Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville

2025-09-21T07:08:19Z

72.192.114.100: /* Grande Terreur */

{{Short description|French lawyer and public prosecutor}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Antoine Quentin Fouquier de Tinville
| image = Antoine Quentin Fouquier de Tinville.png
| image_size = 200px
| caption = Antoine Fouquier Tinville during the Reign of Terror
| birth_date = 10 June 1746
| birth_place = [[Foreste|Herouël]], [[Aisne]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1795|5|7|1746|06|10}}
| death_place = [[Paris, France]]
| death_cause = [[Guillotine]]
| occupation = Lawyer
| party =
| parents =
| alma mater =
| spouse =
| signature = Signatur Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville.PNG
}}
'''Antoine Quentin Fouquier de Tinville''' ({{IPA|fr|ɑ̃twan kɑ̃tɛ̃ fukje tɛ̃vil}}, 10 June 1746{{snd}}7 May 1795), also called '''Fouquier-Tinville''' and nicknamed posthumously the '''Provider of the Guillotine'''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jourdan |first=A. R. M. |date=2006 |chapter=Le Pourvoyeur de la guillotine. Fouquier-Tinville et le tribunal révolutionnaire |chapter-url=https://dare.uva.nl/search?identifier=e378e782-8f2e-40a7-bc25-06735fb1ac58 |pages=52–53 |editor=E. de Waresquiel |title=Mémoires de la France. Deux siècles de trésors inédits et secrets à l'Assemblée nationale |language=en}}</ref> was a French lawyer and [[accusateur public]] of the [[Revolutionary Tribunal]] during the [[French Revolution]] and [[Reign of Terror]].

From March 1793 he served as the "public prosecutor" in Paris, demanding the execution of numerous accused individuals, including famous ones, like [[Marie Antoinette|Marie-Antoinette]], [[Georges Danton|Danton]] or [[Maximilien Robespierre|Robespierre]] and overseeing the sentencing of over two thousand of them to the [[guillotine]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=ANTOINE FOUQUIER-TINVILLE (1746-1795) - Encyclopædia Universalis |url=https://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/antoine-fouquier-tinville/ |access-date=2023-09-08 |website=www.universalis.fr}}</ref> In April 1794, it was decreed to centralise the investigation of court records and to bring all the political suspects in France to the Revolutionary Tribunal to Paris. Following the events of the [[Fall of Maximilien Robespierre|10th Thermidor]], he was arrested early August.<ref name=":0" />

He was tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal as one of the major figures responsible for the excesses and injustices that marked the period of the Reign of Terror. During his trial, he defended himself by stating, "It is not I who ought to be facing the tribunal, but the chiefs whose orders I have executed. I had only acted in the spirit of the laws passed by a Convention invested with all powers." Generally, his defense involved shifting the blame for the executions onto the [[Committee of Public Safety]], especially on [[Maximilien Robespierre|Maximilien de Robespierre]].

Despite this defense, he was sentenced to death, alongside the judges and some jurors of the Revolutionary Tribunal, among other charges, for abusing his authority and neglecting proper legal procedures during trials.<ref name=":0" /> He was guillotined in Paris on 7 May 1795, and became the last individual to be executed by the Revolutionary Tribunal before its abolition.<ref name=":0" />

His precise role in the Reign of Terror is still a subject of debate; modern historians suggest that it is more valuable to view his role as part of a group of officials and various terrorist actors rather than solely as the sole instigator of the Judicial Terror.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last1=Brunet |first1=Isabelle |last2=Toffoli |first2=Pascal de |last3=Poisson |first3=Philippe |last4=Renneville |first4=Marc |date=2005 |title=Accusateur public et parquet : origines et (r)évolution |url=https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01393008 |journal=Le Lien. Bulletin d'histoire judiciaire et pénitentiaire en Lot-et-Garonne |language=fr |issue=1}}</ref>

==Biography==

=== Origins ===
The Fouquier de Tinville family, now known as Fouquier d'Hérouel, descends from an old bourgeois family from the vicinity of [[Saint-Quentin, Aisne|Saint-Quentin]], in the present-day [[Departments of France|department]] of [[Aisne]]. In the 18th century, Éloy Fouquier de Tinville, lord of Tinville, Hérouel, Auroir, and Foreste, was a farmer and a royal officer in [[Péronne, Somme|Péronne]].<ref>Famille Fouquier d'Hérouel, [[Pierre-Marie Dioudonnat]], ''Le Simili-Nobiliaire-Français'', éd. Sedopols, 2012, p. 326-327.</ref>

