Antoine Simon

Who was Antoine Simon?

Antoine Simon was born in Troyes, France, the son of François Simon and Marie-Jeanne Adenet. He was a shoemaker at Rue des Cordeliers in Paris. A member of the Club of the Cordeliers, representative of the Paris Commune, on 3 July 1793, he was designated to watch over Louis XVII at the Temple,

Royalist authors painted the image of a violent, vulgar and alcoholic Simon, acting brutally toward the child; however, this has never been proven. Author Georges Bordonove traces the portrait of a Simon with a limited intelligence, entirely devoted to the ideals of the Revolution, and strongly influenced by political leaders such as Pierre Gaspard Chaumette and Jacques Hébert. Simon seems to have followed Chaumette's idea to "give some education to the prince [...] to make him lose the idea of his rank"