Antoine Claire Thibaudeau

Who was Antoine Claire Thibaudeau?

Antoine Claire, Comte Thibaudeau was a French politician.

He was the son of Antoine de Thibaudeau, who was a lawyer of Poitiers and a deputy to the Estates-General of 1789. He was admitted to the bar in 1787, and in 1789 accompanied his father to the Estates-General at Versailles. When he returned to Poitiers in October he immediately set up a local revolutionary club, and in 1792 was returned as a deputy to the National Convention.

Thibaudeau joined the party of the Mountain and voted for the death of Louis XVI unconditionally. Nevertheless he incurred a certain amount of suspicion because he declined to join the Jacobin Club. In May 1793 he was on a special mission in the west and prevented his département from joining the Federalist movement. Thibaudeau occupied himself more particularly with educational business, notably in the organization of the museum of the Louvre. It was he who secured the inclusion of Tom Paine's name in the amnesty of Girondist deputies.

Secretary and then president of the Convention for a short period, he served on the Committee of Public Safety and of General Security. After the royalist insurrection of 13 Vendémiaire he opposed those Thermidorians who wished to postpone the dissolution of the Convention. At the elections for the Corps Législatif he was elected by no less than thirty-two départements. It was only by the intervention of Boulay de la Meurthe that he escaped transportation after the coup d'etat of 18 Fructidor, and he then returned to the practice of his profession.