=== Early career ===

[[File:Foreste Cassini.jpg|thumb|Hérouel]]

Antoine Fouquier de Tinville was born in [[Foreste|Hérouel]] on 10 June 1746, and was baptized two days later (which often leads to confusion regarding his birthdate).<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=5Mi1314 - 1693 1790 Archives départementales de l'Aisne |url=https://archives.aisne.fr/ark:/63271/vtaaacdcbb07d8daf44/daogrp/0/1?id=https://archives.aisne.fr/ark:/63271/vtaaacdcbb07d8daf44/canvas/0/1 |access-date=2023-09-08 |website=Archives départementales de l'Aisne |language=fr-fr}}</ref> He was the second of five siblings. His father, Éloy Fouquier de Tinville,<ref name=":1" /> a farmer and lord of Hérouel, gave him the name of the land of Tinville, while the name Hérouel went to his older brother, Pierre-Éloy.<ref name=":1" /> The two younger brothers received the names Foreste and Vauvillé. His mother, Marie-Louise Martine,<ref name=":1" /> came from a prosperous family. For six years he studied law in [[Noyon]] and in 1774 purchased a position as prosecutor or ''[[Syndic|procureur]]'' attached to the [[Grand Châtelet|Châtelet]] in Paris, which was an exceptional royal jurisdiction tasked with targeting, among other things, revolutionaries.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Andries |first=Lise |date=2021-06-28 |title=La colère et le crime |url=https://www.cairn.info/revue-dix-huitieme-siecle-2021-1-page-49.htm?ref=doi |journal=Dix-huitième siècle |volume=53 |issue=1 |pages=49–65 |doi=10.3917/dhs.053.0049 |issn=0070-6760|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="Hanson" /> He sold his office in 1781 to pay off his debts and became a clerk under the [[lieutenant-general]] of police.<ref name=Hanson>Paul R. Hanson, [https://books.google.com/books?id=yYJ4AAAAQBAJ&q=Antoine+Quentin+Fouquier-Tinville ''The A-Z of the French Revolution: Fouquier-Tinville''], Scarecrow Press, 2007, pp. 134–134.</ref> In 1775 Fouquier-Tinville married Geneviève-Dorothée Saugnier, his cousin, with whom he would have five children (two twins). He was widowed seven years later. Four months after his wife's death, he remarried Henriette Jeanne Gérard d'Arcourt, with whom he would spend the rest of his life. They had three children together.<ref>Lenotre, p. 15-28</ref>

In early 1791 ''freedom of defence'' became the standard; any citizen was allowed to defend another.<ref>Journal des États généraux convoqués par Louis XVI, 28 septembre 1791</ref><ref>Nicolas Derasse, "Les défenseurs officieux : une défense sans barreaux", Annales historiques de la Révolution française [Online], 350 | octobre-décembre 2007, Online since 01 January 2011, connection on 04 December 2021. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ahrf/11230; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/ahrf.11230</ref> From the beginning, the authorities were concerned about this experiment's future. Derasse suggests it was a "collective suicide" by the lawyers in the Assembly.<ref>Derasse, N. (2012). WORDS AND LIBERTY: HOPES FOR LEGAL DEFENCE DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. In: Quaderni Storici, 47 (141 (3)), p. 763. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43780153</ref>  In criminal cases, the expansion of the right gave priority to the spoken word.<ref name="academia.edu">[https://www.academia.edu/29571649/Defence_in_writing_The_end_of_the_printed_legal_brief_France_1788_1792_ H.Leuwers (2012) Defence in writing. The end of the printed legal brief (France, 1788-1792)]</ref>

Little is known of the part he played at the outbreak of the Revolution. According to himself, he was part of the [[National Guard (France)|National Guard]] at its formation.<ref>Lenotre, G. '' Madame Fouquier-Tinville'', Romances of the French Revolution, 1908. p. 20</ref> He was active in the political committee of his section in 1789. In September 1791 former "advocates" lost their title, their distinctive form of dress, their status, and their profession orders and adapted their practices to the new political and legal situation.<ref name="academia.edu" /> Also Fouquier called himself ''"homme de loi"''. In Summer 1792, he supported the [[sans-culottes]] movement. On 25 August, backed by his cousin [[Camille Desmoulins]], and after Robespierre refused the position, Fouquier de Tinville became for three months the foreman of a [[jury]] established to pass verdicts on the crimes of [[enemies of the people]] arrested after the ''[[Insurrection of 10 August 1792]]''.<ref name="Hanson" />

[[File:Antoine Fouquier-Tinville.jpeg|thumb|Antoine Fouquier-Tinville, engraving by François Bonneville, Paris, BnF (National Library of France), Department of Prints and Photography, 1796.]]

