Jacques Roux

Who was Jacques Roux?

Jacques Roux was a radical Roman Catholic priest that took an active role in the revolutionary politics of Paris 1789, during the French Revolution. He skillfully expounded the ideals of popular democracy and classless society to crowds of Parisian sans-culottes, working class wage earners and shopkeepers, radicalizing them into a dangerous revolutionary force. He became a leader of a popular far-left political faction known as the Enragés, and in 1791 he was elected to the Paris Commune.

Roux consistently fought for an economically equal society, turning the crowds of sans-culottes against the bourgeois torpor of the Jacobins. He demanded that food be made available to every member of society, and called for the wealthy to be executed should they hoard it. He became popular enough that, as the split between the Girondists and The Mountain grew wider, his voice helped remove the Girondists from the National Convention in 1793. Roux tirelessly voiced the demands of the poor Parisian population to confiscate aristocratic wealth and provide affordable bread.