Conspiracy of the prisons

The Conspiration of the prisons indicates a series of executions at the time of the last days of the Terreur, the 19,21,22,25 messidor and the 5, Thermidor 6, 8 year II (7, 9 - 10,13,23 - July 24th and 26th 1794).

Context

The Committee of public Hello and the Comité of general security devote to an appalling attack patriotic exterminations and in fact unhappy suspects make the expenses of them; it is with the heads of the latter that the points of that will be marked which will gain or lose the part.

The business of Bicêtre, organized by the Committee of general security, Robespierristes of the Committee of public hello counteract by the business of Luxembourg; to the figure of 74, they will be able to oppose that of 154; men faded by former judgments worthy magistrates, the noble ones, priests, large lords, true aristocrats finally.

It was Armand Hermann which was given the responsability to conclude the conspiracy.

Installation of the conspiracy

One of the administrators of the Prison of Luxembourg, Wiltcherich, which was not with its first first attempt, had manufactured the great plot of Arthur de Dillon and the woman of Camille Desmoulins (Lucile Desmoulins) (from April 5th to 13rd 1794). It helped it much in its task and made sure of collaborators subordinates:

a captain, Pierre Joseph Boyenval that the revolutionary army had found makes indignant at it;
Beaussire, lampoonist, of which the wife - Nicole Leguay, oneself-saying baroness of Oliva - was especially famous to be mixed with the Affaire with the collar with the queen (1784-1785);
a counter clerk named Vernay;
an old aide-de-camp of the general Jean-François Carteaux, named Mercies, a robber “ good for the gibet ”.

Joined together in council, four collaborators “ brigands ” make their choice; they consult each other, they sort, they purify. In fact only the titles designate the culprits with the avenger denunciation of these honest citizens, they are resentments, whims or in love imaginations. Such conspired because he had refused to let one of the four men be useful itself in his snuffbox, such other because he was not generous with the counter clerk, a third because he was the husband of a woman that Boyenval condescended to find pleasant.

This one for example had registered on the list of condemned the one named Gant whose wife was also locked up with the prison of Luxembourg. It deposited against Gant and the evening it was with the feet of the frightened woman; two days after one saw it giving the arm to that from which it came to send the husband to the guillotine.

When the number of conspirators had reached the number of 154, one stopped. The list was dispatched in the name of the Committee of public hello, of the office of general police force which chaired Armand Hermann Fouquier-Tinville without to be submitted to the Committee public safety. Fouquier-Tinville concludes that he will judge of only one blow the 154.

Judgment of the conspirators of the prison of Luxembourg

The conspirators of the prison of Luxembourg were divided by Armand Hermann in three categories which last being judged in three meetings.

First meeting - 19 messidor (July 7th, 1794)

Never even in front of the revolutionary Tribunal procedure had not been led with such a contempt of most vulgar equity. Fifty-nine marked was on the benches. Fifty-nine were guillotines - and, among them, an eighty year old man: Jean-Baptist-Augustin de Salignac Fénelon. Among the defendants appeared in particular Denis-Pierre-Jean de Papillon known as “ of Ferté ”, Guillaume-Joseph Dupleix de Banquourt above intendant of Burgundy, Antoine-François-Marie Randon of the Tower (administrator of the Treasury), Louis-Joachim-Paris Potter of Gesvres (duke and par, and compatriot of Louis-Antoine-Leon Saint-Just), Charles-Alexandre-Marc-Marcellin de Boussu de Chimay, prince d' Hénin, Aymar-Charles Nicolaï (ex-first chair Room of the Accounts) and Florent-Alexandre-Nickel silver of the Balsam, count of Montrevel.

Second meeting - 21 messidor year II (July 9th, 1794)

This meeting was composed of fifty marked. It had this thing of remarkable that two of the defendants were discharged; one of them admittedly was a 14 year old child.

Third meeting - 22 messidor year II (July 10th, 1794)

In this meeting was present Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon - the son of the famous naturalist Georges Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon - which, when it went up to the scaffold, shouted with reproach: “ I am the son of Buffon. ” Jacques-Raoul Caradeuc of Chalotais was in a state of known insanity. From the 25 messidor year II (July 13rd, 1794), the figure of the daily victims never went down below thirty and reached that of sixty sometimes. All the famous names of the Ancien Mode were reproduced on the list of the defendants. But, thing surprising, on this list also appeared of daily poor wretches, the soldiers, the plowmen who were majority in the defendants.

Judgment of the conspirators of the prisons of the Carmelite friars and Saint-Lazare

There was “ purgé ” the prison of Luxembourg, in the same way one applied it to other houses of detention. It was still the office of Armand Hermann who caused the denunciations. They brought in front of the revolutionary Tribunal fifty and one prisoners of the Prison of the Carmelite friars and seventy-seven of the Prison Saint-Lazare.

Meeting of Thermidor 5 year II - (July 23rd, 1794)

The first prisoners of the prison of the Carmelite friars were judged on Thermidor 5 year II; forty six were condemned to death. Among them: Andre-Jean Butcher of Argis (ex-lieutenant particular to Châtelet); François-Charles-Antoine d' Autichamps (canon with Notre-Dame) and brother of the Vendean general; Louis-Marthe de Gouy d' Arsy (former deputy with the constituent Assembly); The general Alexandre François Marie de Beauharnais; Joachim-Charles de Soyecourt; Louis-Armand-Constantin, prince de Rohan-Montbazon; Gilles de Santerre (banking); and Louis de Champcenetz (collaborator with the royalist newspaper Acts of the Apostles ). The prisoners of the Carmelite friars were shown to have formed the project to escape.

Appearance of the prisoners of the Saint-Lazare prison

Meeting of Thermidor 6 year II - (July 24th, 1794)

The prisoners of the prison of Saint-Lazare appear in their turn. It was with this meeting that Fouquier-Tinville made a dreadful sadly remained pun celebrates. old Marie-Louise of Laval-Montmorency of soixante-douze years was deaf. Jean-Baptiste Coffinhal, which chaired having questioned it kept silence and as Fouquier-Tinville addressed the word in its turn to him, one of marked pointed out to him that prevented did not hear. Fouquier-Tinville murmured: “ They is good, they are good, we will put on the sentence that she conspired dully. ” the writers also sat on the docks. Andre-Marie Chénier and Jean-Antoine Roucher. With these writers appear the baron Frédérik de Trenck, seventy years old, the former adviser Louis-Valentine Goesman. Among the twenty-four condemned one still notices the marquis Gratien de Montalembert and of Roquelaure, the duke Charles-Alexandre de Créqui de Montmorency, the count Henri-Joseph de Bourdeille, the brother Joseph Raoul.

Meeting of Thermidor 8 year II - (July 26th, 1794)

July 26th, 1794 the marquis Louis-Armand-Joseph d' Usson (seventy-four years); the count de Beausset; Desfossés (former deputy of the constituent Assembly); Nicaut (ex-adviser at the Parliament of Dijon); Athanase-Jean Butcher (secretary of Jean-Sylvain Bailly); Dorothée de Cambon (woman of a former president of the Parliament of Toulouse); the two brothers Trudaine (Charles-Louis and Charles-Michel) and seventeen marked were condemned to death. A second meeting, joined together to the twenty-two of the conspiracy of Saint-Lazare, changes the full number of carried out of Thermidor 8 year II to fifty three. These fifty three condemned belonged to the famous last cart of Terror.

All the victims of the conspiracy of the prisons were buried with the Cimetière of Picpus.

After the fall of Maximilien de Robespierre on Thermidor 9 year II (July 21st, 1794) the prisons were opened and the released prisoners.

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