After Robespierre refused, Fouquier-Tinville was appointed as president. The Paris commune made the decision to permanently install the guillotine.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://criminocorpus.org/fr/reperes/chronologies/activite-des-tribunaux-criminels-paris/ |title=Les tribunaux criminels à Paris (1790–1792) |language=fr |publisher=Criminocorpus |date=19 January 2010 |access-date=25 February 2022 |archive-date=3 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211203143348/https://criminocorpus.org/fr/reperes/chronologies/activite-des-tribunaux-criminels-paris/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Public accuser===
[[File:Fouquier.jpg|thumb|Act of death sentence signed by Fouquier Tinville, public accuser to the [[committee of public safety]] in the [[Revolutionary Tribunal]].]][[File:Conciergerie in 1790.jpg|thumb|Conciergerie in 1790; the medieval towers still exist.]][[File:Procès de Marie-Antoinette le 15 octobre 1793.jpg|thumb|Procès de Marie-Antoinette le 15 octobre 1793]]

When the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris was created by the [[National Convention]] on 10 March 1793, and [[Louis-Joseph Faure|Fauré]] refused, Fouquier was appointed on 15 March as [[accusateur public|public accuser]], an office that he filled from the end of the month until 1 August 1794.<ref name=Hanson/> According to all the testimonies, including those of his critics, Fouquier-Tinville is said to have been a very hardworking and conscientious man.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |title=Creating and resisting the Terror: the Paris Revolutionary Tribunal, March–June 1793 |url=https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/32/2/203/4959174 |access-date=2023-09-09 |website=academic.oup.com |doi=10.1093/fh/cry008|hdl=10871/33268 |hdl-access=free |url-access=subscription }}</ref> The documents were sent by the [[Committee of General Security]] to the public accuser, who examined them, summarized the facts, grouped the grievances, quoted the incriminating words or writings, and mentioned the denials of the accused. In a word, he drew up his [[indictment]].<ref>THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR:: OF THE TERROR:: ANTOINE QUENTIN FOUQUIER-TINVILLE TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF ALPHONSE J. DUNOYER BY A.W. EVANS WITH A PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE AND FOURTEEN OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS</ref> Fouquier was known for his radicalism.<ref name=Hanson/> His zeal in prosecution earned him the nickname ''Purveyor to the Guillotine.''<ref name=Bannon>Edwin Bannon, ''Refractory Men, Fanatical Women: Fidelity to Conscience During the French Revolution.'' Gracewing Publishing, 1992, pp. 101–104.</ref> On 29 July he accused [[Jacques-Bernard-Marie Montané]], president of the tribunal, of being insufficiently radical. On 17 September the [[Law of Suspects]] was introduced. On 26 September 1793 [[Martial Herman]] was appointed as president and [[René-François Dumas]] as vice president; [[Coffinhal]] and [[Joachim Vilate]] were each appointed as one of the judges and [[jurors]], Adrien Nicolas Gobeau as substitute of the public accuser

Fouquier lived at [[Rue Saint-Honoré]] but moved to [[Place Dauphine]] and then to [[:fr:Quai de l'Horloge]] both on [[Île de la Cité]]. An apartment between the towers of the [[Conciergerie]] was the home of Fouquier-Tinville.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.carmagnole-liberte.fr/musees/la-conciergerie/ | title=La Conciergerie }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.paristoric.com/index.php/paris-d-hier/monuments/1441-la-conciergerie?tmpl=component | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230909051712/http://www.paristoric.com/index.php/paris-d-hier/monuments/1441-la-conciergerie?tmpl=component | url-status=usurped | archive-date=9 September 2023 | title=La Conciergerie }}</ref> He lived there with his wife and twins while conducting the trials in the [[:fr:Grand chamber of the parliament of Paris|courtroom]]. His activity in the Conciergerie and the [[Palais de Justice, Paris|Palace of Justice]] earned him the reputation of one of the most sinister figures of the Revolution.<ref>[[Ted Morgan (writer)|de Gramont, Sanche]], ''The French, Portrait of a People'', Putnam's, New York, 1969, p. 122</ref> His office as public accuser arguably reflected a need to display the appearance of legality during what was essentially political command, more than a need to establish actual guilt.

