Billaud-Varenne, Jean-Nicolas

(1756-1819)

   political figure

   Born in La Rochelle, Jean-Nicolas Billaud-varenne studied law in Paris and Poitiers. An attorney for the Paris Parlement, when the revolution of 1789 began, he joined the jacobin club and, in 1789, published a violent critique of the government, Despotisme des ministres de France, and later a pamphlet, "Acéphalocratie" (1792), in which he affirmed his republican convictions. A Montagnard deputy to the National Convention and later to the Insurrectionary commune of paris (after August 10, 1794), he advocated the establishment of a federal republic and the execution of louis XVI. In September 1793, he became a member of the Committee of Public Safety, joining maximilien Robespierre in his struggle against the girondin moderates, Hebertists, and Dantonist factions. Although he became one of the instigators of the 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794) attack on Robespierre, Billaud-varenne was nonetheless himself arrested, prosecuted as a terrorist, and deported to Guyana (1795). He later refused napoléon i's amnesty and went to Haiti after the return of the Bourbons, where he remained.