Augustin Robespierre

Who was Augustin Robespierre?

Augustin Bon Joseph de Robespierre was the younger brother of French Revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre.

He was born in Arras, the youngest of five children of the lawyer Maximilien-Barthelemy-François de Robespierre and Jacqueline-Marguerite Carraut, the daughter of a brewer. His mother died when he was one year old, and his grief-stricken father abandoned the family to go to Bavaria, where he died in 1777. He was brought up by an aunt and trained as a lawyer. Like his brother, he was a radical during the Revolution.

At the outset of the Revolution, he was prosecutor-syndic of Arras. In 1791, he was appointed Administrator of the département of Pas-de-Calais. In September 1792, he was elected to the National Convention, where he joined his brother in The Mountain and the Jacobin Club.

Becoming Député-en-Mission to the Army of Italy in 1794, he used his influence to advance Napoleon Bonaparte's career, after reading Napoleon's pro-Jacobin pamphlet titled Le souper de Beaucaire.

With the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in the coup d'état of 9 Thermidor, those associated with him were subjected to a witch-hunt-like series of attacks from the Thermidorian Reaction.