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Member Number: 5931
Early life
Born 1757 at Alençon, Orne, where his father who kept a goldsmith's shop had held a municipal office. His family was ruined, however, by a lawsuit while he was still young, and Hébert came to Paris, where he found work as a box office assistant and wrote plays in his spare time (which were never considered good enough for the stage).
In 1790, he attracted attention through some pamphlets he published, and became a prominent member of the club of the Cordeliers in 1791.He was leader of the sans culottes.
Père Duchesne
Hébert's influence was mainly due to his articles in his journal, which appeared from 1790 to 1794. These polemic articles were written with wit, but were also violent and abusive, and purposely couched in foul language in order to appeal to the sans culottes. Initially, however, Le Père Duchesne had supported (1790-1791) a constitutional monarchy around King Louis XVI, as well as the attitudes of the Marquis de La Fayette; its most violent attacks of the period were aimed at Jean-Sifrein Maury (as the main opponent of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy). Hébert had changed his convictions and the tone of his articles after the king's flight to Varennes in June 1791, referring to Marie Antoinette as 'the Austrian bitch' and addressing Louis XVI as 'Monsieur Veto, the drunken drip.'
Prominence and clash with Robespierre
During the insurrection of August 10, 1792, he was a member of the revolutionary Commune of Paris, and became second substitute of the procureur of the Commune on December 2, 1792.
His violent attacks on the Girondist presence in the National Convention led to his arrest on May 24, 1793, but he was released owing to the threatening attitude of the mob. His tone was further radicalised by the killing of Jean-Paul Marat in July 1793; his attacks on Marie Antoinette contributed to the mood of hostility towards her, and indirectly to her execution. Henceforth very popular, Hébert organized with Pierre Gaspard Chaumette the worship of Reason, in opposition to the theistic cult of the Supreme Being inaugurated by Maximilien Robespierre, against whom he tried to instigate a popular movement. The failure of this brought about the arrest of the Hébertists.
Hébert and his immediate followers, although certainly not all his sympathizers, were guillotined March 24, 1794, among the few to have become adversaries of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety for an excess of zeal rather than for any accusations of counter-revolutionary activity. It is said that Hebert was hysterical on his way to his execution and fainted at the sight of the guillotine. His wife, who had been a nun, was executed twenty days later.
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