On 29 October 1793, Fouquier-Tinville sent a letter to the National Convention, which was later used during his trial. In the letter, he wrote:<ref name=":12" /> <blockquote>We are arrested by the formalities prescribed by the law. [...] Moreover, one wonders, why witnesses? The Convention, all of France, accuse those whose trial is being conducted; the evidence of their crimes is evident; everyone in their hearts is convinced that they are guilty; the tribunal can do nothing on its own, it is obliged to follow the law; it is up to the Convention to remove all the formalities that hinder its progress.</blockquote>Early April 1794 Fouquier-Tinville asked the tribunal to order the [[Indulgents]] who "confused the hearing" and insulted "National Justice" to the guillotine. Claiming the Dantonists were not serving the people and were "false patriots", who had preferred personal and foreign interests to the welfare of the nation.<ref>Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel 5 April 1794</ref> He did not align with any specific political movement, keeping his distance from factions such as the [[Jacobins]], and he did not maintain any particular relationships with leaders from the [[The Mountain|Montagnards]], such as Maximilien Robespierre, as reported by Antoine Boulant.<ref name=":12" />

On 21 May 1794 the government decided that the Terror would be centralised, with almost all the tribunals in the provinces closed and all the trials held in Paris.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=9lWNCwAAQBAJ&dq=government+decided+that+the+Terror+would+be+centralised&pg=PR14-IA87 The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny by Ian Davidson, p. xiv]</ref>

==Grande Terreur==
On 10 June, [[Georges Couthon]] introduced the [[Law of 22 Prairial]]. Legal defense was sacrificed by banning any assistance for defendants brought before the revolutionary tribunal.<ref>Derasse, N. (2012). WORDS AND LIBERTY: HOPES FOR LEGAL DEFENCE DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Quaderni Storici, 47(141 (3)), p. 763. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43780153</ref> "If this law passes," cried a deputy, "all we have to do is to blow our brains out." Fouquier, who feared to be incapable to deal with the number of trials, sent him a letter, but Robespierre did not reply. The tribunal became a simple court of condemnation that refused suspects the right of counsel and allowed only one of two verdicts – complete acquittal or death - based not on evidence, but on the jurors' moral conviction.<ref>Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, 11 juin 1794, p. 4</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://people.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1983-4/mcletchie.htm|title=Maximilien Robespierre, Master of the Terror|website=people.loyno.edu|access-date=14 December 2021|archive-date=5 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171205142542/http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1983-4/mcletchie.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> The courtroom was renovated to allow more people to be sentenced simultaneously.<ref>Alphonse Dunoyer. Fouquier-Tinville, accusateur public, p. 178, 181</ref> It proposed to erect a guillotine inside the courtroom, but it was moved to the [[Faubourg Saint-Antoine]] in order to stand out less.  According to [[François Furet]], the prisons were overpopulated; they housed over 8,000 "suspects" at the beginning of [[Thermidor]] year II.{{sfn|Furet|Ozouf|1989|p=143}} The number of death sentences doubled.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.justice.gouv.fr/histoire-et-patrimoine-10050/la-justice-dans-lhistoire-10288/le-tribunal-revolutionnaire-22842.html|title = Le Tribunal révolutionnaire| date=25 January 2023 }}</ref> Within three days, 156 people were sent in batches to the guillotine; all the members of the [[Parlement of Toulouse]] were executed.<ref>Geschichte Der Französischen Revolution von Jules Michelet, p. 119</ref>{{sfn|Israel|2014|p=570}} More than 2,400 people were convicted by the "tribunal révolutionaire" accused of conspiring against [[liberty]]. The commune had to solve serious problems in the cemeteries because of the smell. Two new mass graves were dug in mid-July at [[Picpus Cemetery]] in the impermeable ground.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.pariscemeteries.com/picpus-1|title=Picpus (12)|website=Paris Cemeteries}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|title=Spaces of Mourning:The Cemetery of Picpus and the Memory of Terror in Post-Revolutionary France|first=Ronen|last=Steinberg|date=9 September 2008|journal=Proceedings of the Western Society for French History|volume=36|hdl = 2027/spo.0642292.0036.011}}</ref>

