Fabre d'Eglantine

(1750-1794)

(Nazaire-François Fabre)

   writer, political figure

   Born in Carcassone, the son of a draper, Philippe-Nazaire-François Fabre, or Fabre d'Eglantine as he is known, was at first a schoolmaster and perhaps an ordained priest, and also an actor. He then turned to literature, and for a sonnet composed for a competition at Toulouse was awarded an eglantine of precious metal, hence his name. He came to Paris in 1787, and there he had a certain success as a playwright (Philinte de Molière ou la Suite du Misanthrope, 1790; Les Précepteurs, 1749). As a poet, he is the author of a popular romance, Il pleut, il pleut bergère. Embracing the ideas of the revolution of 1789, he joined the Cordeliers Club, where he became friends with georges jacques danton (who made him secretary to the minister of justice, August-November 1792) and with camille desmoulins. A member of the insurrectionist Commune after August 10, 1792, and a Montagnard deputy to the Convention (1792), Fabre d'Eglan-tine developed the nomenclature for the months of the Republican Calendar adopted in october 1793. A rogue and an opportunist, he denounced the Foreigners' Plot (see jean-baptiste cloots) to the National Assembly and especially details of the French Indies Company scandal, in which he was actually involved. Fabre d'Eglantine was sentenced to death and guillotined at the same time as Danton and the Indulgents (April 1794).