Cambon, Joseph

(1756-1820)

   political figure

   Born in Montpellier, Joseph Cambon was, during the revolution of 1789, a deputy to the Legislative Assembly, then to the Convention, where he left the neutral Plains group to join the radical Montagnards. He was a member of the first Committee of Public Safety (April-July 1793), then president of the Finance Committee (until 1795). He tried without much success to halt inflation and institute a policy (August 24, 1793) by which the new regime would assume the debts of the old. Opposed to maximilien Robespierre, he voted against him on 8 Thermidor, thus contributing to his fall the next day. Nonetheless, Cambon was himself suspected by the Thermidorian Convention and had to stay in hiding until the amnesty of the Year IV. A proscribed regicide, he went into exile in Belgium during the restoration (1815).