Revolutionary Tribunal

The revolutionary Tribunal was created at the instigation of the deputy of the Cantal Jean-Baptiste Carrier, by the law of March 10th, 1793 under the denomination of criminal Tribunal extraordinary (see Création of the extraordinary court).

Competence

Its competence was vast, practically unlimited:

He will know of very undertaken counter-revolutionary, of any attack against freedom, the equality, the unit, the indivisibility of the Republic, safety interior and external of the State, and all the plots tending to restore the royalty or to establish any other authority attentatoire with freedom, the equality and the sovereignty of the people, that is to say that the defendants are civil or military civils servant, or ordinary citizens. (Article 1)

Composition and functions

The court will be composed of a jury and five judges who will direct the instruction and will apply the law, after the declaration of sworn on the fact. (Article 2)

The judges will not be able to give any judgment if they are not at least three. (Article 3)

That of the judges who will have been the first elected official will chair; and, in the event of absence, it will be replaced by oldest of age. (art.4)

The judges will be named by the national Convention, with the relative plurality of the votes, which could not nevertheless be lower than the quarter of the voices. (art.5)

It near the court Public prosecutor and two will have associated there a or substitutes, which will be named by national Convention, like the judges and according to the same mode. (art.6)

It will be named by national Convention twelve citizens of the department of Paris and the four departments which surround it, which will fulfill the functions of sworn, and four substitutes for the same department, which will replace sworn in the event of absence, of challenge or disease (Article 7)

The judges of the court will elect, with the absolute plurality of the votes, a clerk and two ushers; the clerk will have two clerks which will be received by the Judges. (Article 15)

Procedure

All the official reports of denunciation, information, arrest will be addressed in forwarding by the administrative bodies to the national Convention, which will return them to a commission of its members charged to make the examination of it and of him to submit the report/ratio of it (Article 9)

It will be formed a commission of six members of the national Convention, which will be in charge of the examination of all the parts, to submit the report/ratio of it and to write and present the bills of indictment, to supervise the instruction which will be done in the extraordinary court, to maintain a correspondence followed with the public prosecutor and the judges on all the businesses which will be sent to the court and to give an account of it to national Convention. (Article 10)

The defendants who will want to challenge one or more sworn, will be held to propose the grounds for challenge by a single act; and the court will judge of it the validity in the twenty-four hours. (Article 11)

Sworn will vote and form their declaration publicly, aloud, with the absolute plurality of the votes. (Article 12)

The judgments will be carried out without recourse to the court of cassation. (Article 13)

The defendants in escape who will not represent themselves in the three months of the judgment, will be treated like emigrants, and prone to the same sorrows, either compared to their person or compared to their goods (Article 14)

Sorrows

The judges of the extraordinary court will pronounce the sorrows carried by the penal code, and the posterior laws against the convinced defendants, and when the offenses which will remain constant, are in the class of those which must be punished sorrows of the correctional police force, the court pronounces these sorrows without returning the defendants to the police courts (T.II, Article 1).

The goods of those which will be condemned to the capital punishment will be acquired with the Republic, and it will be provided for the subsistence with the widows and the children, besides if they do not have goods (T.II, Article 2).

Those which being convinced of crimes or offenses which would not have been envisaged by the penal code or the posterior laws, or whose punishment would not be determined by the laws and whose antisocial behavior and residence on the territory of the Republic would have been a subject of public disorder and agitation, will be condemned to the sorrow of deportation (T.II, Article 3).

Sit and emoluments

The executive council is charged to provide for the site with the court. (T.II, Article 4)

Judge the salary, clerks, clerk and usher of the court will be the same one as that which was issued for the judges, clerks, clerk and ushers of the criminal court of the department of Paris. (T.II, Article 5)

History

The March 13rd 1793, national Convention proceeded to the election of the public prosecutor. Were named: Louis Joseph Faure, public prosecutor close the criminal court of the department of Paris; substitutes: Antoine-Quentin Fouquier-Tinville, substitute of old the tribunel criminal (163 votes), and Jean-Baptiste Fleuriot-Lescot, taken refuge Belgian in Paris (162 votes). Louis Joseph Faure declined the function, Fouquier-Tinville took his place and Donzé-Verteuil, former monk, replaced it like substitute.

The March 27th an additional decree regulated the reclassification of the personnel after the suspension of their work, the compensation for travelling expenses, the personnel subordinate and the reference by the criminal courts with the national Convention of the facts of which they would be seized, punishable under the terms of the article first of the law of the March 10th 1793.

The March 28th, national Convention issued that the extraordinary court would take up duty the very same day. The mayor of Paris installed the court in old the grand' room of the Parliament become the room of the Equality .

The revolutionary tribunal functioned of the March 29th 1793, day of the first audience to the 12 meadow year III (May 31st 1795). The defendant supply was ensured by the Policiers of Paris named by the Commune.

Three presidents followed one another for this period: Jacques Bernard Marie Montané, lawyer Toulouse, Justice of the Peace, until July 1793, relieved and imprisoned after the lawsuit of Charlotte Corday, Martial Joseph Armand Hermann, president of the criminal court of the Pas-de-Calais, August at April 1794, released of its functions after the lawsuit of Danton, Rene-François Dumas, of Lons-the-Salt maker, until the Thermidor 9.

Paralyzed as of their installation by the commission of the Six, which still sent anybody to him, the judges are accused of inertia.