One of the last groups he prosecuted included seven nuns, aged 32–66, of the former convent of Carmelites, living in Paris, plus an eighth nun, of the Convent of the Visitation,
<blockquote>. . .who were charged with consorting together and scheming to trouble the State by provoking civil war with their fanaticism...Instead of living at peace within the bosom of the Republic, which had provided for their subsistence, and instead of obeying the laws, adopted the idea of residing together in this same house...and of making this house a refuge for refractory priests and counter-revolutionary fanatics, with whom they plotted against the Revolution and against the eternal principles of liberty and equality which are its basis.<ref name=Bannon/></blockquote>

Apparently, the nuns, whom he called criminal assassins, were "corrupted" by the ex-Jesuit Rousseau de Roseicquet, who led them in a conspiracy to poison minds and subvert the Republic. When the judge read this piece of Fouquier-Tinville's prose, he condemned them to be deported, as well as all those who had given them refuge.<ref name=Bannon/>

===Downfall===

[[File:Fouquier Tinville par Vivant Denon.jpg|thumb|Fouquier Tinville par [[Vivant Denon]] ]]

On 26/27 June, Robespierre demanded that Fouquier-Tinville, involved in the trial of [[Catherine Théot]], be replaced as too bound to the [[Committee of General Security]].<ref>R.R. Palmer (1970), p. 368</ref> Fouquier-Tinville's career ended with the fall of Robespierre [[9 Thermidor]]. When Robespierre and his supporters gathered that evening at the Hôtel de Ville, Fouquier-Tinville declined an invitation by answering he recognized the Convention alone. The next day, halfway through the proceedings, Fouquier-Tinville, who did not want to pass judgment on his friend the mayor [[Jean-Baptiste Fleuriot-Lescot|Fleuriot-Lescot]], took off his official robe and walked out.<ref>Fouquier-Tinville, pp. 120–22</ref>

On the [[Thermidorian Reaction|9th Thermidor]], the day of the [[Fall of Maximilien Robespierre|fall of Maximilien de Robespierre]], Fouquier-Tinville continued his work without any hindrance.<ref name=":12">{{cite book|access-date=2023-09-09|date=2018-10-18|first1=Antoine|isbn=978-2-262-07034-2|language=fr|last1=Boulant|publisher=Place des éditeurs|title=Le tribunal révolutionnaire: Punir les ennemis du peuple|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dGRwDwAAQBAJ}}</ref> When the Robespierre-affiliated judge, [[René-François Dumas|Dumas]], was arrested midday during a tumultuous session by a decree of the National Convention, Fouquier-Tinville decided to proceed with judicial proceedings and requested that "justice take its course."<ref name=":12" /> That evening, while dining at [[Jean-Baptiste Coffinhal|Coffinhal's]], he learned of the arrest of Robespierre, [[Georges Couthon|Couthon]], [[Louis Antoine de Saint-Just|Saint-Just]], and other Robespierre supporters.<ref name=":12" /> He received news of Maximilien de Robespierre's escape to the town hall while he was with Gabriel-Toussaint Scellier, a judge from the Revolutionary Tribunal.<ref name=":12" /> The next morning, he went to the National Convention to assure them of the Revolutionary Tribunal's loyalty.<ref name=":12" /> Verifying the identity of the prisoners Fouquier-Tinville had to solve a problem as 13 of them were members of the [[Paris Commune (French Revolution)|insurrectionary Commune]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iMIBAAAAYAAJ&q=PRAIRIAL&pg=RA1-PA135|title=Memoirs of the Sansons: From Private Notes and Documents (1688–1847)|first=Henri|last=Sanson|date=12 March 1876|publisher=Chatto and Windus|via=Google Books}}</ref> Around 2 a.m. Robespierre and 21 "Robespierrists" were accused of counter-revolution and condemned to death by the rules of the [[law of 22 Prairial]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=76Kpqu_INJQC&dq=Robespierre+5+december+1790&pg=PT227|title=Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution|first=Ruth|last=Scurr|date= 2007|publisher=Henry Holt and Company|isbn=978-1466805781 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

