery shared with his master.
Clio. The Greek Muse of History.
Jean Baptiste du Val du Grace, Baron von Cloots, 1755-1794. Prussian noble of Dutch extraction. He was educated in Paris and returned there during the revolution. In 1790 he changed is name to "Anacharsis" after the Scythian philosopher who came to Athens to absorb the learning and the laws of the Greeks. His trans-nationalist ideas made him popular and he was awarded French citizenship and was elected to the National Convention where he voted for the King's death. Robespierre despised Cloots and had him arrested on trumped-up charges. He was beheaded March 24, 1794.
Clotaire (? - 561). One of the sons of Clovis. King of Soissons.
Frédéric Josias, Prince de Saxe-Cobourg-Saalfeld, 1737-1815. Austrian field-marshal.
Cockade. A small badge, usually of cloth or ribbon, worn on the hat of jacket as a sign of support for or membership in a faction. The symbol of concentric red, white and blue circles seen on French warplanes represents a cockade. Lafayette is given credit for combining white (the color of the Bourbon house) with blue and red (the colors of Paris) to form the patriotic or national cockade. Other well-known cockades were green (worn in July, 1789); white showing loyalty to the King; and black showing support for the Queen.
Edward Cocker, 1631-1676. English engraver and teacher. He was said to have written the famous text Cocker's Arithmetic.
Pierre André Coffinhal, 1762-1794. Vice-president of the Revolutionary Tribunal. He was one of Robespierre's inner circle. On 9 Thermidor, when Hanriot was taken prisoner by the Committee of General Security, he marched a company of horse, with cannon, to the Tuilleries to release him. Arrested with Robespierre, he was executed 18 Thermidor.
Marie-François Henri de Franquetot, duc de Coigny, 1737 -1821 French court figure. He held the post of First Equerry to Louis XVI.
Louis-Henri II, 1772-1804, Prince de Condé, duc d'Bourbon. Courtier and close relative of Louis XVI. He emigrated at the start of the revolution and was involved in several of the emigrée plots. Under the Empire, he fell out of Napoleon's favour and was kidnapped and murdered on Bonaparte's order.
Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet, 1743-1794. French noble mathematician (Esai sur le calcul intégral). Inspector General of the Mint in Louis XVI's government. With Claviére he founded a newspaper, The Monitor, a widely-read promoter of the revolution. He was secretary of the Legislative Assembly and a member of the Constitutional Committe of the National Convention, but as a Girondist fell under the displeasure of the Jacobins. He died in prison. In the first two books of the History, Carlyle quotes Condorcet perhaps more than any other writer .
Louis François Joseph, Prince de Conti, 1734-1814.
Contrat Social, the tract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau — known in English as "The Social Contract" — which began influencing revolutions at the time it was published in 1763 and continues to do so today. If you haven't read it, stop now and read it in translation here . The first line cuts like a knife: "Man was born free, but everywhere he is in chains." Rousseau argues that there is no natural order to government nor are there "natural rights". Society is ordered according to the best agreement its members can arrange. Dissatisfied members need to arrange a better contract. This was anathema to Carlyle.

Rousseau had a way with words that extends even into translation. Imagine the effect of paragraphs like these:

Aristotle . . . said that men are by no means equal naturally, but that some are born for slavery, and others for dominion.

Aristotle was right; but he took the effect for the cause. Nothing can be more certain than that every man born in slavery is born for slavery. Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them: they love their servitude, as the comrades of Ulysses loved their brutish condition. If then there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves against nature. Force made the first slaves, and their cowardice perpetuated the condition.

Studies have shown, however, that the Contrat was not widely read before the Revolution.

Cordeliers. Originally the name of a Paris neighbourhood, later of a section, it was the home of working-class people, though some were of the middle-class. Danton was section president.
The Club of the Cordeliers was formed in May 1790. The original members were from the Paris district of Cordeliers, but the name may also come from their first meeting house -- the monastery of the Franciscan Observantists, called Cordeliers. The asserted purpose of the Club was to keep an eye on the government, and its symbol was an open eye. It was the poor man's Jabobins. After the 10th of August, the driving members -- Danton, Camille, d'Eglantine -- no longer attended and more radical members such as Hébert came to the fore. The club was to the left of Robespierre but could not challenge him. By March, 1794, most of the radicals had been guillotined. Carlyle seems to think that the club was formed by men refused by the Jacobins, but there is no evidence of this.
Charlotte Corday, 1768-1793, spinster of Caen. Disgusted by the purging of the Girondists from the National Convention in June, 1793, she took revenge on Marat, whom she blamed, by murdering him in his bath in Paris, July 13, 1793. She was executed shortly after.
Corvée. The corvée was a form of taxation by compulsory labor in which peasants were required to construct and maintain roadways without compensation.
Côté droit, côté gauche, literally "the right side" and "the left side". Beginning with the National Assembly, political positions were identified by where the factions seated them selves. Those of the côté droit -- the right wing -- were conservative and monarchist. Those of the left (côté gauche) tended to republicanism and were open to change. Those who sat in the high benches above the floor -- the 'Mountain' -- were the most radical. The flat area before the tribunal, the "Plain", attracted members attached to no party. The political arguments of those who occupied the various seats changed greatly over the course of the Revolution, but the relative gradation of opinion stayed fairly constant.
coulisses. From context I suppose this means scenery. The word is usually translated to the English "slides" today.
Georges Couthon, 1755-1794. Lawyer of Clermont in the Auvergne. He was crippled by disease and, except for short distances which he could manage on crutches, had to be carried or pushed in a wheel-chair for all of his political career. Carlyle gives the supposed cause. Couthon was one of the most powerful men in France during 1793 and 1794. He sat on the Committee of Public Safety, where he was closely allied with Robespierre. He was sent on mission to suppress the revolt of Lyons. He was the first to demand the arrest of the Girondist legislators and demanded that victims of the Revolutionary Tribunal be denied lawyers and witnesses in their behalf. Couthon remained loyal to Robespierre and was executed on the same day, 10 Thermidor.
Alexandre Charles Emmanuel de Crussol-Florensac, 1747-1815. Soldier and nobleman in the service of the Count of Artois (the future Charles X). He served at the siege of Gibralter and in the Emigrée army. He was raised to the peerage after the restoration. Crussol's wife, the Baroness Crussol, rode to the Guillotine with Louis XVI's sister Elizabeth. There is a well-known portrait of her by Lebrun.
Peter Creutz modelled and exhibited wax figures of royalty, notables and heroes of the moment. He had an exhibition room in the Palais Royal. It was from his shop that the wax heads of Necker and Orléans were taken by the rioters of July 12, 1789.
Gabriel de Cussy, 1759-1793. He represented the third estate of Caen in the States General, where he was mainly concerned with monetary policy. Returned to the National Convention in 1792, he usually voted with the Girondins. Cussy joined the Girondists who fled Paris in June, 1793 at Caen and fled with them to Bordeaux after their defeat. He was captured there and sent to Paris where he was condemned and executed.
Adam-Philippe, Comte de Custine, 1740-1793. A distinguished volunteer in the American Revolution and member of the States General for the Third Estate of Metz. As general of the Army of the Vosges he was a popular commander, known as "Général Moustache". When the Prussians forced him out of Saxony in the winter of 1792, he was accused of treason but was saved by Robespierre. Sent to the northern front, he was indecisive and eventually was executed for failure to successfully defend Condé.
Jean-Baptiste Le Rond D'Alambert (1717-1783). French scientist, mathematician and philosopher. With Diderot, a chief author of the Encyclopedia.
Roger de Damas d'Antigny, 1765-1823. He emigrated soon after the capture of Louis XVI at Varennes but returned to rise to high rank in the armies of Napoleon.
Robert-François Damiens. A Versailles domestic servent who stabbed Louis XV, January, 1755, in a possible assassination attempt.
Georges Jacques Danton, 1759-1794. Lawyer and leader of a faction ('Dantonists'). He and his followers helped plan the insurrection of August 10, 1792 which overthrew the constitutional monarchy and ended in the death of Louis XVI six months later. Danton was a leading member of the Committee of Public Safety but resigned in the summer of 1793. Disgusted with both the Jacobins and the Girondists, he tried to remain independent of either. Robespierre considered him too dangerous as a free agent; Danton was arrested March 31 and executed April 15, 1794.

Danton's original base of power was the Cordeliers district of Paris where he exercised great influence as section President.

Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825. French neo-classic painter. It is hard to separate David from the Revolution. He depicted the classical scenes that excited the bourgoisis; the Oath of the Tennis Court; the murder of Marat; and Napoleon in his various guises. His taste was the taste of the Revolution. David survived the revolution by a moderate adherance to the radical views. He was exciled to Brussels after the Restoration, but continued to produce powerful and profitable portraits.
Silas Deane, American revolutionary and diplomat, 1735-1789. With Benjamin Franklin and Henry Lee, Deane negotiated first the secret then the open assistance of France in the war of the Colonies against England.
Claude Antoine Nicolas Waldec de Lessart, 1741-1792. Aristocrat of Guyene. He was a court hanger-on and a friend of Necker whom he replaced as Finance Minister in 1790. Delessart served as interior minister and as Foreign Secretary in the constitutional cabinet. He was arrested in September 1792 for his opposition to the Austrian war and was murdered in the September Massacres.
Ramond Romain, comte de Sèze, 1748-1828. Lawyer and magistrate of Bordeaux. He was the principal defense attorney at the trial of Louis XVI. Arrested early in the Terror, he was languished in prison until 9 Thermidor. He actively and successfully served all the governments thereafter. He was elected to the Académie in 1816 and was raised to the peerage by Louis XVIII in 1815.
Camille Desmoulins, 1760-1794. Lawyer who was more caught up in than a leader of the Revolution. His defining moment was July 12, 1789, when he incited a riot at the Palais Royal which spread and continued until the Bastille was taken July 14. Although he wrote for clemency and moderation, he also called for the hanging of aristocrats from the lampposts. He was a Dantonist and fell with Danton. During the last half of 1789 he published a popular paper Révolutions de France et de Brabant. In late 1793 he started another important paper, Vieux Cordeliers, which eloquently opposed Hébert's Père Duchesne.
Denis Diderot, 1713-1784. French philosopher and one of the chief authors and editors of the Encyclopedia. His writings in favor of democracy were influential.
Theobald Dillon, 1745-1792, descendent of a famous line of noble Irish military men. He distinguished himself as a volunteer in the American Revolution. Dillon commanded the French force which met the Austrians at Pas de Baisieux, April 29, 1792. The French broke ranks and fled before any shots were fired. The rumour spread that Dillon had betrayed his army to the Austrians; he was captured and killed by his own troops.
Arthur Dillon, 2nd count of Dillon, 1750-1794. Irish-born general of the French Army. He commanded the Regiment Dillon, a unit formed before the revolution but which was always loyal to the revolutionary government. Dillon was named lieutenant-general of the Army of the North and performed well during the Prussian invasion of 1792. He fell under suspicion as a friend of Dumouriez and was executed during the Terror.
Claude-Emmanuel Dobsen. One of the enragés and a friend of Varlet.
Domdaniel. The name of a mytical undersea cavern where evil magicians met. Carlyle liked this word a lot.
William Dodd, 1729-1777, disgraced English cleric. He lost his position when his wife tried to bribe a Bishop. Later, in an attempt to pay down his large debts, he forged the signature of a private pupil of his, Philip Stanhope, later Earl of Chesterfield. For this he was hanged. It was Dodd about whom Samuel Johnson said "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
Amédéde Doppet, 1753-1799. Physician, statesman, and general. He is best known as one of the leaders of the siege of Toulon.
Jean-Baptiste Drouet, 1763-1824, postmaster of the village of Sainte Menehould and a former dragoon. It was he who recognized the King during his flight in June 1791. Drouet rode ahead to Varennes and organized the King's capture there. Later Drouet was elected to the National Convention, where he voted for the death of the King, and the Council of 500. He prospered under the Empire but was forced to flee the country on the restoration of Charles X.
Marie-Jeanne Becu, Comtesse du Barry , 1743-1793 Marie-Jeanne Bècu, the mistress of Louis XV's last years. She was of low origins and an illegitimate child and reviled by both the court and the population. Carlyle speaks of her as of a whore, and he is reflecting the public opinion.

On the death of Louis XV, his successor confined Dubarry to a convent for two years. On her release, she resumed a life of luxury and lovers. Her many trips to England brougt her under the suspicion of the Revolutionary government; she was arrested, tried and executed at the age of 50.