The April 2nd 1793, on proposal of Jean-Paul Marat and Jean-Baptiste Carrier, national Convention issues:

National Convention removes the commission of the Six which had been formed to supervise the extraordinary court created by a preceding law; authorize the public prosecutor of this court to continue the offenses of its competence on the returned decrees of charge and to return by national Convention.

April 5th, on proposal of Louis Joseph Charlier, national Convention brings back its decree of April 2nd, 1793 (Article 1) and issues that the public prosecutor close to the court is authorized to make stop, continue and consider all prevented, on the denunciation of the authorities made up or the citizens. (Article 2).
Will be able however the aforementioned indicter to decree any warrant for arrest neither to bring against the members of national Convention without a decree of charge, nor against the Ministers and generals of the armies of the Republic, without to have obtained the authorization of Convention of it. (Article 3).

April 6th, the first marked one appeared.

Jean Paul Marat, issued charge by the national Convention on April 12th, appeared on April 24th and was discharged.

It was followed, with very an other leaves, inter alia:

Charlotte Corday, July 17th 1793;
Marie-Antoinette, 23-25 Vendémiaire year II (14 October 16th, 1793);
21 Of Gironde, of which Jacques Pierre Brissot, Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud and Armand Gensonné, 3-9 Brumaire year II (24 October 30th, 1793);
Mrs Roland, 18 brumaire year II (November 8th 1793]];
Jean Sylvain Bailly, 19-20 Brumaire year II (10 November 11th, 1793);
Antoine Barnave, 7-8 Frimaire year II (27- November 28th, 1793);
20 Hébertistes, of which Jacques Rene Hébert and Jean-Baptiste Cloots, 1st-4 Germinal year II (21 March 24th, 1794);
14 Dantonistes, of which Georges Jacques Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Fabre d' Églantine and Herault de Séchelles, 13-16 Germinal year II (2 April 5th, 1794);
4 of the Police of Paris (Coldness, Marino, Soulès and Dangé) which had stopped all the people above, at the time of the famous Procès of the red shirts;

By the decree of the 8 Brumaire year II (October 29th 1793), returned on the motion of Billaud-Game preserve, the extraordinary criminal court bore from now on the revolutionary name of tribunal .

The 22 Meadow year law II (June 10th 1794), which carried the Terreur to its apogee, the Great Terror, presented by Georges Couthon in the name of the Comité of public hello, laid out in particular:

The revolutionary Tribunal is instituted to punish the enemies of the people. (Article 4)
The sorrow carried against all the offenses whose knowledge belongs to the revolutionary Tribunal is death. (Article 7)
If there exist evidence either material, or morals, independently of the testimonial proof, it will not be heard of witness. (Article 13)
The law gives for defenders the patriots calumniated of sworn patriotic, it does not grant any to the conspirators. (Article 16).

Under the terms of this law, any suspect was condemned and the revolutionary tribunal was nothing any more but one simple formality between the prison and the guillotine.

According to Gerard Walter, Acts of the revolutionary Tribunal , 509 death sentences was marked into meadow, 796 in messidor and 342 of 1st at Thermidor 9.

Thermidor 10,11 and 12 year II (28-29- July 30th, 1794), 93 Robespierristes, of which Robespierre, Saint-Just, Georges Couthon, the judge of the Court Rene-François Dumas, Jean-Baptiste Fleuriot-Lescot, François Hanriot and all the municipal officers put out the law, forwarded by the revolutionary tribunal for a recognition of identity before the guillotine.

Thermidor 10, the Comité of public hello dealt with the complete renewal of the members of the Court. Fouquier-Tinville always appeared in it as public prosecutor. It is not that the 14, on proposal of Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron, that it was the subject of a decree of arrest.

A new reorganization of the revolutionary Tribunal was voted the 8 Nivôse (December 28th) and applications the 8 Pluviôse (January 27th).

The 8 Germinal one, (March 28th 1795) opened the lawsuit of Fouquier-Tinvillle and its twenty-three co-defendants.

The 12 Meadow year III (May 31st 1795), the revolutionary Tribunal was removed. Its old sworn, whose painter François Gerard, were trailed in justice, and several of them guillotines.

Operation of the revolutionary Tribunal in June 1794

At dawn the ushers traverse the prison of the Caretaker's lodge to gather those which will have to face the test of the Court. One goes there by a narrow and obscure staircase which leads to the first stage of the Palate, where one gathers the defendants while waiting for the hour of the audience. After distressing waiting, condemned Day penetrate in one of the two rooms of the Court under the hootings of a heinous crowd, packed behind the barriers. Condemned are laid out along the especially built steps so that one can detail them with his ease.

Rene-François Dumas usually chairs. He reads shovel mixes the bill of indictment. One puts a question with each defendant. The audience is finished. For more Fouquier-Tinville safety made prepare judgments in white and it is enough to directly add the name of marked of the day. Once the verdict returned, condemned are gathered in one of the parts of the clerk's office where they will be stripped their personal objects. The Republic indeed inherited all their goods.

Sources

Parliamentary records of 1787 to 1860: complete collection of the legislative and political debates of the French Rooms. First series, 1787 to 1799. Divide into volumes LX.
victims of Picpus 1794-1994 Booklet acquired with the cemetery of Picpus

External bonds

Creation and drifts of the Revolutionary Tribunal
Joseph Souberbielle - Promise-sworn by Gilles Marchal

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