Although he was briefly kept as the new government's prosecutor, as confirmed on 28 July 1794 by [[Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac]] and the convention, Fouquier-Tinville was arrested after [[Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron]] denounced him as an [[accomplice]] of Robespierre.<ref name="Hanson" /> Informed of his impending arrest, Fouquier-Tinville voluntarily surrendered himself.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Chavanette |first=Loris |date=2021-11-15 |title=Le procès de Fouquier-Tinville, ou l'accusation de terreur en l'an III |url=https://www.cairn.info/revue-histoire-de-la-justice-2021-2-page-47.htm?ref=doi |journal=Histoire de la justice |volume=32 |issue=2 |pages=47–59 |doi=10.3917/rhj.032.0047 |issn=1639-4399|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Imprisoned on 1 August, Fouquier-Tinville was brought to trial in front of the convention. His defense was that he had only obeyed the decrees of the [[Committee of Public Safety]] and the convention.<ref name=":2" /> He was granted the right to defend himself before the National Convention, where he appeared on the 21st Thermidor, Year II (8 August 1794).<ref name=":2" /> His defense, in which he placed the blame for the executions solely on Robespierre, failed to convince the convention. They decided to proceed with his arrest and trial, along with certain judges and jurors from the Revolutionary Tribunal.<ref name=":2" />
<blockquote>It is not I who ought to be facing the tribunal, but the chiefs whose orders I have executed. I had only acted in the spirit of the laws passed by a Convention invested with all powers. Through the absence of its members [on trial], I find myself the head of a [political] conspiracy I have never been aware of. Here I am facing slander, [facing] a people always eager to find others responsible.</blockquote>

=== Trial ===

[[File:Fouquier-Thinville trial.jpg|thumb|Fouquier-Thinville trial]]

[[Jean-Lambert Tallien|Tallien]], one of the leaders of the [[Thermidorians]] and a central deputy in the fall of Robespierre, opposed subjecting him to thorough questioning. This is generally interpreted as a maneuver aimed at preventing Fouquier-Tinville from providing lists of deputies who may have been complicit in his judicial work, including Tallien himself.<ref name=":12" /> Fouquier defended his innocence vehemently.<ref name=":12" /> In a letter to his wife and children dated 12 November 1794, in which he enclosed a lock of hair, he maintained his innocence, claimed to be the victim of slander, and stated that he was "sacrificed to public opinion."<ref name=":12" />

His trial ensued, lasting forty-one days, the longest of the French Revolution.<ref name=":2" /> From the 9th Germinal, Year III (29 March 1795), to the 12th Floréal (1 May), a total of 419 witnesses were called, including 223 for the defense and 196 for the prosecution.<ref name=":12" /> Among the witnesses for the prosecution was, for instance, the Paris clerk, who accused him of shedding the blood of innocents, especially [[Georges Danton|Danton]].<ref name=":12" /> Also among the prosecution witnesses was the bailiff Lucien Dupré, who spoke of his "relentlessness."<ref name=":12" /> Among the witnesses for the defense was the owner of the Palais de Justice tavern, who claimed that Fouquier-Tinville had complained to her about the number of executions, and the lawyer Bernard Malarme, who asserted that he had released many patriots.<ref name=":12" />

Generally, he defended himself by assigning responsibility for the executions of the Revolutionary Tribunal to the [[Committee of Public Safety]], especially Maximilien de Robespierre.<ref name=":2" /> According to his testimony, he claimed to have met with Robespierre privately every evening to decide on the executions for the following day.<ref name=":2" /> This did not convince his prosecutors and he was sentenced to death.<ref name=":2" />

=== Death ===
He was guillotined on 7 May 1795, together with 15 former functionaries of the Revolutionary Tribunal, who were sentenced as his accomplices.<ref>Pièces original du procès du Fouquier-Tinville et de ses complices, 1795. p. 94</ref> These are his final words, which he wrote before his execution:<ref name=":12" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Associés |first=Pierre Bergé & |title=[FOUQUIER-TINVILLE] |url=http://www.pba-auctions.com/lot/17656/3424893-fouquiertinvilleordre-de-prepasearch=& |access-date=2023-09-12 |website=Pierre Bergé & Associés |language=fr}}</ref><blockquote>I have nothing to reproach myself with; I have always complied with the laws, I have never been a creature of [[Maximilien Robespierre|Robespierre]] or [[Louis Antoine de Saint-Just|Saint-Just]]; on the contrary, I have been on the verge of being arrested four times. I die for my country and without reproach. I am satisfied: later, my innocence will be recognized.</blockquote>

== Analysis ==
Long considered the primary instigator of the judicial Terror, his role is now nuanced, with the most recent research including him in a broader process of judicial Terror with other actors.<ref name=":3" /> Fouquier-Tinville appears to have generally followed the instructions of Maximilien Robespierre but especially those of the [[Committee of Public Safety]] and the [[Committee of General Security]] during the period of the [[Reign of Terror|Terror]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jones |first=Colin |date=2015-02-01 |title=9 Thermidor: Cinderella among Revolutionary Journées |url=https://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00161071-2822673 |journal=French Historical Studies |language=en |volume=38 |issue=1 |pages=9–31 |doi=10.1215/00161071-2822673 |issn=0016-1071|url-access=subscription }}</ref> However, in some cases, he is said to have shown a desire for independence from political power, especially by granting significant rights to certain defendants.<ref name=":4" />

