Roux, Jacques

(1752-1794)

   revolutionary

   Born in Pransac, Charente, Jacques Roux was ordained a priest after studies in the seminary at Angoulême, where he later taught. During the revolution of 1789, he greeted the taking of the bastille (July 14, 1789) as the end of "despotism" and, after 1790, seems to have leaned toward socialistic views, preaching equal distribution of property. He was, no doubt, responsible for the peasant uprising in Saint-Thomas-de-Conac (Charente). Having taken the oath to the civil constitution of the clergy, he was named vicar of Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs in Paris and quickly became known as the "sans-culotte priest," the moving spirit of the Gravilliers, and the leader of the enragé movement. After taking part in the Revolutionary Day of August 10, 1792, which marked the fall of the monarchy following the insurrection of August 9, and mistrusting the Conventional, Roux preferred an economic and social struggle and proclaimed a veritable "economic terrorism." On June 25, 1793, he gave before the Convention a speech known as the "Manifesto of the Enragés," which criticized the apathy of the public authorities and advocated quick and severe measures against speculators and monopolists. The speech brought violent reactions from the montagnard deputies. Attacked by the jacobins and the cordeliers (the Hébertists, however, adopted his program), he was equally criticized by JEAN-paul marat. Arrested on the orders of the Commune on August 22, 1793, then released on August 27, he was again imprisoned at Bicêtre, where he stabbed himself to death upon learning of his sentence by the Revolutionary Tribunal.