Guillaume Dubois, 1656-1723. Cardinal and archbishop of Cambrai. He held several important posts in the government of Louis XIV and in the regency; he was the private tutor of the Duke of Chartres (an earlier one, not Philippe Egalité). The character given of Dubois by nobles who left memoirs (Saint-Simon, for example) is one of a libertine and a grifter. He probably wasn't as bad as all that.
Edmond Louis Alexis Dubois-Crancé, 1747-1814. A career military man though a commoner, he served in the Constituent Assembly and the National Assembly, concentrating on military matters. He is given credit now -- but was not then -- for reforms which greatly increased the effectiveness of the French Army. Sent on mission to the Army of the Alps besieging Lyons, he directed operations with moderation and was therefore replaced by Couthon. Dubois-Crancé served in later governments and was Secretary of War at the time of Napoleon's coup in 1799.
Gascard-Séverin Duchastel, 1766-1793. Soldier and businessman of Deux-Sévres. A member of the National Convention, he is best known for having been carried from his sick-bed into the convention hall in order to vote on the question of the King's sentence. Although he voted for the arrest of Marat, he was not expelled with the leading Girondists in June, 1793. Duchastel did, however, join some of the proscribed deputies at Caen in the summer of 1793. He made his way to Bordeaux where he was captured and accused of compliciy with the Vedén rebels. Ducshastel was executed October 10, 1793.
Jean François Ducos, 1765-1793, a tradesman and representative of the Gironde in the Legislative Assembly. He was among the most radical of the legislators, but fell foul of Danton and was guillotined in October 1793.
Pierre Roger Ducos, 1754-1816. A legislator who played a minor role in the events until after Thermidor, when he was elected to the 500 and later to the Directorate. He gained great influence under Napoleon, but was exiled as a regicide after the Restoration. He is widely viewed as a man of no talent who rose far beyond the level of his capabilities.
Charles Coquille dit Dugommier, 1738-1794. French colonial soldier who was sent to France as deputy to the Legislative Assembly in 1791, representing the French Windward islands. He was recalled to active duty to command the French forces besieging the English at Toulon. He later fought the Spanish in the Pyrenees and was killed by artillery fire at the battle of la Montagne Noire.
François Dumas, 1757-1794. Lawyer of Lons-le-Saunier . He was introduced to Robespierre by Robespierres's brother. In September 1793 he was appointed Vice-President of the Revolutionary Tribunal; and in April 1794 he succeeded Armand Herman as President. The trials over which he presided were marked by complete disregard for legal form. Dumas was violent and arrogant and his behavior probably contributed to the fall of Robespierre. He was arrested after 9 Thermidor and was soon executed.
Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, 1762-1807, the natural son of Alexandre Antoine Davy, marquis de la Pailleterie and a negro slave, Marie-Césette Dumas; and father of the famous novelist. He sat in the Legislative Assembly as a royalist and was one of the best known of Napoleon's generals, earning the sobriquette "the first soldier of the world."
Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont, 1759-1829, Genevese Protestant clergyman, lawyer and writer. He served as Mirabeau's speech-writer and ghost-writer, and later was his biographer. He had spent much time in England in the 1780s and returned there in 1791.
Charles-François Dumouriez, (born with the title du Perier), 1739-1823. Career soldier who served in the secret service of Louis XV, where he was a protege of the great minister Choiseul, serving in, among other places, Poland and Corsica; and became commandant of the port of Cherbourg, where he was involved in one of Louis XVI's pet projects -- the creation of an artificial harbour. After the King's flight to Varennes, Dumouriez, now commandant of Nantes, offered to march his garrison to Paris to assist the Assembly. He attached himself to the Girondists and was made Minister of Foreign Affairs under the constitution and later, for 2 days, Minister of War. Unable to be effective in the cabinet, he took field commands in the Revolutionary Army, defeating the Prussians at Valmy and the Austrians at Jemappes. He was never popular with the Revolutionists, though, and fled to the Austrian camp when threatened with arrest in 1793. He finally settled in England where he assisted the government in designing defenses against Napoleon. It is probably this latter service that accounts for Carlyle's relative warmth towards Dumouriez.
Claude-Romain Lauze-Duperret, 1747-1793. Girondist deputy for the Bouches du Rhône. He was considered an extremist in the Assembly, but fell under the influence of Barbaroux in the Convention. He voted for the death of the King, but with an appeal to the people. His moment of fame came in April, 1793 when he drew his sword during the Convention debate on the accusation of Marat. Duperret was not among the first of the Girndists suspended, but he was later arrested and executed in October, 1793.
Pierre-Samuel Dupont, 1739-1817. French economist, journalist and politician. He was enobled by Louis XVI in 1783 for his work in negotiating the free-trade treaty with England; and took the title Dupont de Nemours. Dupont was secretary of the Convocation of Notables and an elected representative of the third estate in the Constituent Assembly. After surviving the Terror and serving the Directory, he emigrated to America where he founded the Dupont industrial empire.
Adrien Jean François Duport-Dutertre, 1759 - 1798, French politician and prominent opponent of Calonne and Brienne in the Paris Parlement. He was elected to the States General for the nobility of Paris. His house became the center of a circle of opposition to the later governments of Louis XVI. Duport became a prominent constitutional monarchist in the Constituent Assembly in which he was part of the "triumvirate" with Barnave and Lameth. He served as minister of justice in the post-revolution cabinet, succeeding Champion de Cicé, but fled to England in 1792.
Louis Lebéque de Presle Duportail, 1743-1802. One of the most important of the French officers who aided the American Revolution. He laid out the camp and defenses of Valley Forge, and helped train the Continental artillery. Durportail was appointed Minister of War in late 1790 and resigned about 13 months later. He fled Jacobian retribution while serving with the army of the Lower Rhine and lived in the United States for most of the rest of his life.
Ernest Dominique François Joseph Duquesnoy, 1749-1795. Deputy to the Legislative Assembly and National Convention for Pas-de-Calais, he voted for the death of Louis XVI without appeal. As a member on mission to the armies, he was known for great courage and great severity. Duquesnoy tended to vote with the Mountain and was a friend of Robespierre. Some believe he was an instigator of the 1 Prairial insurrection, for which he was condemned, but the evidence has never been strong. He committed suicide with Goujon before he could be executed.
Duc de Duras. The duke associated with the court under the Constitution would have been the son and heir of the more famous Duke, Emmanuel-Félicité de Durfort, (1715-1789), who was a marchel of France and a member of the Academy.
Durozoy, conservative publisher of the royalist Gazette de Paris. After August 10, 1792 his presses were confiscated and given to a more "patriotic" journalist, Gorsas.
Jean-Joseph Dusaulx, 1723-1799. Writer, scholar of ancient languages, and a member of the Legislative Assembly and the Convention. Carlyle used his L'insurrection parisienne et de la prise de la Bastille as a reference.
Joseph Paris-Duverney, 1684-1770. A wealthy Paris banker who handled many of the financial transactions of the court of Louis XV.
Henry Essex Edgeworth, 1745-1807, L'Abbé Edgeworth de Firont. Irish-born priest who was vicar-general of the Diocese of Paris at the outbreak of the revolution. Louis XVI chose him as his final confessor. Edgeworth served the surviving members of the royal family in exile and died before the restoration.
eleutheromaniac, an adjective meaning "mad for freedom". Another of Carlyle's favorite words.
Jacob Elie, a 2nd lieutenant of the Queen's Infantry who, along with Pierre-Augustin Hulin, helped organize the mob at the Bastille, July 14, 1789.
Ell-wand. A stick for measuring cloth. It would be one "ell" in length. The "ell" was a measure that differed from country to country: in England it was 45 inches; in Scotland 37; in Flanders 26.
Madame Elizabeth, (1764-1794), unmarried sister of Louis XVI. She lived in her brother's household and was emprisoned with the royal family after August 10, 1792. She went to the guillotine in May, 1794, some 16 months after her royal brother.
Enceladus, a Titan who was defeated by Athena in the war between the Giants and the children of Saturn. He was buried by piling Mount Aetna on top of his body, and Aetna's rumblings were attributed to him. Mount Aetna is in Sicily, or Trinacria.
Epimenides, 6th Century B.C., Cretan philosopher and mystic. He is said to have wandered into the Diktaian Caves (the birth-place of Zeus) near Gnossos while tending his father's sheep and to have slept there 57 years, filled with divine dreams. He emerged both wise and good.
Erebus, the mythological personification of the darkness of the underworld. The name conveyed the idea of "covered" or "obscured" in Greek. Erebus was said to be a son of Chaos.
Jean-Jacques d'Duval d'Espréménil, 1745-1794, council in the Paris Parlement, delegate of the Paris nobles in the States General, Royalist in the Constituent Assembly. Guillotined in April, 1794.
Charles Henri Jean-Baptiste, Comte d'Estaing, 1729-1794. Admiral and general. He won fame in the American Revolution but was never a great military leader. He was executed during the Terror.
esurient, an adjective meaning hungry or greedy.
Ethis de Corny, the purchasing agent for the King in Paris, he was one of the Electors for the States-General. He took part in the negotiations that preceded the July 14 attack on the Bastille.
Philippe François Nazaire Fabre d'Eglantine, 1750-1794. Playwright of Carcassonne. He gained fame on the coattails of Danton, who befriended him. Although he sat in the Convention and voted for the Mountain -- for the guilt and death of the King; for the price Maximum; for the Law of Suspects -- he never had the full trust of the most ardent revolutionaries. Part of this was the affected "d'Eglantine", an extension he himself added after winning a crown of eglantine flowers at a literary competition in Toulouse. Fabre was arrested in 1794 for involvement in the Company of the Indies scandal. Though he undoubtedly had his hand out, there was no evidence of his active involvement. Nonetheless he was guillotined in April, 1794.

Fabre is perhaps best known for two things: Inventing the names of the months and days of the Revolutionary calendar; and blithely passing out copies of his poems on his way to the gallows.

Eumenides. A euphemistic name given to the Erinyes, or Fates, as they were worshipped in Athens. It means something like "the well-disposed ones".
The Fates. In Greek mythology, the three daughters of Zeus (order) and Thetis (necessity) were said to govern the lift of man:

Twice in the French Revolution, Carlyle puts the scissors in the hands of Clotho, I know not on what authority.

Claude Fauchet, 1744-1793, clergyman (he was elected constitutional bishop of Calvados) and a leader of the attack on the Bastille. In the legislature he styled himself "Attorney General of the Truth". He edited the journal La Bouche de Fer and founded a liberal political club, the Cercle Social, to which Condorcet, Brissot and many others belonged. The club was suppressed in 1793 and Fauchet was executed as one of the principal Girondists.
Thomas de Mahay, Marquis de Favras, 1744-1790, a royalist involved in a plot to help the King flee Paris in 1789. The plot is supposed to have originated with the King's brother, the comte d'Artois. Favras was apprehended and hung. He is probably best known for his words when handed his death warrant: "I see you have made three spelling mistakes."
François de Salignon de la Mothe-Fénelon, 1651-1715. A French bishop and political writer. He wrote that the ideal political system for France was a strong monarchy supported and limited by the aristocracy and by a triennial States-General.
Jean Féraud 1764-1795. Member of the National Convention who tried to resist the rioting mob on 1 Prairial and was killed by them. He is sometimes referred to as the last victim of the Terror.
Ferney, Voltaire's estate near the French-Swiss border. In the last twenty years of Voltaire's life, it was known as "the intellectual capital of Europe." The place is famous as the long-time residence of Voltaire. It has long had a fascination for Englishmen, as can by seen in these lines from W.H. Auden's poem "Voltaire at Ferney":

Perfectly happy now, he looked at his estate.
An exile making watches glanced up as he passed
And went on working; where a hospital was rising fast,
A joiner touched his cap; an agent came to tell
Some of the trees he'd planted were progressing well.
The white alps glittered. It was summer. He was very great.
Far off in Paris where his enemies
Whispered that he was wicked, in an upright chair
A blind old woman longed for death and letters. He would write,
"Nothing is better than life." But was it? Yes, the fight
Against the false and the unfair
Was always worth it. So was gardening. Civilize.
Hans Axel, Count von Fersen, (1755-1810). Swedish diplomat and French soldier. As an officer of the Royal Bavière, he accompanied Rochambeau to America as his adjutant, where he served with distinction. In 1789 he replaced the Baron de Staël as Swedish envoy to Versailles. Fersen was close to the royal family (some rumours of Marie-Therese's infidelities involved him). The attempted escape to Varennes could not have happened without him. He

After the execution of the King, Ferson came to Paris in disguise to try to rescue the Queen, but with no success.

ferula. An instrument (a switch, perhaps, or a measuring stick) used to discipline school children. Carlyle also uses it in the sense of disciplinary punishment itself.
Club of the Feuillans. Formed in July, 1791 by the splinter of the Jacobins who were against removing the King, after the anti-monarchic riots and massacre at the Champs de Mars. Barnave and Lafayette were chief members. Feuillants were prominent in the government until March, 1792, when they were replaced by Gerondist (Brissotin) ministers, members of the Jacobins. As with the Jacobins, the Feuillants took their name from their meeting place, in this case the Abbaye of the Feiullants in Paris.
fictile. An adjective meaning malleable or formable. Often applied to the clay used to form pottery.
fingent. A difficult and obscure adjective used to describe things that are in the action of being moulded.
Jacques de Flesselles, ? - July 14, 1789. As Prévôt de Marchands, Flesselles was in charge of the munitions at the Hôtel de Ville. He surrendered to the July 13 mob only 3 muskets. Before becoming Prévôt, he was Intendant of Lyons. He was killed by the mob after the taking of the Bastille.
Jean-Baptiste Fleuriot-Lescot, 1761-1794. An assistant to Tinville as prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal, he was Robespierre's choice to succeed Pache as mayor of Paris in April, 2004. He attempted to raise an insurrection to save Robespierre on 9 Thermidor, but failed and was executed with Robespierre on 10 Thermidor.
Omer-Louis-François Joly De Fleury, 1715-1810. French lawyer and politician. Advocate-general of the Paris Parlement and for a time Louis XVI's controller-general. His relative, the Cardinal Fleury was famous for bringing the finances of Louis XV into a semblance of order. De Fleury succeeded Necker in the controllership and was replaced by d'Ormesson
Georg Forster, 1754-1794, a Danziger journalist and travel-writer who was inspired by the revolution and accompanied the French Army of the Rhine in 1792. He founded the Jacobin club in Mainz after it fell to Custine. Carlyle for some reason calls him "Foster".
Fortunatus's Purse. Fortunatus was a figure from medieval romances who possessed a magic purse from which 10 pieces of gold could always be drawn; and a magic hat which could transport him wherever he wished to go.
Joseph Fouché, c.1760-1820. One of the great opportunists. He rose from Oratorian teaching monk under Louis XVI to Duke of Otranto under Napoleon. He was elected to the National Convention and first supported the Girondists; but seeing how the wind went he switched to the Mountain. As a member on mission, he was responsible for many of the atrocities of Nantes and brutally repressed the revolt of Lyons in 1793. Fouché was a key actor in the overthrow of Robespierre in 1794 and went on to become an important supporter of, and later Minister of Police under, Napoleon. Nor did he stop there: in 1814 he was serving Napoleon; by 1815 he was in the government of Louis XVIII.
Joseph-François Foulon de Doué, 1715 - 1789. French politician and Louis XVI's minister of finance for a few days after Necker's second dismissal. Assassinated together with his son-in-law Bertier eight days after the fall of the Bastille. The aristocratic Foulon was infamous for saying, in an earlier period of famine, that "If the people are hungry, let them feed on grass. Wait till I am minister, I will make them eat hay".
Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville, 1746-1795. Lawyer and the notorious public prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal during the Terror. He prosecuted the Girondists and Marie-Antoinette and Danton, and thousands more, to their deaths. He was himself beheaded after the fall of Robespierre.
Claude Fornier, Fournier l'Americain, 1745-1825. A distiller in Santo Domingo until his premises were destroyed by fire, he returned just in time for the Revolution and was important in organizing the local Paris militias. He was extremely unpopular with the politicians of the time, even being thrown out of the Cordeliers for radicalism. He continued a thorn in the side, and frequently the prisoner of, every government until 1814.
Benjamin Franklin, American printer and Renaissance Man, 1706-1790. Franklin resided in Paris for most of the Revilutionary War. He was very popular with the Court and with the people and was instrumental in securing French aid for the American rebels. Franklin was elected to the Academie Français.
Fredegonda, 543-597. Widow of Merovingian King Chilperic I and mother and regent of Clothaire II.
Louis Marie Stanislaus Fréron, 1754-1802. Son of the anti-Voltaireian editor Elie Catherine Fréron whom he succeeded as publisher of L'Année Litteraire. He was editor of the violent journal L'Orateur. Fréron maintained a political position by always jumping to the right party, failing only in 1798 when he was refused the hand of Pauline Bonapart, Napoleon's sister.
Emmanuel Marie Michel Philippe Fréteau, jurist, member of the Paris Parlement. He was one of the judges whose insolence towards Louis XVI led the latter to exile the Paris Parlement under Brienne.
Junius and Emmanuel Frey. Pseudonyms of the brothers Moses and David Dobrushka, Jews of Strasbourg who became financiers during the Revolution. Their sister, Léopaldine, married Chabot, providing them some protection for their financial manipulations. They ensured themselves good-will by making large charitable contributions and payments to legislators. A house of cards they had built up around the East India Company collapsed in 1793 and the brothers were arrested on charges of being Austrian spies. Both were executed with Danton
Fronde (1648-1653). A period of disturbances during the minority of Louis XIV, now seen as a kind of "last gasp" attempt of the French nobility to limit the power of the monarchy. There were financial grievances among the merchant class as well, mainly against the taxing policites of Richelieu and Mazarin.
Fugleman. A leader, particularly a political leader. The word derives from the German for a squad or file leader -- a corporal.
furibund, an adjective describing a person who is in a rage of fury.
The Furies, or Erinyes. The Greek goddesses of vengeance. They are usually depicted as harpy-like women with serpent hair. The Erinyes were Megaera (the spirit of jealosy), Tisiphone (of retribution) and Alecto (of unceasing pursuit).
fusil. A light flintlock musket, probably named for the fusil, or striking-steel, used to ignite the power.
La Gabelle. The tax on salt.
Jean-Antoine Gauvin, called Gallois, 1761-1828. Lawyer of Aix. He held responsible positions in all the governments from 1791 to 1813, managing to be effective while avoiding fatal factional alliances. His name is often linked with that of Gensonné, with whom he served in putting down the revolt of the Vendée.
Gamain. Mssr. Gamain was a craftsman of the Versailles region who played a brief but important part in French history. Gamain was introduced to the young Louis XVI when the king wanted to learn about locks. Years later, in 1792, Louis again called upon Gamain, this time to help construct a secret strong-room in the imprisoned King's chambers. The Queen gave Gamain wine and a biscuit and when he sickened on his way home he (presumably) thought he had been poisoned and gave evidence about the secret store. The papers taken from the King's chambers were the proximate cause of his execution.
Dominique Joseph Garat, 1749-1833. Lawyer and writer from Bayonne. He was a member of the States General and rose to Minister of Justice in 1792 on the recommendation of Danton. As Justice Minister, he brought the news of a sentence of immediate death to Louis XVI in January, 1793. In 1793 he moved to the Interior Ministry where he tolerated gross peculation. He was arrested during the Terror but escaped condemnation through his friendship with Robespierre whom he nevertheless betrayed on 9 Thermidor. Garat wrote extensively about the people and events of the revolution and is one of the most important (though certainly biased) sources of first-hand information about the period.
Antoine Court du Gébelin, 1725-1794. Etymologist and Director of the Musée de Paris.
Sainte Genevieve (422-512). The patron saint of Paris. A chapel devoted to her, Sainte-Geneviève des Ardents, was pulled down in 1747.
Stephanie-Felicité du Crest de Saintaubin, Comtesse de la Genlis, 1746-1830, wife of Charles Brillart de Genlis, later Marquis de Sillery. In an unheard of step, the Duke of Chartres made her the tutor of his sons (she was already responsible for the education of his daughters). She emigrated in 1793. Her memoires are an important source of first-hand information about the period.
Armand Gensonné, 1753-1793, representative of the Gironde in the Legislative Assembly. He was among the most radical of the Girondists, but strongly opposed the Mountain and the Paris extemists. He was one of the first group of Girondist deputies condemned in June, 1793 and went to the guillotine in October.
Gerle, 1736-1801, a Cartusian monk elected for the First Estate of Auvergne. He was greatly offended by the Church Constitution and later became a strong royalist.
Cahier de Gerville. Briefly minister of the interior in the Brissotin ministry.
Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794, English historian, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He lived and wrote in Switzerland and knew many of the persons named in Carlyle's history.
Charles-Genevieve Louis-Auguste-Andre-Timothée Glaat, Chevalier d'Eon de Beaumont, 1728-1810. French spy and master of disguise. Slight of build, he lived for long periods as a woman, even in the Russian court.
Jean Baptiste Joseph Gobel, 1727-1794. He was suffragan Bishop of Basel when elected to the States General for the clergy of Huningue. Despite a life spent in the church, he supported the constitutionalization of the clergy and in doing so became so popular that he was elected constitutional bishop in several dioceses. He entered the see of Paris in 1791 and resigned it under popular pressure in 1793. Robespierre had him executed in 1794. Carlyle despises Gobel for apostasy.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832. German poet, novelist, dramatist, scientist and critic. He is considered the greatest of German writers. His personality was so strong that, like Voltaire to Ferney, he drew visitors from all over the world to his home in Weimar. As secretary to the Duke of Weimar, Goethe was present at the Prussian invasion of France in 1792 and the subsequent retreat.
Antoine Joseph Gorsas, 1752-1793, publisher and politician. He published the Courrier de Versailles à Paris et de Paris à Versailles, famous for printing the account of the Officers' Banquest at Versailles in October, 1789. As a legislator, he moved from a Jacobin to a Girondist position. His presses were among those destroyed by the Jacobins March 9-10, 1792; and he was arrested and executed after the fall of the Girondists.
François-Joseph Gossec, 1734-1829. Belgian-born composer. He supported the Revolution whole-heartedly. Much of the surviving formal music of the period is his. He managed to avoid partisan entanglements and was enrolled in the Legion of Honor by Napoleon in 1804. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, 163-133 B.C. Roman soldier and statesman. As tribune of 133 B.C., he pressed land reform favorable to the Plebian tribes. Politicians of the senatorial class had him murdered. His death marks the beginning of 100 years discord which ended the Roman Republic.
Henri Grégoire, 1750-1831. The son of a peasant and educated by the Jesuits, he was elected to the States-General for the clergy of Nancy. He was first among the clergy to join the Third Estate. Under the 1790 constitution he was elected Bishop of Blois. Grégoire made many fiery speeches, including the first motion to abolish the monarchy. He was a member of almost all the national legislative bodies through 1801.
Frederich Melchior Grimm, 1723-1807. Music critic.
Jean Marie Claude Alexandre Goujon, 1766-1795. A lawyer who was elected to the Convention seat of Herault de Sechelles when the latter was arrested. He was a moderate Jacobin and an advocate for peace, but he strongly opposed the reaction which followed 9 Thermidor. As one of the last of the Mountain party, he supported the insurrectionists of 1 Prairial, for which he was arrested. Goujon committed suicide before he could be executed.
Jean Baptiste Gouvion, 1747-1792. A volunteer in the American Revolution, he served as an engineer in the Continental Army. Returning to France in 1783, he held various posts including commander of the Gardes Français at Versailles in 1789. He died in action against the Austrians at Maubeuge, 11 June, 1792. Like his cousin, Gouvion-St.-Cyr, he had a disgust for politics.
Laurent Gouvion-St.-Cyr, 1764-1830. Son of a tanner, he joined the Republican army in 1792 and was a major-general by June, 1794. His military genius and disgust for politics served him well and he was highly regarded by all the various governments from the Constitutional Monarchy through the Restoration.
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, 1738-1814. Physician and politician. He was influential in the argument that voting in the Estates General should be per capita rather than by Estate, and that the commons should have deputies equal in number to the combined nobles and clergy. He was elected to the States-General from Paris and was secretary of the Constituent Assembly. His lasting fame is that he proposed, and with Doctor Antoine Louis designed, the beheading-machine that bears his name.
Marguerite-Elie Guadet, 1753-1794. Lawyer of Bordeaux. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the Gironde and became one of the leaders of the liberal party. He was influential in establishing the Girondist cabinet in the spring of 1792 and voted for the execution of the King; but his deep-felt opposition to Danton and the Paris extremists brought him a death sentence when the Girondists fell. He escaped prison but was captured and executed in Bordeaux.
Manuel Guzman, a Spanish adventurer who was involved with the Austrian Proli in war profiteering in the Spanish Netherlands. He came to Paris with Proli and like him covered his speculations in war supplies by large gifts to patriotic charities and to the Jacobin Club.
Halle aux bleds, a circular structure which housed the grain market of Paris.
Haman, the chief minister of the Persian emperor Xerxes in the story of Esther as told at Purim. He intended to destroy all the Jews, but Esther gained the intercession of Xerxes and Haman was hanged on the gibbet he had intended for his victims.
François Hariot, (or Heriot), 1759-1794. He became the head of a Paris section and closely associated with the amorphous "sans-culotte" party. In 1793 he was made commandant of the National Guard and through his support behind Hébert. He was guillotined July 28, 1794.
Harmodius and Aristogiton were Greeks of Athens,about 500 B.C., whose love for each other involved them in a conspiracy against the tyrant Hippias and his brother Hipparchus who also coveted the boy Harmodius.
Jean-Henri Hassenfratz, 1755-1827. Self-taught scientist and revolutionist, founder of the Polytechnic school and the School of Mines. He served in the government from 1792-1795 but spent the rest of his life as a researcher and teacher.
Christian August Heinrich Kurt, Count of Haugwitz, (1752-1831). Prussian diplomat. He originally opposed war with France, but once it broke out he was instrumental in putting together the coalition of Prussia, England, Holland and Austria to fight it.
Jacques Rene Hébert, 1757-1794. The poor son of a goldsmith from Alencon, he became a prominent member of the club of the Cordeliers where he made violent verbal attacks on the Girond. His arrest for these attacks gave him great personal popularity. Along with Chaumette, he proposed the "worship of Reason" in opposition to Robespierre's theism. This led to the arrests of Hébert and many of his followers. Both he and his wife were executed early in 1794.

Hébert was publisher from 1791 to 1794 of a weekly newspaper Le Père Duschesne, a nasty, violent journal that had a great following.

Hénault, Charles. Historian, literary figure and president of the Court of Inquiry. A noble as well as a lawyer, he was a familiar figure in the court of Louis XV. His best known work, a chronological abridgement of French history, is cited by Carlyle. Hénault is one of the few courtiers Carlyle does not find despicable.
Henri IV, 1553-1610. King of Navarre (1572) and France (1594), he was the first Bourbon king. Henri was a Protestant until his ascension to the throne of France. His marriage to Marguerite de Valois, St. Bartholomew's day, 1572, was the occasion of a great massacre of French Protestants. As the French king, Henri established religious toleration (the Edict of Nantes) and restored order, industry and trade to a country long plagued by war and misrule. He was known as "the People's King". The phrase "a chicken in every pot" originated with him.
Marie-Jean Herault de Sechelles, 1759-1794. A lawyer and member of the old Paris Parlement, he was a member of the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention. He argued against the constitution proposed by Condorcet and his redraft became, with little change, the constitiution of 1793. Politically he was closely identified with Danton, with whom he was executed in 1794.
Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois, 1750-1796. Actor, playwright and publisher of the Almanach du Père Gérard. Originally a constitutional monarchist, he became radicalized after 1792, supporting Hébert. He was a member of the Committee of Public Safety, where he had an important part in the brutal suppression of the Lyons uprising, during the Terror. After 9 Thermidor, in which he helped topple Robespierre, he was deported to French Guiana.
Armand Martial Joseph Herman, 1760-1794. A Robespierrist who was made President of the Revolutionary Tribunal in July, 1793 and presided over most of the important trials of the Terror. In April, 1794 he became President of the Committee of Safety -- or as some put it, Robespierre's Minister of the Interior. He was executed with Robespierre on 10 Thermidor.
Louis Lazare Hoche, 1768-1797. He rose from the peasantry and rank of a private soldier to become, by 1796, France's greatest general. Hoche died in the Prussian campaign of 1797.
homoiousian, an adjective describing the schismatic doctrine of the 4th century which held that God and Christ were of similar but not identical nature.
Samuel Hood, first Viscount Hood, 1724-1816. English admiral. He distinguished himself in the Caribbean as second in command to Rodney. As commander of the English Mediterranean fleet, he occupied Toulon with the help of the townspeople in 1793; and conquered Corsica (with the help of rebel Corsicans) in 1794.
Jean-Nicolas Houchard, 1739-1793. Army general who rose through the Royal-Allemand cavalry (he was born at Forbach on the Moselle) to the unenviable position of replacing Custine as commander of the Army of the Rhine in the spring of 1793. Despite having relieved the siege of Dunkirk, he was arrested in September and condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal, presumably for not having done more.
Sulpice Huguenin, disbarred lawyer, militia deserter, and embezzler. He was one of the leaders of the mob which descended on the Tuileries June 20, 1792, to protest the dismissal of the Girondin ministry. He became a rabble-rouser in the sections and was made President of the September Paris Commune.
Pierre-Augustin Hulin, 1758-1841. A Genevese refugee. He played an important role in organizing the besiegers of the Bastille on July 13-14 and later became a general and statesman under Napoleon and subsequent regimes. At the time of the Revolution he had a minor position in the court: director of the Queen's Laundry.
Maximin Isnard, 1758-1825, perfumer of Draguignan and representative of the Var in the Legislative Assembly, National Convention and the 500. He voted for the death of the King and was among the Girondists condemned in 1793. He escaped prison and lived to serve, with little distinction, in the reactionary governments.
Ixion. In Greek mythology, Ixion was king of the Lapiths and the first man to murder a relative. He caused his father-in-law Deioneus to fall into a camouflaged cooking-pit. His famous punishment, though, was not for parricide but ingratitude. Zeus had taken pity on Ixion and invited him to Olympus. Ixion promptly fell in love with Hera. To test Ixion, Zeus made a model of Hera out of cloud; Ixion mounted and impregnated it. (The offspring was the monster Centaurus, which mated with the mares of Mt. Pelion to create the race of Centaurs.) Zeus sent Ixion to Hades and bound him to an eternally-spinning wheel; Ixion must continuously cry out "Be grateful to your benefactor."
Jacobin Society. Originally a political club of the Breton deputies to the States-General. They met at the monastery of the Jacobins (Dominicans) in Paris. The group was later known as the "Society of Friends of the Constitution", and, from the high bleacher seats many of them occupied in the Legislative Assembly, "Mountainists". A society with many moderate members in the beginning, the Jacobins became progressively more republican and revolutionary. The club supported Robespierre in the Terror and used the executions to eliminate political enemies. Its power as an organized group evaporated with the overthrow of Robespierre.
Jacta est alea — "the die is cast". Supposed to be Cæsar's words as he crossed the Rubicon.
Jansenism. Jansenism was the Catholic Calvinism. Named for the Belgian bishop of Ypres, Corelisu Jansen (1585-1638), it held, within the Catholic tradition, in favor of absolute Predistination. Rome condemned Jansenism as heretical.
Jacquerie refers specifically to the peasant revolt of 1358, but by extention to any uprising of the lower classes.
Arnail-François de Jaucourt 1757-1852. Royalist member of the Legislative Assembly. He emigrated in 1793 and did not return to France until 1799. He held important posts under Napoleon and was enobled as Count de Joucourt in 1808.
Jeanne De Bourgogne, 1293-1348. Wife of the future Philip VI, she was accused of adultery in the Tower of Nesle but was forgiven by her husband. In her widowhood she was allowed to live in the Hôtel Nesle, near by the Tower, and is said to have seduced and executed passersby there.
John Paul Jones, Scots-born American sea captain, 1747-1792. Louis XVI loaned Jones and the Americans a ship, named by Jones the Bonhomme Richard and Jones spent the last years of the war commanding a combined French-American force harassing English shipping. After the American Revolution, Jones served Catherine the Great as an admiral of the Russian Navy. He returned to Paris in 1790 and died there in 1792.
Joseph II, King of Austria and Holy Roman Emperor (1740-1790). He was a brother of Maria Theresa and therefore uncle to Louis XVI's Queen.
Jean-Baptiste, Comte Jourdan, 1762-1830. An officer who distinguished himself in all the wars of France from the republic through the reign of Louis XVIII, though he was known as "the Anvil" from having been beaten so often. He began service as a private soldier in 1778 and rose to the highest levels of military and political power.
Mathieu Jouve Jourdan, 1749-1794. Called "Jourdan Coupe-Tête" because he claimed to have cut off the heads of two royal guards at Versailles in September, 1789. He led the armed Jacobin brigands at Avignon and brought terror there early in the revolution. His excesses were punished by execution when he was captured at Marseilles in 1793.
Judith. A biblical character. According the Book of Judith (one of the Apocrypha), she avenged the Israelites by tricking the invading Assyrian general Holofenes into drinking a great quantity of wine. While he lay in a stupor, she cut off his head with his own sword.
Antoine Le Clerc de Juigné, ?-1811, archbishop of Paris, succeeding Beaumont in 1781. He was president of the First Estate in the States-General.
Flavius Claudius Julianus, ("Julian the Apostate"), 331-363, Emperor of Rome (361-363), nephew of Constantine the Great. Associated to the empire by Constantius in 355, he showed himself an able soldier and administrator in Gaul, routing the Alamanni at Strasbourg and pacifying Northern France as far as Paris. After defeating Constantius in a civil war, Julian, nominally a Christian, declared himself and the empire under the protection of Zeus and reestablished the old worship in Constantinople. None of his affairs prospered thereafter and he was killed in battle by a Persian arrow two years later.
Wenzel Anton, Prince von Kaunitz-Reitburg, 1711-1794, Austrian diplomat and, from 1753 until his retirement in 1792, chancellor. He was a master of forging alliances. Under his government, Austria's power and influence, and its empire, peaked.
François Christophe Kellerman, 1735-1820. One of the few experienced French general officers who remained in the army after the Revolution. With Dumouriez he defeated the Duke of Brunswick's invasion force in September, 1792; and credit for the relief of Valmy is given him.

Kellerman was imprisoned by Robespierre but survived the terror to become a Marshal of France under Napoleon and Duke of Valmy after the Restoration.

Augustus, Viscount Keppel, 1725-1785, English Admiral. Aboard Victory he commanded 30 British ships of the line against the French at the Battle of Ushant in 1778, a fight in which he was accused of cowardice, though later absolved.
Kilkenny Cats: cats which were said to have fought so fiercely that, when they were done, nothing was left of them but the tails.
Peter Klaus. A character in a German folk tale who fell asleep in the woods and did not wake for 23 years. Washington Irving used the story as one basis for his character Rip van Winkle.
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, 1724-1803. German poet and playwright. He was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution and was given honorary citizenship; but he later became disgusted with the violence. As far as I know, he never set foot in France.
John Knox, 1514-1572, Scottish churchman and a father of the Presbyterian movement. He opposed the ascension of Mary Stuart to the throne of Scotland and was captured when her French-backed forces occupied the country. After two years as a French galley-slave, he returned to England and joined the reformed Church of England. On the death of Edward VI he fled to Europe, leading a congregation of exiled Puritans in Geneva. He returned to England with his flock when Elizabeth became Queen. When Scotland declared itself Protestant in 1560, Knox returned home and devoted himself to the Church of Scotland.
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, 1741-1803, dramatist, author of Les Liasons Dangereuses, banned for over 100 years after its writing. He was a career Artillery officer, was close to the Duc d'Orleans, and edited a newspaper in support of the Jacobins. After the revolution he was a general under Napoleon. Jean Charles Dominique de Lacretelle, 1755-1855. Journalist, historian and member of the Acadamy. He is best known for his historical surveys Précis historique de la Révolution français and Histoire de France pendant le XVIIIe siècle This Lacretelle was known as Lacretelle le Jeune to distinguish him from his older brother, Pierre Louis. Both the brothers were royalists and were involved with the resurgent monarchist party after Thermidor.
Sébastian Marie-Bruno Lacroix, (-1794). Radical member of the Legislative Assembly and the Convention. He was chief in denouncing Mirabeau when the latter's payments from the King were revealed. Lacroix was a Dantonist and died with Danton and Camille in April, 1794.
Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roche Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, 1757-1834. A leading figure in three Revolutions. He served on the staff of George Washington as a Major General; was a leading advocate of a French National Assembly; but fiercely protected Louis XVI, for which he was banished France.
Citoyen Laflotte. Spy in the Luxumbourg prision who accused ex-General Dillon and the wife of Camille Desmoulins of plotting to save the life of Danton.
Joseph Louis Lagrange, 1736-1813. Generally considered the greatest mathematician of his age, Lagrange also dealt with practical matters of mechanics and physics. A Savoyard, Lagrange was given special permission to remain in Paris when foreigners were expelled in 1793, and he continued to do important public and private science throughout the decade. He is chiefly responsible for the metric system.
Jean-François LaHarpe, 1739-1803. Poet, essayist and member of the Acadamy. Already famous by the start of the Revolution, he supported it until he was arrested in 1794. After Thermidor, he was a leader of the anti-Jacobin reaction.
Jérôme Lafrançais de Lalande, 1832-1807. One of the premier astronomers of his time. He held deistic views and played a prominent part in the Festival of the Supreme Being in June, 1794. He is best known for the Histoire céleste française which included a catalog of the some 40,000 stars known at the time. He was also author of a Dictionary of Atheists.
Thomas Arthur O'Lally, Comte de Lally, Baron de Tollendal (1702-1766). Son of an Irish Jacobite who married into the French nobility, O'Lally gained high rank in the French military. In the war against England in 1756 he was sent with a fleet to harass the British in India but met with misfortune, was captured and taken prisoner of war. He was made a scapegoat for the military disaster, condemned by the Paris Parlement, and executed.
Trophime Gerard O'Lally, Marquis de Lally-Tollendal, 1751-1830. Bastard son (later legitimized) of Thomas Arthur O'Lally. He worked hard and unsuccessfully to restore his father's name. Disgusted with the direction of the Revolution, he emigrated to England in 1789.
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, 1744-1829. A zoologist of little reputation in his own time, but later recognized as having organized knowledge of species in such a way as to suggest the process of evolution. Lamarck's conclusions were wrong -- he thought that acquired traits were passed on to succeeding generations -- but his work was important in that it implied that the origin of species was subject to natural rather than divine law.
Louis Alexandre Stanislaus de Bourbon, Prince of Lamballe, 1747-1768. Son of the Duc de Penthiévre. He died soon after marrying Marie Therese Louise di Savoia Carignano (1749-1792) who became a close friend of Marie-Antoinette. The Princess de Lamballe fled with the first emigrés, but returned to comfort Marie-Antoinette. When she refused to denounce the monarchy, she was given over to the Paris crowd on September 3, 1792. The mob beat, raped and dismembered her and carried her head on a pike before the Queen's prison window.
Charles Eugene de Lorraine, Duc D'Elbeuf and Prince de Lambesc, 1751-1825, Louis XVI's Master of the Horse. He led the charge of Royal-Allemands against the Paris mob at the Tuilleries, July 12, 1789.
Lameth, the manorial title of three noble brothers. All served in America during the revolution. The oldest, Theodore (1756-1854), was made marechal by Louis XVI and was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1791. His brothers Charles and Alexandre (1760-1829) were also soldiers and politicians; both were deputies to the States-General for the nobility. Alexandre was a general of the Republican army but was taken prisoner and survived the Terror in an Austrian prison.

All three brothers seem to have had the title Comte de Lameth.

Charles, Comte de Lameth, 1757-1832, One of Rochambeau's officers in the French expedition to Providence during the American Revolution. After a flirtation with constitutional monarchy in the Constituent Assembly, of which he was a president, he became an important Jacobite and later was an important commander under Napoleon.
Chretién François Lamoignon, Marquis de Basville, 1735-1789. As Garde-de-Sceaux (keeper of the seal), he was an important functionary in the last years of Lous XVI's reign. He worked hand in hand with Brienne in the institution of local assemblies and courts to weaken the Parlements.
Jeanne de St Remy de Valois, Comtesse de Lamotte, 1756-1791. French woman of the lower nobility who engineered the Diamond Necklace Affair. With the unwitting contrivance of the Cardinal Louis de Rohan, who kept her as a mistress, she and her husband managed to steal a necklace worth 85,000 pounds sterling. The husband took the necklace to Paris where it was broken up and the stones sold. Madame Lamotte, however, was arrested along with Rohan and other minor participants. Rohan was acquitted, but Lamotte was condemned as a thief, whipped branded and imprisoned in the Saltpetriere. She escaped prison and fled to London where in 1789 she published a widely-read memoir of the affair.
Antoine-Adrien Lamourette, 1742-1794. Sat in the Legislative assembly for Rhône-et-Loire, where he was Constitutional Bishop. He is best known for his attempt to end factional discord in the Legislative, which resulted in the short-lived reconciliation of July, 1792. From that episode, an insincere expression of political amity is called baiser lamourette.
Jean-Denis Lanjuinais, 1753-1827, lawyer and politician of Rennes. He was elected to the States General for the commons of Rennes and served on the Constitution Committee in the National Assembly and was involved in the nationalization of church property. Appointed to the Convention, he voted for the death of the King with an appeal to the people. A Girondist, he fled Paris in 1793, hiding 18 months in Britanny until he was returned to the legislature in 1795.
Jean-François de Galaup de Lapérouse, 1741-1788, French noble and explorer. He was chosen to lead an expedition of discovery to the Pacific in 1785. It is known that he reached Botany Bay in early 1788, but after that the expedition disappeared seemingly without trace. In the mid-1800s it was discovered that the ships had wrecked on a small uncharted island, now called Recherce, in the Indian Ocean.
Marc-David Alba dit Lasource, 1763-1793. A Girondist deputy, closely associated with the Roland clique. He is best known for his speech in April, 1793 (while he was President of the Convention) in which he accused Danton of complicity in the treason of Dumouriez. He was among the Girdins suspended on May 31 and later executed.
Jean Frédéric de La Tour du Pin, 1727-1794. Aristocrat and army officer. He was Louis XVI's Minister of War in the post-Bastille government. He is probably best known as the husband of Henriette-Lucy who was a friend of Marie-Antoinette and whose mémoirs of the period are accurate and informed.
Lavergne, commandant of the French fort at Longwy. He surrendered the place to Brunswick almost as soon as the Prussians appeared on the horizon and was rumoured to have made a bargain to do so.
Antoine Lavoisier, 1743-1794, French chemist. He is credited with many of the basic discoveries of chemistry as well as many practical applications. Lavoisier was closely associated with the noblesse and was executed during the Terror.
Bernard René Jordan, Marquis de Launay, 1740-1789. Governor and son of a governor of the Bastille. Although he had attempted to avoid casualties, he was murdered by the mob the evening of July 14.
Claude-François Lazowski
Philippe Le Bas, 1764-1794. Member of the Convention and friend of Robespierre and Saint-Just. He fell with Robespierre on 10 Thermidor.
Guislan François (known as Joseph) Lebon, 1765-1795. Defrocked priest who was elected to the National Convention. As a member on mission, he brutally suppressed a royalist uprising in his home town of Arras. Thomas Paine described him as "one of the vilest characters that ever existed, and who made the streets of Arras run with blood." Lebon was executed in 1795.
Pierre Henri Hélène Marie Lebrun-Tondu, 1754-1793, politician of Noyon, Foreign Minister in the Girondin cabinet after August 10.
Isaac René Guy LeChapelier, 1754-1794. Breton lawyer who actively opposed the tax reforms of Brienne in the Parlement of Rennes. Elected for the Third Estate, he was a founder of the Breton Club (later the Jacobins), and in 1791 he brought in the Act that bears his name "Loi LeChapelier" which prohibited corporations of producers of goods, effectively dismantling the guild system and the budding labor unions. He emigrated and was condemned to the guillotine on his return from England.
Laurent Lecointre, 1742-1805, fabric seller in Versailles, rose from humble origins to positions of command in the National Guard and the revolutionary governments. He commanded the detachment of Garde Français at Versailles on October 6, 1789, when the women of Paris marched on the town.
Louis Legendre, 1752-1797, Paris butcher, born at Versailles. Though uneducated, he was a great natural leader. Legendre played important parts in the taking of the Bastille, the massacre of the Champs-du-Mars and the August 10 overthrow of the monarchy. As a delegate to the National Assembly, he voted for the death of the King. He survived the Terror by turning against Danton but became an important reactionary after 9 Thermidor. He forced the closing of the Jacobins and prosecuted Carrier.
Michael Leonard-Bourdon, 1754-1807. Revolutionist of Orléns. He was a member of the National Convention and was mainly concerned with education, but Bourdon is best known for two incidents: first, he was in charge of the royalist prisoners being transferred from Orléns to Paris in September, 1792 -- the prisoners who were massacred by a mob in Versailles. Second, he was attacked by Federalists in the streets of Oréans in 1793. Although he was only injured, 9 of his assailants were executed for his "assassination".
Leonidas, King of Sparta who stood with 300 men at the pass of Thermopylae to hold off the Persian armies of Xerxes. The story was a popular one in revolutionary France. David painted it.
Pierre Nicolas Leroy, dit Dix-Août, 1743-1795. One of the jurors of the Revolutionary Tribunal. He took his nickname, "10 August", from the 1792 overthrown of the monarchy. Leroy was executed with the prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville.
Stanislaus Lesczczynski, 1677-1766, twice king of Poland (1704-1709 and 1733-1735), and, from 1735, Duke of Lorraine and Bar. The story of how a Polish nobleman became the prince of a French province that was under the control of the Holy Roman Empire is told in note 105.
Lettres de Cachet. Arrest warrants signed by the French king. They could be used to arrest any person without investigation or proceedings. One imagines that Dr. Manet in A Tale of Two Cities was arrested under cachet, though Dickens doesn't say so.
Lettre de Jussion. Royal order to record an edict despite the objection of the Parlement.
Réné Levasseur, 1747-1734. Surgeon and obstetrician, elected to the National Convention for the Sarthe. He was a rabid Jacobin and a leader in the exclusion of the Girondin deputies. Levasseur was sent on mission several times, notably to the Army of the North where he participated in the great victory of Handschoote; and to the Ardennes where he was on 9 Thermidor, thus escaping the fate of his friend Robespierre. He was amnestied by the Convention and returned to medical practice but was exciled as a regicide after the Restoration.
Simon Nicholas Henri Linguet, 1736 - 1794. The greatest judicial advocate of 18th-century France, Linguet was a man of limited self-control. His bitter and sarcastic pen, directed against targets as diverse as Gerbier and Mirabeau, caused him endless trouble and, at least twice, exile. For a time he was in the service of the Emperor of Austria. He wrote a spirited defense of Louis XVI during the trial, and was himself sent to the guillotine two years later "for having flattered the despots of Vienna and London."
Charles Joseph, Prince de Ligne, 1735-1814. Soldier and diplomat, author of Contes Immoraux (Immoral Tales). He knew, and wrote about in his memoirs, most of the great men of Europe.
Charles Antoine, Prince de Ligne, 1759-1792. Son of Charles-Joseph and Françoise Marie Xavière, princess of Lichtenstein. He married the princess Hélène Massalska in 1779. Charles Antoine was killed in the Argonne while serving with an emigrée battalion.
Little Trianon — Le Petit Trianon. A château built by Louis XV in 1768 at the insistence of Madame de Pompadour?. It was located near the Grand Trianon, the getaway château built by Louis XIV on the site of a village he destroyed for the purpose. Both were in the neighborhood of Versailles.
Bridge of Lodi. During Napoleon's Italian campaign of 1796-97, the French and Italian forces were barred from passing the river Adda by the Austrian army. By the strength of repeated frontal assaults and a flank maneuver of the cavalry, the bridge was taken. The Austrians lost 2,000 men and their artillery.

Thomas Hardy wrote a well-known poem on the subject:

When of tender mind and body
   I was moved by minstrelsy,
And that strain "The Bridge of Lodi"
   Brought a strange delight to me.

In the battle-breathing jingle
   Of its forward-footing tune
I could see the armies mingle,
   And the columns cleft and hewn

On that far-famed spot by Lodi
   Where Napoleon clove his way
To his fame, when like a god he
   Bent the nations to his sway.

Hence the tune came capering to me
   While I traced the Rhone and Po;
Nor could Milan's Marvel woo me
   From the spot englamoured so.

And to-day, sunlit and smiling,
   Here I stand upon the scene,
With its saffron walls, dun tiling,
   And its meads of maiden green,

Even as when the trackway thundered
   With the charge of grenadiers,
And the blood of forty hundred
   Splashed its parapets and piers . . .

Any ancient crone I'd toady
   Like a lass in young-eyed prime,
Could she tell some tale of Lodi
   At that moving mighty time.

So, I ask the wives of Lodi
   For traditions of that day;
But alas! not anybody
   Seems to know of such a fray.

And they heed but transitory
   Marketings in cheese and meat,
Till I judge that Lodi's story
   Is extinct in Lodi's street.

Yet while here and there they thrid them
   In their zest to sell and buy,
Let me sit me down amid them
   And behold those thousands die . . .

— Not a creature cares in Lodi
   How Napoleon swept each arch,
Or where up and downward trod he,
   Or for his memorial March!

So that wherefore should I be here,
   Watching Adda lip the lea,
When the whole romance to see here
   Is the dream I bring with me?

And why sing "The Bridge of Lodi"
   As I sit thereon and swing,
When none shows by smile or nod he
   Guesses why or what I sing? . . .

Since all Lodi, low and head ones,
   Seem to pass that story by,
It may be the Lodi-bred ones
   Rate it truly, and not I.

Once engrossing Bridge of Lodi,
   Is thy claim to glory gone?
Must I pipe a palinody,
   Or be silent thereupon?

And if here, from strand to steeple,
   Be no stone to fame the fight,
Must I say the Lodi people
   Are but viewing crime aright?

Nay; I'll sing "The Bridge of Lodi" -
   That long-loved, romantic thing,
Though none show by smile or nod he
   Guesses why and what I sing!
Longchamp. A field in the Bois de Boulogne where horse races have been held since the 17th century.
Étienne Charles Loménie de Brienne, 1727 - 1794, archbishop of Toulouse. He succeeded Calonne, who had followed Necker, who succeeded Turgot, as treasurer in 1787. Brienne came to power during the sitting of the Assembly of Notables and was dismissed in 1788, shortly before the calling of the States General.
Major de Losme Salbrai, the commander of the garrison of the Bastille under de Launay, was killed by the rioters despite his attempts to avoid bloodshed during the siege.
Louis-Joseph, Prince of Condé (1736-1818).
Louis-Armand, 1755 - 1824. The older of Louis XVI's two brothers, comte de Provence. He was in the van of the emigrés and attempted to gain European support for military intervention in France during the Revolution. He eventually reigned as Louis XVIII. During the reign of his brother, he was often referred to as "Monsieur".
Armand Elisée de Loustalot, 1762-1790, Paris lawyer and journalist, chief writer of Révolutions de Paris, one of the principal rabble-rousing journals, from July 1789 until his death in 1790.
Jean Baptiste Louvet de Couvray, 1760 - 1797, French writer and politician. His best known work is The Loves of the Knight of Faublas, but he wrote other novels and plays. In 1792 he published a newspaper, the Sentinel the placard-edition of which was much read on the streets of Paris. He is probably best known for uttering two words, "J'accuse!", against Robespierre in October, 1792 when the demagogue had asked in a speech "who dares accuse me?".
François-Michel Le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois, 1641-1691, Secretary of State and Minister for War in the cabinet of Louis XIV. He was responsible for making the French army one of the great land powers of Europe; but he also advised the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which brought the ruin of French Protestants and French finances. He founded the Hôtel de les Invalides for the care of soldiers wounded in the Sun King's wars.
Lubberland. A land of plenty. It's not clear whether the name became current with or precedes this 17th-century English ballad:
The rivers run with claret fine,
   The brooks with rich canary,
The ponds with other sorts of wine,
   To make your hearts full merry:
Nay, more than this, you may behold,
   The fountains flow with brandy,
The rocks are like refined gold,
   The hills are sugar candy.

There's nothing there but holy-days
   With music out of measure;
Who can forbear to speak the praise
   Of such a land of pleasure?
There may you lead a lazy life,
   Free from all kind of labour:
And he that is without a wife,
   May borrow of his neighbour.
Louis-Philippe I, Duc de Orléans (1725-1785). Grandson of the regent, he left little mark. His son, as Carlyle remarks, was a driving force in the Revolution, and his grandson was King Louis-Philippe.
Louis-Philippe, 1773-1850. Son of the Duke of Orléans (Philippe Égalité) and King of France. He came to power in the July Revolution of 1830 and reigned until the revolution of 1848. Although he fought with the French army against the Prussians and emigrées in 1792, he spent most of the Revolution and the reign of Napoleon outside France, including 4 years in the United States.
Nicolas, Baron de Luckner, 1722-1794. Already an accomplished soldier, he was one of the French volunteers in the American Revolutionary War and later a general and commander of the Army of the North in the French revolutionary army. He was dismissed in 1792 because of his royalist sympathies and executed in the Terror.
lusus naturae, literally, "freak of nature".
Adam Lux, 1765-1793, was a German who welcomed the French advances of 1792. When Custine took Mainz, Lux became a leading member of the Jacobin club. When the Prussians retook the city, he went to Paris where he was soon guillotined for defending the actions of Charlotte Corday, the murderess of Marat, with whom he had fallen in love after seeing her at her trial.
Gabriel Bonnot, Abbé de Mably, 1709 - 1783. French cleric and historian who wrote on theories of government. Jean-Jacuqes Rousseau was a tutor in the Abbé's family.
Etienne Maignet, 1758-1834, lawyer of Ambert. He was elected to the legislative assembly for Puy-du-Dôome and undertook several important missions, including one to the Army of the Moselle in 1793. He established the popular commission d'Orange which tried and executed hundreds of Girondists and federalists.
Jean-Baptiste Mailhe, 1754-1834. Deputy to the National Convention from Haute-Garrone. He reported in 1792 the decision of the Committee on Legislation that the person of Louis XVI was not inviolate as a matter of law. As one of the first to vote in the question of death after the trial, he voted for death but suggested that the Convention might delay the execution. Mailhe survived the persecution of the Gerondists and, after the fall of Robespierre, moved the disbanding of the Jacobins. As a regicide he was exiled to Brussels at the restoration; he prospered there and returned to Paris a wealthy man in 1830.
Stanislas-Marie Maillard, b. 1763, a Captain of the Bastille Volunteers. He participated in the siege of the Bastille, perhaps taking the terms of capitulation passed by Launay through the portcullis (though it may have been some else). He accompanied, and perhaps helped to instigate the Women's March to Versailles, October 5, 1789; and read their complaint to the National Assembly. He was later a notorious Jacobin.
Louis de Mailly. Career soldier and maréchal-de-camp under Louis XV and Louis XVI. He gained his reputation in the War of Austrian Succession.
Maison-Bouche. The royal kitchen, which Bourbon kings did not leave at home when he traveled.
Nicholas Malebranche, 1638-1715. The most influential of the Cartesian philosophers. He is best known for the arguments now called "occasionalism" and for the dictum "all things we see, we see through God".
Chrétien Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, 1721-1794, French botanist, lawyer and statesman, at various times President of the Court of Aids and Minister in the government of Louis XVI. For all that he opposed some measures of Louis XVI' government; favored decentralization and elected assemblies; and advocated rights for French Protestants and Jews; he was monarchist and helped defend the King at his trial. He was guillotined in the Terror.

Malesherbes was the great-grandson of Guillaume de Lamoignon (1617-1677) the famous codifier of French law. His cousin, Lamoignon, had great but not particularly positive influence as Keeper of the Seals.

Jacques Mallet Du Pan, 1749-1800. Genevese Huguenot and journalist. He wrote the Annales politiques with Linguet in London and later contributed to the Mercure de France in Paris. Louis XVI sent him abroad to gather foreign financing, and he remained outside France until 1796. He returned to London in 1798 and died there.
Pierre Victor, Baron Malouet, 1740-1815. Colonial and naval administrator. As a member for the Third Estate, he led the monarchical party. Seeing how the wind blew, he emigrated in 1792.
François-Xavier-Joseph Guyot de Malsiegne, Marquis de Maîche, 1759-1824. Army brigadier chosen by the Constituent Assembly to inspect reports of mutiny at Nancy in August, 1790.
Jean Gailliot, Marquis de Mandat, 1731-1792. He was in command of the Nation Guard in Paris on August 10, 1792. Mandat set up an effective defense around the Tuileries but was summoned by the new insurrectional Commune and murdered. His leaderless Guard was then unwilling to resist the anti-monarchical mob.
Louis Pierre Manuel, 1751-1793. Lawyer of Montargis. He was a dedicated Jacobin and a member of the Legislative and the Convention, while also serving as prosecutor of the Paris Commune. Manuel opposed execution of the King and was arrested and executed with the Girondists.
Sylvain Maréchal, 1750-1803. Paris philosopher and poet. He wrote the Almanach des Honnêtes Gens, which proposed a new calendar in which the names of Saints would be replaced with those of famous Frenchmen. An admirer of Rousseau, Maréchal was greatly concerned with the problems of social inequality; in his later years he proposed a system of agrarian socialism far in advance of his time.
Jean Paul Marat, 1743-1793. Swiss-born French journalist. He spent 10 years in England beginning 1765 studying medicine, physics, literature and politics. One of his best-known works, Chains of Slavery was written in English (1774). On his return to Paris he developed a medical practice among the noblesse and was physician to the Duc d'Artois' cavalry regiment (Carlyle makes fun of his "horse-doctoring" — Marat actually extended his knowledge through vivisection of horses). He also wrote on physical science, translating Newton's Optics. His newspaper La Ami du Peuple, published 1789-1793, both reported and boosted the Revolution; it was violently anti-monarchical and anti-federalist. He was murdered in his bath by Charlotte Corday, July 13, 1793.

Marat was disliked by most of the leaders of the revolution and spent much of the first 3 years of the revolution in hiding. He became a powerful influence in the emergency Commune after August 10, 1792 and is given a large share of the blame for the September Massacres.

Carlyle considers Marat motivated by bitterness because he lost many of his noble patients in the 1780s. He also despises Marat for his eloquent lack of religion.

Marie-Thèrée de Bourbon 1778-1851, eldest daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Therese of Austria. Carlyle refers to her as "Madam Royale", the traditional title of the king's first daughter (subsequent girls being styled collectively "Mesdames de France"). Madame Royal survived the imprisonment of the royal family and went on to marry her cousin, the Duc de Angoulême. She left valuable memoirs of her life and times.
Jean-François Marmontel, 1723-1799. Historian, philosopher, poet and novelist; a disciple of Voltaire. He was one of the Encyclopoedists with Diderot and Alembert.
La Marseillaise, a hymn composed in 1792 by Rouget de Lisle, an Army engineer. The idea was to have a patriotic march more martial in spirit than the Ça Ira. It was originally titled Chant de Guerre de l'Armée du Rhin, but when the 500 volunteers from Marseilles marched into Paris singing it, it became ever known as La Marseillaise.

Allons enfants de la Patrie      Come, children of the Fatherland,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé      The day of glory is here;
Contre nous, de la tyrannie      Against us, representing tyranny,
L'étandard sanglant est levé,      The blood flag is raised,
L'étandard sanglant est levé!      The bloody flag is raised!
Entendez-vous, dans le compagnes,      Do you hear, across the countryside,
Mugir ces farouches soldats?      The shouts of the savage soldiers?
Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras      They come directly to us
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes.      To slaughter yours sons, your comrades.

Chorus:
   Aux armes, citoyens!         To arms, citizens!
   Formez vos bataillons!         Draw up your battalions!
   Marchons, marchons,         March! March!
Qu'un sang impure abreuve nos sillons.      That their gore might water our fields.
 
Que veut cette horde d'esclaves,      What do they want, this horde of slaves,
De traîtres, de rois conjurés?      Of traitors, of conspiring kings?
Pour qui ces ignobles entraves,      For whom do they intend these fetters
Ces fers dès longtemps préparés?      These irons so long held ready?
Ces fers dès longtemps préparés?      These irons so long held ready!
Français, pour nous, ah! quel outrage      Frenchmen, they are for us! What an outrage!
Quels transports il doit exciter!      What energy it must give us!
C'est nous qu'on ose méditer      It is we they intend to turn
De rendre à l'antique esclavage!      Once again into slaves!
 
Quoi! ces cohortes étrangères      What? These foreign troops
Feraient la loi dans nos foyers!      Would rule our hearths?
Quoi! ces phalanges mercenaires      What? These mercenary battalions
Terrasseraient nos fiers guerriers !      Would crush our proud fighters?
Terrasseraient nos fiers guerriers !      Would crush our proud fighters!
Grand Dieu ! par des mains enchaînées      Great God! by our joined hands
Nos fronts sous le joug se ploieraient      Our heads are bent to the yoke
De vils despotes deviendraient      Against these despots
Les maîtres des destinées!      Who would rule our destiny.
 
Tremblez, tyrans et vous perfides      Tremble, you tyrants and you traitorous
L'opprobre de tous les partis,      Cast-offs of the parties!
Tremblez ! vos projets parricides      Tremble! Your parricidal plots,
Vont enfin recevoir leurs prix!      They will be paid.
Vont enfin recevoir leurs prix!      They will be paid!
Tout est soldat pour vous combattre,      Every man is a soldier to fight you.
S'ils tombent, nos jeunes héros,      If they fall, these young heroes,
La France en produit de nouveaux,      France will produce them anew.
Contre vous tous prêts à se battre !      Every hand will be raised against you!
 
Français, en guerriers magnanimes,      Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors,
Portez ou retenez vos coups !      Hold or restrain your blows.
Épargnez ces tristes victimes,      Save the sad victims
À regret s'armant contre nous.      Unwillingly being armed against us.
À regret s'armant contre nous.      Unwillingly being armed against us.
Mais ces despotes sanguinaires,      But against these bloody despots,
Mais ces complices de Bouillé,      These accomplices of Bouillé,
Tous ces tigres qui, sans pitié,      Be like tigers who, without pity,
Déchirent le sein de leur mère!      Would shred the guts of their own mother!
 
Amour sacré de la Patrie,      Sacred love of the Fatherland,
Conduis, soutiens, nos bras vengeurs,      Guide and support our vengeful arms,
Liberté, liberté cherie      Liberty, cherished liberty
Combats avec tes defénseurs;      Fight alongside your defenders!
Combats avec tes defénseurs,      Fight alongside your defenders,
Sous drapeaux, que la victoire      Under our banners, so that victory
Acoure à tes mâle accents;      Will rush to your manly songs;
Qu tes ennemis expirants      So your fallen enemies
Voient ton triomphe et notre gloire      Will see your triumph and our glory.
 
Nous entrerons dans la carrière      We shall enter the profession of war
Quand nos aînés n'y seront plus,      Where our predecessors no long are.
Nous y trouverons leur poussière      We will find their dust there
Et la trace de leurs vertus      And a trace of their virtues.
Et la trace de leurs vertus      And a trace of their virtues
Bien moins jaloux de leur survivre      Which yet survive.
Que de partager leur cercueil,      Rather than honor their coffins,
Nous aurons le sublime orgueil      We shall with sublime pride
De les venger ou de les suivre !      Avenge them or follow them.
Charles Martel, surnamed "the hammer", (683-741). Grandfather of Charlesmagne and Mayor of the Palace for the last Merovingian kings. He is best known for beating back the invasion of the Spanish Moslem Saracens, the stuff of many of the old French romances.
René Nicolas de Maupeou. 1714-1792. The chancellor of Louis XV and, before, President of the parlement. He was responsible for the dissolution of all parlements in 1771, a move which bought him the gratitude of the monarch and the hate of the nobles. Maupeou has a very bad historical reputation, but there is a contrarian view that if his parlementary "reforms" had held, rather than being reversed by Louis XVI, the revolution might have been prevented.
Jean Frédéric Phélypeaux, Comte de Maurepas, (1701-1781). Maurepas was an important functionary in the court of Louis XV and became the prime minister of Louis XVI when he was nearly 80 years old.
Jean-Siffrein Maury, (1746-1817). Descendent of a converted Calvinist family, he was a renowned wit in his youth and author of Princepes de l'équence (1777). Maury was a leading voice for the interests of the Church, the King and the existing social order in the States General and Constituent Assembly. He fled France in 1792, living in Rome, where he was made a Cardinal in 1794; and after the French occupation of Italy in 1799, in Russia. He attempted to leave France in July and again in October of 1789, but was prevented.
Arnaud Meillan, 1748-1809, member of the National Convention for the Basses-Pyrénées. He was put out of the convention as an associate of the Girondins but was later readmitted. His memoires are an important source of information about the Convention.
Menads. The story of the Menads comes mainly from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Orpheus, having lost Euridice, rejected all women. The women of the tribe of Cicones in his native Thrace, whom Ovid describes as wild-women, "their furious breasts/Clad with the spotted skins of savage beasts" attacked Orpheus as a woman-hater. These woman, who were devotees of the wine-god Dionysus or Bacchus, we call the Menades or Menads. The magic power of Orpheus's voice and lute was able to deflect their weapons for a while, but the women brought out the drums and instruments used to celebrate the feast of Bacchus. The noise overcame the power of Orpheus's music and they were able to overwhelm him. They tore him limb-from-limb and threw his head into the river Peneus.
Jacques-François, Baron de Menou, 1750-1810. Army general. He represented the second estate of Boussay in the States General and fought against the rebels in the Vendée. Under the Empire he succeeded Kléber in Egypt.
Louis-Sebastian Mercier, 1740-1814. Dramatist, journalist and historian. In the Constituent Assembly he was a Girondist and opposed the execution of the king. He was imprisoned during the Terror but released after the fall of Robespierre.
Antione Christophe Merlin (de Thionville), 1762 - 1833. A lawyer, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly and served in all the elected assemblies until 1798. He was violently anti-monarchical and anti-emigré. Although he had no military experience, he was several times sent on mission to the armies. He distinguished himself at Mainz and was brutally effective in the Vendée. After 1798 Merlin lived privately as a farmer except in 1814 when he led a volunteer army in a vain attempt to halt the advance of the Allied armies.
Philippe-Antoine Merlin, 1754-1838, known as "Merlin d'Douai". He served in the National Convention and introduced the "Law of Suspects" there, the infamous law that put under threat of immediate arrest:

(i) Those who, either by their conduct or their relationships, by their remarks or by their writing, are shown to be partisans of tyranny and federalism and enemies of liberty;

(ii) Those who cannot justify, under the provisions of the law of 21 March last, their means of existence and the performance of their civic duties;

(iii) Those have been refused certificates of civic responsibility (certificats de civisme);

(iv) Public officials suspended or deprived of their functions by the National Convention or its agents, and not since reinstated, especially those who have been, or ought to be, dismissed by the law of 14 August last;

(v) Those former nobles, including husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons or daughters, brothers or sisters, and agents of émigrés, who have not constantly manifested their loyalty to the Revolution;

(vi) Those who have emigrated during the interval between the 1 July 1789 and the publication of the law of 8 April 1792, although they may have returned to France during the period of delay fixed by the law or before.

Merovingian Kings.A race of Frankish barbarian monarchs who ruled northern Gaul after the decay of Roman power there. The first great conquerer, Clovis, who ruled as King of all Franks from 481-511, divided his empire among his four sons, Theodoric (Metz), Chlodomer (Orléans), Childebert (Paris) and Lothair (Soissons). The line continued into the 8th century.

The Merovingian Kings traditionally did not cut their hair.

Franz Anton Mesmer, 1734-1815. Swiss physician who believed that living things, including people, could be "magnetized" to their benefit.
Minute-guns. Guns fired at a fixed period, usually one minute, as at a military funeral.
Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, 1749 - 1791. French essayist, politician and fire-brand orator. He gained fame as the author of essays on despotism and on Letters of Cachet under authority of one of which he spent three years in prison, 1777-1780; and infamy for running off with a married woman. Elected for the Third Estate (though a noble) from Marseilles, he became the leader of the party seeking constitutional monarchy. Although this party did not prevail, he was elected a President of the National Assembly. He was the principal author of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen".

At the end of his life, he was in the pay of the Louis XVI. When the king was deposed and executed, and the payoffs were discovered, Mirabeau's remains were removed from their resting place in the Pantheon.

Sebastiao Francisco de Miranda, 1750-1816. Venezuealan-born Spanish General. He assisted Gen. Washington during the American Revolution and later was a general in the French Revolutionary Army. He died in prison after leading a revolution against Spain in South America.
Victor Riquetti, Marquis Mirabeau (1715-1789). An aristocratic land-owner and amateur economist, author of The Friend of Men and father of Honoré and Andre.
Andre Boniface Louis de Riquetti, Viscomte Mirabeau, 1754-1792. Younger brother of the famous orator Mirabeau, he distinguished himself as a soldier in the American Revolution but otherwise lived a boisterous and dissolute life. His was nicknamed Mirabeau Tonneau (Mirabeau Barrel). In the States General (he was elected for the nobles of Limoges) he strongly opposed the joint sitting of the three houses. He raised a regiment to fight alongside the German invaders in 1791 and died — either from apoplexy or in a duel — in 1792.
Armand-Thomas Hue, Marquis de Miromesnil, 1723 - 1796.
Antoine François Momoro, 1756-1794. Paris book-seller and one of the most listened-to members of the Club of the Cordeliers, editor if its journal, and originator of the saying Liberté, égalité, fraternité ou la mort. He was executed by direct order of Robespierre.
Gaspard Monge, 1746-1818. Mathematician, physicist and chemist of Beaune. He was one of the leading scientists in Paris at the time of the revolution and he strongly supported it. He was made of Secretary of the Navy in the Girondist cabinet, but was not effective in that position. Monge managed to avoid politics during the Terror and was involved in the establishment of the Polytechnique and the École Normal. He befriended Napoleon in the late 1790s and was ennobled as Comte de Péluse under the Empire.
Charles de Secondat, Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu, (1689-1755), French philosopher and political scientist. Montesquieu's idea of government balanced among executive, legislative and judicial functions influenced constitutional governments around the world.
Anne-Pierre, Marquis de Montesquiou-Fezensac, (1739-1798), dramatist and general. His long military career began in 1754. At the beginning of the Revolution he commanded the Army of the South, but after magnificent successes against the Savoyards in 1792 he was accused of royalist sympathies (probably justified because he was a boyhood friend of Louis XVI) and fled to Switzerland. His exile was short: he returned to France after the fall of Robespierre and lived in Paris until his death.
Jean Gabriel Maurice Rocques, Comte de Ontagaillard, 1761-1841. The son of minor nobles, he was a political schemer throughout his life. He served at various times as a secret agent for and against the Revolution, Napoleon, Louis XVIII and Charles X. His memoirs, consulted by Carlyle, are highly suspect.
Armand-Marc comte de Monmtorin de Saint-Herem, 1745 - 1792, French statesman. He was a long-time friend of Louis XVI and was appointed to lead the Foreign Ministry on the death of Vergennes.
Charles Théveneau de Morande 1741-1805, journalist and sometimes blackmailer. He wrote Mémoires secrets d'une femme publique, a smear of Madame du Barry.
Hannah More, 1745-1833, English educational theorist, author of Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education and Coelebs in Search of a Wife. Carlyle contrasts her with Madame de Genlis, who had influence on the education of nobles in France.
André Morellet, 1727-1819. Philisopher and translator, of liberal bent. He was a churchman and opposed to the revolution of the lower classes.
Mederic-Louis Moreau de Saint-Mery, 1750-1819. French colonial administrator. Returned from the Caribbean, he found himself President of the Paris Electors on the eve of the Revolution and was later elected to the Constituent Assembly by the colony of Martinique. A moderate, he escaped France in 1792 and lived for several years in Philadelphia.
Mouchard. A police or government spy.
Jean-Joseph Mounier, 1758-1806. He was a provincial politician in Grenoble until the States General, in which he represented the Third Estate, propelled him to national prominence. He proposed the Oath at the Tennis Court; and with Mirabeau he wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Joseph-Michael Mongolfier, 1740-1810. The son of a paper manufacturer, he and his brother Etienne pioneered techniques for vacuum pumping and hydraulics. They are best known for creating a hot-air baloon which they successfully demonstrated on June 5, 1783.

The balloons of the 18th century were sometimes called "mongolfiers".

André Morellet, 1727-1819. French Academician, friend of Voltaire and Rousseau. His Memoires are an important source of information about the Age of Paper and the Revolution.
Guyton de Morveau. Advocate-General of the Dijon Parlement.
Mutius Scaevola. Ancient Roman soldier (not to be confused with Quintus Mutius Scaevola, the law-giver of a later era) whose name survives as a symbol of fortitude and patriotism. During the Tuscan wars he suffered his right hand to be burned off in the presence of the Tuscan leader, Lars Porsenna, rather than dishonor the Roman state.
Jacques-André Naigeon, 1738-1810. Friend of Diderot. He contributed to the Encyclopoedia as a young man. In 1790 he addressed the Assembly in favor of freedom of speech. He was known as an intolerant and fanatic atheist.
Jean-Louis de Narbonne, 1755-1813. Court figure and supposed bastard of Louis XV. He was a friend and relative of Talleyrand. Narbonne has a long relationship with Mme. de Staël who bore him two children. In 1791 he became Minister of War in the constitutional cabinet and was instrumental in fielding the first revolutionary armies against Prussia and Austria. He was replaced by Dumouriez in June, 1792.
Jacques Necker, 1732-1804, French-Swiss banker. He was twice Controller-General under Louis XVI but failed to put the French finances in order mainly due to resistance by the noblesse. His memoir Compte Rendu (Account Rendered) increased the dissatisfaction of the French with their government while increasing his personal popularity.
Nenia. Latin for a funeral song or dirge. A familiar one from the 15th century is attributed to Pontanus:
Somne, veni, tibi Luciolus blanditur ocellis.
Somne, veni, venias, blandule somne, veni.

Accubitum te Luciolus vocat: eia, age, somne,
eia, age, somne, veni, noctis amice, veni.

Ad cunas te Luciolus vocat: huc age, somne,
somne, veni ad cunas, somne, age, somne, veni.

Venisti, bone somne, boni pater alme soporis,
qui curas hominum corporaque aegra levas.
Nestor, the mythological king of Pylos who went with the Greeks to Troy and was greatly respected among gods and men for his age, his sage advice and his bravery.
Antoine Nivière-Chol, 1744-1817. Elected mayor of Lyons in December, 1792, he resigned in 1793 under pressure from the Lyonaisse Jacobins. He was re-elected in April, defeating the Jacobin candidate Chalier, but forced out again in May. In June, Nivière's party, usually identified as "Girondist" but more properly Federalist, overthrew the Jacobin-supported government, arresting Chalier and and later executing him.
Nova Zembla. A peninsula in Northern Russia, extending into the Artic Sea. Despite its far-northern position, it is warmed by sea currents and is very fertile in places.
objurgatory. An adjective describing the process of delivering a harsh rebuke.
Œil-de-Bœuf. The "eye of the bull" or "Bull's eye" — the anteroom to the King's Bedchamber at Versailles, so named for the round window above the lentil. In the reigns of Louis XV and XVI, it was synonymous with the center of government.
Vincent Oge, 1750-1791. A free mulatto (Carlyle says quadroon) and relatively wealthy Haitian. He went to France to plead for civil rights for mixed-race colonials and when he was ignored (except by Brissot and a few of the Girondins) returned to Hispanola. He fomented an insurrection in 1791 and was tortured to death.
Orcus. A name for Dis, the Roman god of the underworld. By extension, it is used to mean the Underworld itself.
Charles-Nicolas Osselin, 1752-1794. A member of the insurrectionary Commune and probably one of the planners of the August 10 attack on the Tuileries. He sat on the Committee of Public Safety, but was removed when it was discovered he had saved and made a mistress of one of the prisoners of the Revolutionary Tribunal. For this and other irregularities, he was guillotined.
patibulary, an adjective meaning 'pertaining to the gallows'.
Louis-Philippe Joseph Orleans, Duc de Chartres, 1747-1793. After the death of his father, Louis-Philippe, in 1785 he assumed the title Duc d' Orléans. He is better known as "Philippe Egalité" primarily for an incident during the meeting of the States-General in which he led the secession of a group of 47 nobles from their Estate to the Third Estate. The party of Louis XVI suspected Philippe of stirring the agitations that became the Revolution. Although Orléans was ambitious and had visions of becoming a constitutional King, there is little evidence that he actively fostered the Revolution. Philippe was a member of the Jacobins and sat with the radicals in the Constituent Assembly, but he never had their trust.
The Orleans Regency (1715-1723). At the death of Louis XIV, his great-grandson and heir, to become Louis XV, was a boy of 5 years. The will of Louis XIV put the government in the hands of Philip, duc d' Orléans. The regency was known as a period of shrewd diplomacy and loose morals.
Jean Nicolas Pache, 1746-1823. French-born politician of Swiss parentage. He held posts in the royal household under the old regime and was Minister of War for about six months in 1793 and 1794. In 1794 he was elected mayor of Paris, but his earlier connections with the Girondists (who thought he was an incompetent) and his later attachment to Hèbert led to his arrest in the Terror. He escaped execution and eventually dropped out of public life.
Thomas Paine, 1737-1809. The son of an English quaker, he was early apprenticed as a corset-maker. After educating himself (he never mastered the subtleties of grammar), he emigrated to the United States in 1774. In early 1776 he wrote the famous pamphlet Common Sense which was probably read by a majority of literate colonists; it urged an immediate declaration of independence and a union of the colonies. He served in the Continental Army, during which time he wrote the essay series The American Crisis. Paine first visited revolutionary Paris in 1789 and returned frequently over the next three years. He wrote extensively in support of the revolution, most significantly The Rights of Man in 1791-92, for which he was condemned, in absentia, of treason by English courts.

Although he did not speak French, Paine was given French citizenship and elected to the National Convention in 1792. His friendship with the Girondists led to rescinding the citizenship and his arrest -- for being English. He wrote The Age of Reason in the Luxumburg prison.

Palais Royal, a theatre (later a complex of theatres) near the Louvre, originally built by Cardinal Richelieu and later used by Moliere's troupe. The Duke of Chartres (q.v.) purchased it in 1782 and turned it into an amusement area frequented by all classes. Most literature of the period, even the most seditious, could be found there because, as the property of nobility, police had no jurisdiction.
The Palladium was a statue of the goddess Pallas in her temple at Troy. Legend was that the city would be preserved as long as the statue stood.
The Pandours were originally a regiment of Croats in the Austrian Army, known for ruthlessness and cruelty. The term has come to mean any group of brutal and loosely-controlled soldiers.
Etienne-Jean Panis,1757-1832, Paris lawyer. He came into prominence in the August 10, 1792 insurrection. A friend of Danton, he served on the Committee of Vigilance, in charge of finding suspects for the Revolutionary Tribunal. He was a member of the Convention, where he voted for the guilt and death of the king.
The Pantheon. The building being erected to replace the burnt Abbaye de Ste-Genevièe was converted in 1791 to a burial hall for the great men of the Revolution. Mirabeau was the first to be interred, and the first to be removed. The bodies of Voltaire and Rousseau were moved to the Pantheon in July and September, 1791, respectively. After the revolution the building returned to control of the church but it has remained a "Hall of Fame" since Victor was buried there. The graves of the Curies are there, and most recently the ashes of André Malraux were transferred to the Pantheon.
Parc-aux-cerfs. The royal deer park where Louis XV engaged in many of his short-term amours.
Claude-Emmanuel de Pastoret, 1755-1840. Legislator, poet and academician, he was a loyalist in the Legislative Assembly, emigrated in 1793 and returned in 1795. Pastoret was elected to the 500 and served in the governments of Napoleon. He was elected to the Académie in 1820.
Paul et Virginie, a 1787 novel by Bernardin Saint-Pierre that depicted the chaste and doomed affair of a boy and a girl on a tropical island. It set a high standard for escapist entertainment.
Cornelis De Paux, 1734-1799. French-Dutch-Prussian philosopher, diplomat and trans-nationalist. Uncle of Baron von Cloots.
Claude-François Payan, 1766 - 1794. Nobleman of Dauphiné. He resigned his army commission in 1789 and became active in the Jacobins. He was editor of the Jacobin newspaper l'Anti-fédéralist and a member of the jury of the Revolutionary Tribunal. When Chaumette fell (April, 1794), he was made Agent Nationale and effective co-mayor of Paris. Payan was executed with his fellow Robespierrists on 10 Thermidor.
Louis Michel Comte de le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau, 1760 - 1793, French jurist and politician. He was a brilliant young member of the Parlement of Paris and later President of the National Assembly. He was assassinated by a national-guardsman in 1793 shortly after voting for the death of the King.
Jean-Gabriel Peltier, 1765-1825, banker and journalist. He came to Paris after being bankrupt trying to do business with the crown. In late 1789 he founded the anti-Convention journal Le Actes des Apôtres. His politics led to his emigration in 1792. Peltier gained renown in London as the editor of anti-Bonapartist journal L'Ambigu in the first decade of the 19th century.
Duc de Penthiévre, 1725 - 1793, a cousin of Louis XVI. He was father of Louis Egalité's wife.
Pepin III, surnamed "the short", 714-768). Son of Charles Martel and father of Charlesmagne. He was the first Carolingian king of the Franks. His conquests formed the basis of Charlesmagne's empire.
Jacob Pereira (or Peyreyra or Pereyra). Flemish Jew of Portuguese descent. He had a contract to supply the Revolutionary Army. Pereyra was a Jacobin and served as commisioner to the Belgian government under Dumouriez's occupation, along with Proli and Dubuisson. In the middle of the defeats of 1793, he accused Dumouriez of treason. Pereyra was reputed to be the bastard of Prince Kaunitz, the Austrian Prime Minister.
Peterloo. The massacre of Peterloo was English rather than French history. On 16 August 1819, a crowd gathered at St. Peter's Field, Manchester, to protest among other things, restrictive laws concerning the import of grain, were assaulted by the 15th Hussars. Fifteen English men and women were killed.
Jerome Pétion de Villenueve, 1756-1794. A provincial lawyer with radical credentials, he was elected deputy for the Third Estate of Chartres. Pétion was elected vice-mayor of Paris in 1791 and petitioned for the dethronement of the king in 1792. His reputation for incorruptibility was matched only by that of Robespierre. He was one of the Twelve on the Committee of Public Safety, but a falling-out with Robespierre forced him to flee Paris and eventually commit suicide.
Francesco Petrarch, 1304-1374. Italian poet. He spent much of his early life in Avignon.
Alexandre Frédéric Jacques Masson de Pezay, 17xx-1777. French nobleman. He was instrumental in the dismissal of Turgot and bringing in Necker. His only public post however, was inspector of ports, a job he is well-known for mismanaging.
Marie Jeanne Roland, née Philipon or Phlipon, 1754-1793. Wife of the inspector-general turned revolutionary Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière. She supported her husbands Girondist politics and was arrested for them. After 5 months' imprisonment she was executed in December, 1793. She is remembered for the eloquent memoirs she wrote while in prison and for her words on going to the guillotine: "O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!" Her Mémoirs, written in prison, were published in 1820 and were generally much admired.
Pierre Nicolas Philippeaux, 1756-1794. Member of the Convention for the Sarthe, he voted for the death of the king with delay. A friend and follower of Danton, he frequently clashed with his fellow member on mission, Chodieu, whom he renounced on his return to Paris. He was arrested and executed with Danton.
Charles Pichegru, 1761-1804. Revolutionary Army general who rose through the ranks. Despite significant victories on the Rhine, and in the Netherlands where he took Amsterdam, he was involved in several royalist conspiracies. The last, in 1803, led to his arrest. He died in prison.
Jacques Pinet, 1754-1844, member of the Convention. Associate on mission with Cavaignac at Brest and Bayonne in 1793-4.
William Pitt (the Younger), 1759-1806. Tory prime minister of England 1783-1801 and 1804-1806.
Place Louis XV, or Place Louis Quinze, is the square in central Paris known as Place de la Revolution after 1790 and Place de la Concord today.
Plumsack, or "plumpsack", a game in which a knotted cloth is passed around a circle of players without the use of hands.
Pompadour, Jeanne-Antoinette (Poisson) (1715-1764). Mistress of Louis XV and arbiter of fashion in his court. She was of a Paris commercial banking family.
Jules, Duc de Polignac, d. 1817. French court figure. He held the post of Postmaster-General in Louis XVI's government, but his real influence was as the husband of one of Marie-Antoinette's best friends.
Armand, duc de Richelieu, 1771-1847. First son of Jules, Duc de Polignac. He was condemned by the revolution and remained imprisoned until 1813.
Jules Armand, prince de Polignac, 1780-1847. The second son of Jules, he was imprisoned by Napoleon but released in 1814 and went on to become ambassador to England and briefly head of the last government of Charles X. The July Revolution of 1830 put him once again in prison until 1836.
Jean-George Le Franc de Pompignan, 1715-1790, archbishop of Vienne and brother of the poet Jean-Jacques Le Franc. He was elected to the States-General for the clergy and led the splinter which joined the Third Estate in May, 1789. He was one of the first Presidents of the National Assembly and served in the Revolutionary governments.
Jean-Jacques Le Franc, Marquis de Pompignan, 1709-1794. French dramatist, poet, translator and lawyer, at one time a president of the Court of Aids. Brother of Jean-George Le Franc, archbishop of Vienne. One of his translations was of the Lamentations.
Louis François Perren, Comte de Précy. Royalist and commander of the rebellious forces at Lyons in 1793. M. Goupil de Prefeln, ?-1831. An aristocrat and parlementarian of Rouen. His father, the "old Goupil" referred to by Carlyle, was a member of the constituent assembly and a judge of the court at Alençn.
Joseph Priestley, 1833-1804. English chemist and philosopher. His Unitarian religious beliefs put him in sympathy with the French Revolution, which he saw as doing away with arbitrary government control. (Unitarians were not a tolerated sect in England at the time.) These sympathies led to his house and laboratory in Birmingham being burnt during the "Church and King" riots in 1791. After he was made an honorary French citizen in 1792, his persecution in England became so severe that he emigrated to America, where he died.
Claude-Antoine, Comte de Prieur-Duvernois (Prieur de la Côte d'Or), 1763-1832. Politician and army officer from Auxonne. H was important in preserving the supply lines for French forces in 1793 and 1794, a problem he and Carnot made their first priority as a member of the Committee of Public Safety. As a member of the National Assembly he was frequently sent on mission to disaffected regions of the country. While on mission to Caen he was imprisoned for over a month.
George Augustus Frederick, 21st Prince of Wales, 1762-1830. Later George IV, he became regent for his father, the mad king George III, in 1811. He set the standard for all future Princes of Wales in terms of drinking, gambling, high living and wenching.
Café Procope, "the world's first coffee-house." established in 1686 by a Sicilian, Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli. It's pre-revolutionary customers included Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin. The café has been re-established. I believe, at the site where it began, 13 Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie, Paris.
Pierre Proli, or Proly, -1794. A Belgian financier who became grew rich trading in war materiel. He was a member of the Jacobins and spent most of his time in Paris. He was a supporter of Hébert and was executed with him.
Louis-Marie Prudhomme, 1752-1830 editor and publisher of the radical weekly Révolutions de Paris, founded in 1789. Most of the content in 1789 and 1790 was written by Loustalot, a fire-brand. Prudhomme ceased publication in 1794 in reaction to the Terror. In 1797 he published An Impartial History of the Revolution in collaboration with Sylvain Maréchal. His best-known work was Les Crimes de la Révolution (The General and Impartial History of the Errors, Offenses, and Crimes Committed during the French Revolution) in which he catalogs atrocities of the period, some of them even true.
Joseph comte de Puisaye, 1755-1827. French general of Le Perche, which elected him to the States General for the second estate. He served as a deputy to Wimpfen under Dumouriez, and also seconded Wimpfen in the command of the Girondist insurrectionary army. When that force was routed, he fled to England, where he participated in the planning for the disasterous attempt to land at Queberon. He spent the rest of his life in exile in England.
Pyxes. A pyx is the vessel containing the Host during Communion.
Jean Paul Rabaut Saint-Etienne, 1743-1793. French protestant cleric, son of the famous Huguenot Paul Rabaut. He was one of the framers of the Constitution in the Constituent Assembly and one of the 12 on the Committee for Public Safety. A monarchist, he was purged with the Girondists and executed in 1793 after being found hiding between the walls of his house.
Paul Rabaut, 1718-1794. Father of Saint-Etienne. He was the most influential Huguenaut of his time and largely responsible for the cessation of active persecution after 1760. He was arrested about the time of Saint-Etienne's execution and died soon after his release.
Guillaume-Thomas-François Raynal, (1713-1796). The "Abbè Raynal" was an historian and controversialist who was exiled briefly for his anti-American views. He was a leading conservative voice in France.
François Trophime Rebecqui, 1744-1794. Politician of Marsailles. He was elected to the Legislative and the Convention and aligned himself with Brissot and Vergniaud. As representative on mission, he subdued the royalist uprising in Arles in 1791. When the Girondists were imprisoned, he escaped to Marsailles where he tried to raise an opposition. He committed suicide in January, 1794.
Red Book. The secret pensions paid by the government of Louis XVI were recorded in the Red Book. When it was found and published in 1791, some of the entries caused great embarrassment and political downfalls.
Réné first d'Anjou (1434-1480). Son of Louis II, duc d'Anjou, he was titular king of Naples and of Aragon as a boy. Réné was the last ruling Count of Provence. On his death, he ceded his territories around Avignon to the Pope; Provence became the property of the French crown. Réné was a great patron and protector of the arts, which is probably why Carlyle calls him rhyming Réné.
John Renwick, 1662-1688, Scottish field preacher of the United Societies or Cameronians, a Presbyterian group still faithful to the Solemn League and Covenant. The group disavowed loyalty to Charles II and encouraged field preaching, both capitol offenses in Scotland. Renwick was hanged (or martyred) at Edinburgh.
Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) . Armand Jean du Plessis, prime minister of Louis XIII. He is best known today for his assertion that "If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him." His policies firmly established the French monarchy as the near-absolute power.
Jean-François-Armand de Richelieu (1696-1788). Great grand-nephew of the Cardinal, he was known in his youth for debauchery and spent several periods in the Bastille. He later became Marshal of France and one of the chief advisors in the court of Louis XV.
Honoré-Jean Riouffe, 1764-1813. Girondist politician who left memoires of the civil wars of 1793 and subsequent imprisonment of the Girondist leaders (Mémoires d'un détenu pour servir à l'histoire de la tyrannie de Robespierre).
Antoine de Rivarol, 1753-1801. French writer. A loyalist editor at the start of the Revolution, he saw the direction of the wind and escaped to Berlin by way of Brussels. He was known as a master of satirical epigram. For a time Rivarol directed the propaganda campaign of the royalists, but to little effect.
Augustin Bon Joseph de Robespierre, 1764-1794. The younger brother of the infamous Robespierre. He served in the Convention and had the distinction of promoting Napoleon Bonaparte to Brigadier General (at Toulon, 1793). He was captured with his brother on 9 Thermidor and executed with him the next day.
Maximilien Marie Isadore de Robespierre, 1758-1794. Lawyer elected for the Third Estate of Artois. He quickly built a reputation as a radical and as an incorruptible idealist. He was a leading member the Committee for Public Safety and by political maneuverings became for a time in 1794 the effective ruler of France. He did not have a party, however, and when the Jacobins turned against him, he was deposed and executed.
Jean-Baptiste, Comte de Rochambeau, 1725-1807. Rochambeau arrived at Providence with between 4000 and 6000 French troops in 1780, providing relief in the North so that the colonial forces could concentrate on defeating Cornwallis in the South. Though an aristocrat, he sided with the proletarian forces of the French Revolution on his return to France.
François-Alexandre-Frédéric, Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, 1747-1827. A nobleman who was both closely attached to Louis XVI and sympathetic to reform. He was an Anglophile and hoped that a constitutional monarchy would be established in France. He emigrated and spent several years in the United States. In Carlyle's history he is the "Duc de Liancourt"; he assumed the title of Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt on the assissination of Louis-Alexandre, Duc de La Rochefoucauld d'Enville, September 14, 1792. It was Liancourt who, as Master of the Wardrobe, wakened Louis XVI on July 15 with the news of the fall of the Bastille; when asked if were a revolt, he is said to have replied "No, sire, it is a revolution.".
Louis-Alexandre, Duc de La Rochefoucauld d'Enville, 1743-1792, cousin of François-Alexandre-Frédéric, Duc de Liancourt. He was a liberal and a friend of Benjamin Franklin. He translated the American Declaration of Independence into French and was one of the first deputies of the Second Estate to join the Third in the States-General. La Rochefoucauld was elected President of the Department of Paris in 1791. He was arrested at Gissors on order of the Paris Commune and the crowd killed him on the spot, September 15, 1792.
Henri, comte de la Rochejacquelin, 1772-1794. Son of a noble family in southwestern France. His father and brother emigrated, but Henri remained in service with the militia until the execution of Louis XVI. He then returned home and joined the Vendéan rebellion of which he became one of the chief commanders. He was killed in a skirmish near Nouaillé March 4, 1794, aged 21 years.
George Brydges Rodney, 1719-1792, British Admiral. His notable achievements included the capture of Martinique in the Seven Years' War; the victory of Cape St. Vincent which broke the siege of Gibraltar in 1780; and the defeat of de Grasse and the French fleet in the West Indies in 1782.
Pierre-Louis Roederer, 1754-1835. Lawyer of Metz. He was a Royalist member of the States-General and worked as a prosecutor in the Paris Commune under the constitution. Carlyle refers to him by the title of "Syndic", or municipal magistrate. His great early distinction is in assisting the Royal Family out of the Tuileries and into the Salle de Ménage on August 10, 1792. He emigrated and, remaining friends with Talleyrand and Sieyés, prospered with them in the governments after the fall of the Republic in 1799.
Louis-Rene Edouard, Cardinal de Rohan, 1734-1803. French aristocrat, Archbishop of Strassburg. He was one of the richest men in France. He was out of favor with Marie-Antoinette and in an attempt to regain court influence was caught up in the "Diamond Necklace" affair. He represented the Clergy in the States-General.
Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière, 1734-1793. Revolutionary publisher (Financier patriote) and politician. He was Home Minister in the Girondist cabinet, dismissed by Louis XVI in July 1792 but restored after August 10. He was condemned in 1793 but escaped Paris, leaving his young wife behind. When she was arrested and executed, Roland committed suicide. Mdm. Roland's memoirs, written in prison, are an important source of information about Parisian affairs in 1792 and 1793. Carlyle refers to him as "Veto coquins" or "Veto of scoundrels" for his often-ridiculed self-righteous moral rectitude.
Rollo the Viking, surnamed "the walker", d. 931. He attacked Paris with a fleet of seven hundred ships in 885. After reinforcement at Rouen, the fleet is said to have stretched for 6 miles along the Seine.
Jean-Louis Romœuf, 1766-1812. French officer. He was involved in the capture and return of the King in his flight to Varennes. Later be became a general and Baron of the Empire. He died in the Battle of Borodino.
Gilbert Romme, 1750-1795. Mathematician and politician of the Auvergne. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly and the Convention where he voted for the death of the King and headed the committee which proposed the revolutionary calendar. He was a fierce partisan of the Mountain even after the overthrow of Robespierre. Romme was tried as a supposed leader of the 1 Prairial riots and commited suicide in 1795.
Charles Philippe Henri Ronsin, 1752-1794, playwright and commander of the Revolutionary Armies. He supported Hébert and was dismissed and beheaded in 1794.
Jean-Antoine Rossignol, 1759-1802. Army officer and friend of Robespierre, suspected in some of the most horrible excesses of the revolution, especially in the suppression of the Vendée uprising. He was deported to the Seychelles by Napoleon in 1801.
Jean Antoin Roucher, 1745-1794. Poet of Montpelier. He was a Voltairian and therefore a supporter of the Revolution, but only lukewarm. He was arrested in 1793 and executed in 1794 along with his friend and fellow-poet André Chénier. Perhaps Rocher's most important accomplishment was translating Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations into French in 1790.
Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle, 1760-1836, author of the Marseillaise. He was of a bourgoise family and was serving as a Captain of Engineers in the Army of the Rhine in 1792 when he wrote the famous anthem.
Jacques Roux, 1752-1794. Author of the Manifesto de Enragés;. He was known as the "Red Priest" of the revolution.
Pierre Célestin Roux Lavergne, 1802-1874. Churchman, philosopher and historian who was the principal author of a 40-volume History of the French Parliament, Histoire parlementaire de la Révolution française, ou Journal des assemblées nationales, depuis 1789 jusqu'en 1815.
Philippe-Jacques Rühl, 1737-1797. Son of a Lutheran Minister in Alsace, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly and to the convention for the Lower Rhine. He is famous, or infamous, for having broken the ampule of holy oil used in the coronation of French Kings since ancient times. He was an enemy of Robespierre against whom he spoke on 9 Thermidor; but also attacked the Thermindorian reaction. He escaped arrest because of his age but committed suicide in 1797 when again threatened with arrest.
Jean-Baptiste Salles, 1759-1793. Physician of Vélize and member of the States General for the third estate of Nancy. He was one of the founding members of the club of the Feuillants and as such was considered a moderate member of the National Convention to which he was returned. Expelled with the Girondists, Salles fled to the Calvados and later Bordeaux with Guadet. He was captured and executed in 1794.

There is a story the guillotine jammed just before Salles was to be executed. He examined the machine, told the executioner how to fix the problem, and proved the effectiveness of the repair with his own death.

Salvator Rosa, 1615-1673, Italian painter and poet, known for allegorical paintings.
Rossbach. The site of the defeat of the French army of Soubise by the Prussians under Frederich II in 1757.
Jean Antoine Rossignol, 1759-1802. Anti-Girondist; member of the Commune,\; probable murderer of the Marquis de Mandat, then commander of the National Guard.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712 - 1778. French philosopher and deist. His theories of the nature of social organization were the philosophical underpinnings of the French Revolution.
Thomas-Marie Royou. Churchman and loyalist journalist. He was closely associated with other conservatives like Barruel and Elie Fréron. He edited a newspaper Ami du Roi.
Laura de Sade, ? - 1348. The Avignon woman who is usually pointed to as Petrarch's Laura -- the subject of most of his sonnets. She was of the nobility, the wife of Hugues de Sade, and an ancestor of the infamous Marquis de Sade. Petrarch met her in 1327 and she died of plague 21 years later.
Jeanbon St. André, 1749-1813. Huguenout from the area of Toulouse. He was schooled by Jesuits and by the time of the Revolution had wide experience as a business man, merchant captain and Protestant theologian. After the collapse of the Girondin government, he had primary responsibility for maritime matters as a member of the Committee of Public Safety. Though a radical, he was not closely tied to Robespierre and so survived Thermidor and went on to serve Napoleon, who made him a baron.

Jeanbon is a family name. He took on the name St. André to conceal his Protestant background.

Claude-Louis, Comte de Saint-Germain, 1707 - 1778. French general with vast experience in the Hungarian and Austrian wars. Louis XVI made him War Minister on his ascension and Saint-Germain immediately made himself unpopular by insisting on merit promotion and Prussian-style discipline in the Army.
Marquis de Saint-Huruge, one of the demogogic orators of the Palais Royal, second only to Desmoulins in popularity. He spent the decade before the Revolution in prison and in exile. Part of his imprisonment was in the insane-asylum of Charenton where the Marquis de Sade was also held. On August 13, 1789, he led a small mob toward Versailles go compel the King to live in Paris; Lafayette intercepted and scattered them.
Louis Antoine Saint-Just, 1767-1794. Devoted friend oand disciple of Robespierre. He studied law in Paris and wrote a boring pornographic poem Orgent. To young to take part in the politics of first part the Revolution, he wrote about it until 1792 when he gained notice at the Jacobins and was elected to the National Convention. He was appointed -- before Robespierre -- to the Committee of Public Safety and from that body (in effect the executive of France) exerted great influence on policy and legislation. Saint-Just was executed along with Robespierre on 10 Thermidor.
François Jourgniac de Saint-Meard, 1745-1827. Army officer who was arrested in September 1792 but survived the Massacres. He wrote about his experiences.
Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, French novelist. Author of the wildly popular Paul et Virginie (1787). He was a friend and disciple of Rousseau.
François Saint-Priest, Louis XVI's ambassador to Spain and his Secretary of War at the end of his reign.
Antoine-Christophe Salicetti, 1757-1809. Lawyer and representative of the third estate of Corsica in the States General. Elected to the National Convention, he was sent on mission to besieged Toulon in 1793 and helped set up the administration after its fall. He was a friend and protector of the young Bonaparte, but that relationship did not do him a lot of good. He ended his life as chief of police in Naples.
Salpétrière. A Paris hospital established for poor women.
Sanscullotic. This is one of Carlyle's favorite words and he may be responsible for introducing it to English. The culottes referred to are the knee-britches affected by the nobility in the reign of Louis XVI in imitation of the English fashion. "Sanscullotes" were men who wore rural or working costume, although the idea of being too poor to afford pants is inherent in the word.
Charles-Henri Sanson, 1739-? . Public executioner of Paris from 1788 to 1795. He inherited the office from his father, and passed it on to a son. It was Charles-Henri who presided over most of the executions of the Terror, although he was assisted by his sons. After 1795, Sanson passes out of history. There is no record of his death. Antoine Joseph Santerre, 1752-1809, French political figure. Before the Revolution he was one of the largest employers in the Faubourg San Antoine, operating a brewery there. He became commander of the National Guard and took part in many of the major events of the Revolution including the execution of the King. Carlyle in one place calls him a "laggard sonorous Beer-vat, with the loud voice and timber head."
Sardanapalus, or Assurbanipal, last king of ancient Ninevah. He lived in indolent luxury until his city was attacked by barbarians. When it was clear that, despite brave resistance, Ninevah would fall, he ordered a great pyre built of all his possessions, upon which he and his wives through themselves.
Albert, Herzog von Saxe-Teschen, (1738-1822). Commander of the Austrian forces in Belgium in 1792. His defeat by Demouriez at Jemappes was a turning point in the wars of the French Revolution.
Sciolist. A superficial pretender to knowledge.
Sebatier A member of the French Parlement. With Freteau he showed disrespect to Louis XVI in the showdown of 1787.
September massacre. In September, 1792, anarchy reached a new peak in Paris, promoted by the Prussians' capture of Verdun. Over 1,000 royalists were dragged from prisons and summarily executed.
Antoine-François Sergent, 1751-1836, Paris engraver. He was a member of the club of the Cordaliers and a friend of Danton. After the insurrection of August 10, 1792 he was active in the government of the Paris Commune and was a leading member of the Committee of Vigilance.
Joseph Servan de Gerbay, 1741-1808. He was minister of War in the Brissotin cabinet and was one of the few Girondists to survive the proscription. Servan was later a general of Republican armies and a renowned general under Napoleon.
Roch-Amboise Cucurron Sicard, 1742-1822. A non-juring priest who established schools for the deaf and dumb in Bordeaux and Paris. After narrowly escaping death in the September Massacres, he went into hiding for two years, during which time he produced the first extensive dictionary of sign-language.
Sicilian Vespers. Refers to the revolt of Palermo against the cruel repression of Charles of Anjou on Easter Tuesday, 1282. Supposedly the signal for the uprising was the call to evening prayers.
Emmanuel Sieyès, 1748-1836. A priest of middle-class origins, he wrote many pamphlets touching on the political and philosophical bases of the Revolution. One of the best known pamphlets was "What is the Third Estate". Sieyes' answer: it is the nation. He headed the committee on the Constitution in the Constituent Assembly and was its chief author. Later, in the National Convention, he again led the Constitutional Committee in the writing of the Constitution of 1793.

Sieyès was one of the few participants in the events of the Revolution who was still alive when Carlyle wrote his book.

Silenus. In Roman mythology, the companion and mentor of the god Bacchus. He is usually portrayed as an old, fat man with a long beard a short nose, and a horse's tail, obviously drunken.
Charles Alexis Brulart de Genlis, marquis de Sillery, 1737-1793. Wealthy noble, naval officer, member of the Estates for the nobles of Rheims, Jacobin, and supporter of Philippe d'Orleans.
Simon the Cordwainer, ?-1794. The shoemaker to whom the young Dauphin was given to raise, at least according to one story. He became a minor official in the Muncipality and was taken and executed with Robespierre.
Jacques-Guillaume Simonneau, 1740-1792. He tried to stop a corn riot in the village of Etampes, of which he was mayor, and was killed on the spot. The Legislative Assembly voted him a national funeral.
The Solemn League and Covenant is a part of British, not French, History. The French revolutionaries were great oath-takers, though, and there are several interesting parallels. The title of the oath is The Solemn League and Covenant for the Reformation and Defense of Relition; the Honour and Happiness of the King; and the Peace and Safety of the Three Kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland. It is inspired by Jerimiah 50:5 -- "Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual Covenant that shall not be forgotten," and was first proposed by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, August 17, 1643. The oath is long and was abjured as many times as it was taken.
Charles-François Virot, marquis de Sombreuil, 1727-1794. Maréchal-de-camp and governor of the Invalides, built as a home for old and wounded soldiers but also used as a barracks and arsenal. He refused to hand over his store of muskets and cannon on July 13, but they were seized by force early on July 14. His two sons also died in the Revolution: the younger with him at the guillotine; the older after the failed Quiberon invasion in 1795. His daughter once saved him from the Tribunal in a famous plea related by Carlyle; but he was rearrested and executed.
Agnes Sorel, 1422-1450. Mistress of Charles VII, considered the first "official mistress". She maintained the affection of the king all her life and is credited with favoring the most capable advisors of the court.
Charles de Rohan, Prince de Soubise, 1715-1787. French general best known for France's crushing loss to the Prussians at Rossbach in 1757.
Pierre-Amable Soubrany, 1752-1795. Deputy for Puy-du-Dôme. He was mayor of Rion at the start of the Revolution and was returned to the Legislative Assembly. Soubrany earned a good reputation as member on mission to the armies. He supported the 1 Prairial insurrectionists for which he was executed.
spontoon. A short pike carried by officers and squad leaders.
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, née Necker, 1766-1817, Genovese author and critic, daughter of Jacques Necker and Susanne Curchod. Like her mother's her salons were considered intellectual and important. She married the Swedish ambassador, de Staë, but her affairs were public and well known. Jean-Louis de Narbonne (1755-1813), the supposed bastard of Louis XV, was one of her lovers; she bore him two children and helped him escape France to England. Talleyrand was another.
Jean Nicolas Stofflet, (1751-1796). A peasant leader of the Vendéan rebellion. He had long experience as a private soldier in a Swiss mercenary regiment which he applied to the discipline and tactics of the royalist army of the Vendée. Stofflet was command-in-chief after the death of La Rochejaquelein in 1794, but by that time the back of the rebellion was broken. He surrendered and accepted amnesty in 1795 but was soon again under arms in the service of the Comte de Provence. Stofflet was captured at Angers and executed there.
Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard, 1832-1817. Editor with Arnaud of the Brusselles-based Gazette de France and prominent member of the Academie Français. I have seen him described as "one of the perpetual literary nonentities."
Pierre-André de Suffren de Saint-Tropez, 1729-1788, French Admiral. Suffren was probably the ablest of French naval officers in his time. He had a famous victory over the British in the Canary Islands and his small fleet prevented a British hegemony in the Indian Ocean, 1781-83.
François Suleau, 1757-1792, journalist, pro-royalist writer whose articles appeared in the conservative papers of the time, including Peltier's Actes des Apôtes. He was accosted on the streets of Paris and beaten to death on August 10, 1792.
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, 1754-1838. At the time of the Revolution, Talleyrand was Bishop of Autun. He was elected a delegate of the Clergy to the States-General, was a signer of the 1791 Constitution, and supported the nationalization of church property (having resigned as Bishop). During the Terror he lived and worked in the United States. His government work after the Revolution, is of course well known: he was Foreign Minister in the Directory, Chamberlain and Minister of Foreign Affairs to Napoleon, President of the Provisional Government, and at various times Ambassador to London.
Jean Lambert Tallien, 1767-1820. The son of a butler who became a law clerk and, after 1791, the publisher of the newspaper Ami des Citoyens. He served as secretary to the Paris Commune and was elected to the Convention, where he supported the Mountain. Tallien helped spread the Terror into the provinces, but escaped retribution in large part because of his leading role in the coup of 9 Thermidor.
Tantalus. In Greek mythology he was a sone of Zeus and king of Sipylos. Alone among mortals he was allowed to share the food of the Gods. For reasons unknown, he returned the favor by killing his son, Pelops, and serving him as a feast for the Olympians. The Gods were disgusted and dispatched Tantalus to Hades where his punishment was to stand neck-deep in water which, when he bent to drink, would rush away; beneath succulent fruit hanging just beyond his reach.
Guy-Jean Target, 1733-1806, Paris Parliamentarian, known as one of the greatest trial lawyers in French history. He was elected to the States General for Paris outside-the-walls. He composed, on the spot, the Tennis Court Oath sworn by the delegates June 20, 1789. Even in English it is an imposing piece of ad hoc prose:
The National Assembly, considering that it has been summoned to establish the constitution of the kingdom, to effect the regeneration of public order, and to maintain the true principles of monarchy; that nothing can prevent it from continuing its deliberations in whatever place it may be forced to establish itself; and, finally, that wheresoever its members are assembled, there is the National Assembly;

Descrees that all members of this Assembly shall immediately take a solemn oath not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the realm is established and consolidated upon firm foundations; and that, the said oath taken, all members and each one of them individually shall ratify this steadfast resolution by signature.

Target was Louis XVI's first choice as a lawyer, but he refused on the grounds of age (he was 54); the refusal is often held against him.

After the Revolution, Target was one of the principal authors of the Napoleanic Code.

Tartuffe, the title of a comedy by Moliere, and also the name of its villain. The character Tartuffe is usually described as an "irredeemable hypocrite".
tatterdemalion, an noun describing a tattered or ragged person. The word was already old-fashioned by the time Carlyle used it. The image he is trying to evoke seems to be of men in torn under-shirts.
Teneriffe, the principal island of the Canary Archipelago. Its overwhelming feature is Mount Atlante which reaches a height of 12,200 feet.
Tenpound Franchises. In 1829 the English government raised the level of income entitled to the vote in Ireland from 40 shillings to 10 pounds, thus disenfranchising the main body of Irish voters.
Termagant. an Eastern mythological deity of great fierceness. (Note that this term may be offensive to Moslems because European Christians at one time ascribed belief in Termagant to Islam.)
Abbé Terray . The Comptroller General of Louis XV after Choiseul's disgrace. In the last three years of Louis XV's reign, he effectively ruled France along with Maupeou and D'Aiguillon.
thaumaturgic. Miracle-working.
Themis. In Greek mythology, a Titan who was allowed to live at Olympos after the wars. She goddess of "custom, assemblies and right order".
Catherine Théot, 1716-1794. A mystic who concluded that Robespierre was the redeemer spoken of by the prophets, especially in Revelations. She was arrested by the Committee of General Security in one of the events that precipitated the fall of Robespierre.
Théroigne de Mércourt, d. 1817, "the Amazon of the Revolution". She came from Liège in Belgium, not Luxemburg as Carlyle suggests, where she was born Anne-Joseph Méricourt. The daughter of a declining middle-class family, she was a professional mistress until the Revolution, when she led the Women's March to Versailles. She was the first woman allowed to join in the debates of the Jacobins. She lost her political position and her sanity in 1793 and remained the rest of her life an inmate of insane asylums.
Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d' Holbach, 1723-1789. French philosopher and athiest. His best-known work is The System of Nature, 1770.
Thirty-Years War (1618-1648). Actually a series of wars that plagued northern and central Europe, mainly involving the Hapsburg empire variously against the Danes, Dutch, French and Swedes.
Bertel Thorwaldsen, 1770-1844. Danish sculptor. His Lion of Lucerne (1821), part of a monument to the Swiss massacred in Paris on August 10, 1792, is an evocative and very moving sculpture carved in a rock face.
Jacques-Guillaume Thouret, 1746-1794, a lawyer of Rouen, was an eloquent member of Sieyés' Constitution Committee. He was key in the suppression of the religious orders and confiscation of church property, and sat four times as President of the Assembly.
Pierre Thouvenot, 1757-1817. French general who distinguished himself on the Eastern front in 1792 and, under Napoleon, in the Peninsular War.
Jacques-Alexis Thuriot, (1753-1829). Paris lawyer and member of the Legislative Assembly and the Convention for the Marne. He was briefly a member of the Committee on Public Safety in the summer of 1793 but ran afoul of Robespierre. Thuriot had his revenge on 9 Thermidor when, as presiding officer of the Convention, he refused to allow Robespierre to defend himself from the tribunal. He held important posts in subsequent governments but was exiled as a regicide at the first restoration.
Johann Ludwig Tieck, 1773-1853, "King of the Romantics". A German writer perhaps best remembered for his fairy tales. He was a prolific author of plays, poems and novels.
Tophet, a place near Gehenna, Jerusalem, where human sacrifices were burnt to Baal and other gods. There was also a Tophet outside Carthage where sacrifices were carried out.
François-Emmanuel, Marquis de Toulongeon, 1748-1812 Noble member of the Estates and author of Histoire de France, depuis la révolution de 1789, cited several times by Carlyle.
Tour de Nesle. A tower on the Seine, built in 1200 where now stands the Institut de France. Razed in 1665, it was the subject of several lascivious romances in the early 19th century, including a novel by Dumas père.
Louise Elizabeth de Tourzel, 1749-1832. A daughter of the Duc d'Havre and governess to the children of Louis XVI. She played the part of "Baronne Korff" in the abortive escape to Varennes. She was arrested after August 10, but was released.
Baron Frederick von der Trenck, d. July 25, 1794. The son of a Prussian General, Trunck came to Paris during the revolution and started a wine business. He was probably spying, either for Prussia or Austria, but he was very popular with the people of Paris. Arrested as an Austrian spy, he was beheaded July 25, 1794. His execution infuriated the Parisians, who tore Robespierre from his bed and arrested him.
Hermes Trismegistus, the supposed author of the Hermetica, a work of occultism and magic. He was said to carry an emerald on which was inscribed all the philosophy of the world.
François Denis Tronchet, 1726-1806. Elected to the States General for the third estate of Paris, he enjoyed the reputation of a learned legal scholar and pleader. He defended the King at his trial. Forced into hiding during the Terror, he survived to serve all the governments until the Empire.
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, 1727-1781. Economist and treasurer to Louis XVI. His work forms the basis for modern thinking about free markets. He failed, however, in his efforts to put the French economy on a more regular footing, largely because of opposition from the nobility to his efforts in eliminating monopolies and restructuring taxes.
Tyrtaeus, Spartan general and poet. He wrote songs that inspired his soldiers and countrymen in the second war against Messenia (668 B.C.).
Use and Wont. Customary and distinctive practice. "The way things are done." Carlyle uses the term to denote the practical rights that both benefited and limited the French citizenry.
Ushant. A small island about 20 miles off the coast of Brittany. It is the western-most point of France.
Marc-Guillaume Vadier, 1736-1828. Representative of the 3rd estate of Parmiers in the States General, deputy (and once President) of the National Convention, and influential member of the Committee of General Security.
Jacques Godefroi Charles Sebastien Xavier Jean Joseph de Fraissinet, Marquis d'Izarn de Valadi, 1766-1793. A nobleman of philosophic bent, he went to England to study with Thomas Taylor, a mathematical and philosophical prodigy. He returned to France write about the States-General and the revolution. Fearing persecution because of his close ties with the Girondists, he fled Paris but was captured and executed in the Dordogne.
Charles-Eléonore Dufriche-Valazé, 1751-1793. Lawyer of Alençon. He was one of the leaders of the Girondist group and one of the first of them executed in October, 1793.
Jean Varlet, 1764-1837. One of the group of extreme democrats in Paris called the enragés. Other prominent enragés;s were Jacques Roux and Théphil Leclerc. The main demands of this group included price controls; cash redemption of the assignat; and suppression of hoarding. Varlet put together the "Central Revolutionary Committee" which sat at the Evêché and coordinated the activities that led to the insurrection of May 31 and the suspension of the Girondins. Varlet was as violently opposed to the dictatorship of Robespierre as he was to the "moderate" government of the Girondists.
Vincent Marie Vienot Vaublanc, 1756-1845. French West Indian colonial, elected to the Legislative Assembly for Santo Domingo. He successfully defended Rochambeau and secured the enfranchisement of slaves in French America. He held several important positions under Napoleon and subsequent governments and remained a staunch advocate for what remained of the French American colonies.
Valetailles. Menial servants.
Pierre Anne Louis de Maton de la Varenne. Noble lawyer and historian.
The Vendée, a department on the Atlantic coast of France, consisting of the western part of the province of Poitou as it existed in the old regime. It had the reputation as the most backward part of France. The name is also given to the anti-Republican uprising there and in the contiguous territories of southern Bretagne (Loire Inferiour and Maine-et-Loire) in 1793.
Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes,1717 - 1787. Louis XVI's Foreign Minister, considered one of the few stable and able elements of the administration.
Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud, 1753-1793, lawyer and orator from Limoges. He represented the Bordeaux in the Legislative Assembly where he soon gained renown as a speaker. His principles were those of the dominant liberal faction of the Legislative was called "Girondist", but he never considered himself a member of a faction. Virgniaud became increasingly radical in 1792, supporting the massacre at Avignon and attacking the king. August 10, 1792 and the September Massacres of that year sobered him, and his opposition to Paris radicalism earned him the guillotine in the first wave of proscribed Girondists.
Jacques de Vermond, 1735 -1797, reader and advisor to Marie-Antoinette.
viaticum The last rites of the Catholic Church. The Eucharist given to someone in danger of death. Carlyle seems to use it in a more general sense of "ceremonies to help the dying on his way."
Joachim Vilate, 1767-1795. A physician of the Ahun. He was a strident Jacobin and a juror of the Revolutionary Tribunal. Vilate is remembered for his essay "Causes Secrétes de la Révolution du 9 au 10 Thermidor", written in prison, in which he tried to distance himself from the excesses of Robespierre. It didn't work: he was guillotined in 1795.
Ville de Paris, the flagship of the French Navy. It was key in the defeat of the British in Chesapeake Bay in 1781, but was captured by Rodney in the West Indies a few months later. Stuart's paintings of the huge ship can be found here.
Louis-Marie Guy Jacques, Duc d'Aumont, Marquis de Villequier, 1732-1799. French general and courtier. He became correspondence secretary to Louis XVI in 1789.
François Nicolas Vincent, 1767-1794, lawyer and one of the principal speakers of the Club of the Cordeliers. He was secretary-general to the Department of War but, with Hébert, Ronsin, Clootz and others was condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal.
Voltaire, 1684-1778. Pen name of François-Marie Arouet. He was considered during his life and long after to be France's greatest and most rational philosopher.
Vulcan's panoply. Vulcan, the son of Jupiter and Hera, forged the invincible armor of the Gods as well as the armor worn by Achilles at Troy.
Walter Sans-Avoir ("Walter the Penniless") d. 1096. He led the vanguard of Frankish and German knights in the First Crusade (1096). "Sans Avoir" was his family name, not an indication that he was impoverished.
Joseph Weber, an Austrian, "step-brother" of Marie-Antoinette who was given into his mother's care after her birth. Weber's memoirs are frequently cited by Carlyle.
Adam Weisshaupt, 1748 - 1830, founder of the Bavarian Order of the Illuminati.
François-Joseph Westermann, 1751-1794. Alsacian soldier and a friend of Danton. He was a leader in the attack on the Tuileries on August 10 and then took a post as Colonel in Dumouriez's army. He was arrested when Dumouriez crossed to the Austrian lines but was let go and given further commissions. His most infamous operation was against the rebels of La Rochelle in December,1793, where he massacred men, women and children. Westermann was guillotined along with Danton.
William I, surnamed "Towhead", 915-960. Medieval French king of the line of Henri I.
William III, surnamed "Taillefer", 947-1037. Medieval French king of the line of Henri I.
Louis-Félix de Wimpfen, -1793. French general, deputy for the second estate of Caen in the States General. He served under Dumouriez in 1791 and 1792. In 1793 he offered to lead a force to be raised by the purged Girondists.
John de Trocznow, dit Zisca, or one-eyed, (?-1424). Military leader of the Bohemian religious reformists. His victories established the first political base of what became Protestantism.