== Bibliography ==
* [https://archive.org/details/procsdefouquiert00fouq ''Procès de Fouquier-Tinville'']. A Paris: Chez Maret, 1795
* [https://archive.org/details/case_frc_9108/page/n9/mode/2up ''Procès de Fouquier Tinville'']. Paris: De l'imprimerie du Bulletin républicaine, 1795
* [https://archive.org/details/rponsedantoine00fouq/page/n9/mode/2up ''Réponse d'Antoine-Quentin Fouquier, ex-accusateur-public près le Tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris, aux différens chefs d'accusation portés en l'acte à lui notifié, le 26 frimaire: a la défense générale de Billaud-Varennes, Collot-d'Herbois, Barrère et Vadier, anciens membres des comités de gouvernement, et a celle particulière de Billaud, et encore aux faits avancés par quelques-uns d'eux, dans les séances de la Convention des 12 et 13 fructidor'']. Paris, Impr. de Marchant, 1795
* [https://archive.org/details/requisitoiresdef00fouq/page/n7/mode/2up ''Réquisitoires de Fouquier-Tinville''], ed. Hector Fleischmann, 1911

== Posterity ==

=== Literature ===
[[Alexandre Dumas]] and [[Anatole France]] wrote about him and included him in their historical novels.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Tadié |first=Jean-Yves |date=2011 |title=Les écrivains et le roman historique au xxe siècle: Esthétique et psychologie |url=http://www.cairn.info/revue-le-debat-2011-3-page-136.htm |journal=Le Débat |language=fr |volume=165 |issue=3 |pages=136 |doi=10.3917/deba.165.0136 |issn=0246-2346|url-access=subscription }}</ref> He was quoted in an article and in ''[[Illusions perdues]]'' of [[Honoré de Balzac]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GrDPCgfoMKwC&dq=%22Rassi+est+un+m%C3%A9lange+de+Fouch%C3%A9,+de+Fouquier-Tinville,+de+Merlin,+de+Triboulet+et+de+Scapin.%22&pg=PA142 |title=Le Moderniste Illustre |publisher=Slatkine |language=fr |access-date=2023-09-13}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|language=fr|first1=Jacques|last1=Noiray|title=Mémoire, oubli, illusion dans " illusions perdues ": L'exemple de Lucien de Rubempré|periodical=L'Année balzacienne|volume=8|number=1|date=2007|issn=0084-6473|doi=10.3917/balz.008.0185|url=http://www.cairn.info/revue-l-annee-balzacienne-2007-1-page-185.htm|access-date=2023-09-13|pages=185|doi-access=free}}</ref> He is also to be found in ''[[Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe|Les Mémoires d'outre-tombe]]'' of [[François-René de Chateaubriand|Chateaubriand]].<ref>{{cite book|access-date=2023-09-13|date=1848|first1=François-René vicomte de|language=fr|last1=Chateaubriand|publisher=P. Arpin|title=Mémoires d'outre-tombe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wYRBAAAAYAAJ&dq=Desmoulins+fut+convi%C3%A9+au+tribunal+de+Fouquier-Tinville:+%22Quel+%C3%A2ge+as-tu&pg=PA163}}</ref>

=== Cinema ===
Fouquier was played by [[Roger Planchon]] in [[Andrzej Wajda]]'s film ''[[Danton (1983 film)|Danton]]'' (1983). He appears as a character in the opera ''[[Andrea Chenier]]'' by [[Umberto Giordano]].

=== Video game ===
Tinville appears in the game We. The Revolution where he aids the player as a prosecutor for the Revolutionary Tribunal during the [[Reign of Terror]].

==Victims==
* [[Charlotte Corday]]
* [[Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine]] and his son,
* [[Marie Antoinette]]
* [[Girondist]]
:*[[Jacques Pierre Brissot]] and 21 Girondins
:*[[Madame Roland]]
* [[Olympe de Gouges]]
* [[Antoine Lavoisier]]
* [[Mme du Barry]]
* [[Antoine Barnave]]
* [[Armand Louis de Gontaut]], duc de Lauzun, later duc de Biron<ref>Stevenson, Cornelius. “A Biographical Notice of the Duc De Lauzun, Commander of the Troop of Cavalry Which Became Known as ‘Lauzun's Legion’ in the Revolutionary War.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 47, no. 4, 1923, p. 303</ref>
* [[Jacques Hébert]] as well as the leaders of the "''armées révolutionnaires''" were denounced by the Revolutionary Tribunal as accomplices of Hébert.<ref name="ia800501.us.archive.org">[https://archive.org/details/publicprosecutor01duno The public prosecutor of the terror, Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville, p. 250]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=2DerOCz4HRIC&q=Fouquier The Oxford History of the French Revolution by William Doyle]</ref>
* Dantonists.
:*[[George Danton]]
:*[[Marie Jean Hérault de Séchelles]]
:*[[Pierre Philippeaux]]
:*[[Camille Desmoulins|Camille]] and [[Lucile Desmoulins]]
* On 22 April [[Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes|Malesherbes]], a lawyer who had defended the king and the deputés [[Isaac René Guy le Chapelier]] and [[Jacques Guillaume Thouret]], four times elected president of the [[Constituent Assembly]] were taken to the scaffold.
* [[Cécile Renault]]
* [[Élisabeth of France]]
* [[Alexandre de Beauharnais]]
* [[André Chénier]]
* [[Martyrs of Compiègne]]
* [[Marie Thérèse de Choiseul|Princess of Monaco]]
* [[Maximilien Robespierre]] and 21 "Robespierrists" on 29 July 1794. The next day about half of the Paris Commune (70 members) were sent to the guillotine;<ref>[https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/VcJWDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PT82 OCR A Level History: The French Revolution and the rule of Napoleon 1774–1815 by Mike Wells]</ref> Fouquier did not sign the document. On the following day, twelve members of the ''Conseil Général de la Commune'' were sent to the guillotine. The Revolutionary Tribunal was suspended and replaced by a temporary commission.

== Sources ==
{{reflist}}

== References ==
*{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Fouquier-Tinville, Antoine Quentin|volume=10|page=751}} In turn, it cites as references:
** ''Mémoire pour A. Q. Fouquier ex-accusateur public près le tribunal révolutionnaire, etc.'' (Paris, 1794)
** M. Domenget, ''Fouquier-Tinville et le tribunal révolutionnaire'' (Paris, 1878)
** [[Georges Lecocq]], ''Notes et documents sur Fouquier-Tinville'' (Paris, 1885)
** [[Jean Maurice Tourneux]], ''Bibliographie de l'histoire de Paris pendant la Révolution Française'', vol. i. Nos. 4445-4454 (1890), an ennumeration of the documents relating to Fouquier-Tinville's trial
** [[Henri-Alexandre Wallon|Henri Wallon]], ''Histoire du tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris'' (1880–1882)
* {{cite book |editor-first1=François |editor-last1=Furet |editor-first2=Mona |editor-last2=Ozouf |translator=Arthur Goldhammer |title=A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution |date=1989 |publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-17728-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HdtnAAAAMAAJ |language=en}}
* {{cite book |last1=Israel |first1=Jonathan |title=Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre |date=2014 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=978-1400849994 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xpIpAgAAQBAJ |language=en}}

==Further reading==
* [http://rewolucjafrancuska.pl/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/The-Public-Prosecutor-Of-The-Terror_Fouquier-Tinville.pdf THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR : : OF THE TERROR : : ANTOINE QUENTIN FOUQUIER-TINVILLE TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF ALPHONSE J. DUNOYER BY A.W. EVANS WITH A PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE AND FOURTEEN OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181203055607/http://rewolucjafrancuska.pl/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/The-Public-Prosecutor-Of-The-Terror_Fouquier-Tinville.pdf |date=3 December 2018 }}
* [https://archive.org/details/leglaivevengeurd00dula/page/216 Le glaive vengeur de la République française une et indivisible, ou, Galerie révolutionnaire : contenant les noms, prénoms, les lieux de naissance, l'état, les ci-devant qualités, l'âge, les crimes et les dernières paroles de tous les grands conspirateurs et traîtres à la patrie, dont la tête est tombé sous le glaive national, par arrêt du Tribunal extraordinaire, établi à Paris par une loi en date du 10 mars 1793, pour juger sans appel de ce genre de délit / by Dulac, H. G.]

== External links ==
*{{Cite Collier's|wstitle=Fouquier-Tinville, Antoine Quentin|year=1921 |short=x}}

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Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville