René-François Dumas (14 December 1753 – 28 July 1794) was a revolutionary French lawyer and politician, regarded as an ally of

Maximilien Robespierre Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (; ; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman, widely recognised as one of the most influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. Robespierre ferv ...

. He was guillotined along with Robespierre in Paris.

Biography

Dumas was born in

Jussey Jussey () is a commune in the Haute-Saône department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France. In 1973 it absorbed the former commune Noroy-lès-Jussey.bailiwick A bailiwick () is usually the area of jurisdiction of a bailiff, and once also applied to territories in which a privately appointed bailiff exercised the sheriff's functions under a royal or imperial writ. In English, the original French combi ...

of Amont (now in

Haute-Saône Haute-Saône (; Frainc-Comtou: ''Hâte-Saône''; English: Upper Saône) is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of northeastern France. Named after the river Saône, it had a population of 235,313 in 2019.

) and was well educated. In June 1790 Dumas founded a popular society in Lons-le-Saunier and became a member of the city council. In 1791 he was the mayor of Lons-le-Saunier. He became member of the " Society of the Friends of the Constitution", where he played a leading role, even occupying the presidency. On 26 September 1793, Dumas was appointed vice-president of the

Revolutionary Tribunal The Revolutionary Tribunal (; unofficially Popular Tribunal) was a court instituted by the National Convention during the French Revolution for the trial of political offenders. In October 1793, it became one of the most powerful engines of ...

and involved in the trial of Madame Elisabeth,

Madame Roland Marie-Jeanne "Manon" Roland de la Platière (Paris, March 17, 1754 – Paris, November 8, 1793), born Marie-Jeanne Phlipon, and best known under the name Madame RolandOccasionally, she is referred to as Dame Roland. This however is the except ...

Marie-Antoinette Marie Antoinette (; ; Maria Antonia Josefa Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution and the establishment of the French First Republic. She was the wife of Louis XVI. Born Archd ...

and

Madame du Barry Jeanne Bécu, comtesse du Barry (; 28 August 1744 – 8 December 1793) was the last ''maîtresse-en-titre'' of King Louis XV of France. She was executed by guillotine during the French Revolution on accusations of treason—particularly being ...

. On 8 April 1794, three days after the execution of

Georges Danton Georges Jacques Danton (; ; 26 October 1759 – 5 April 1794) was a leading figure of the French Revolution. A modest and unknown lawyer on the eve of the Revolution, Danton became a famous orator of the Cordeliers Club and was raised to gove ...

and

Camille Desmoulins Lucie-Simplice-Camille-Benoît Desmoulins (; 2 March 17605 April 1794) was a French journalist, politician and a prominent figure of the French Revolution. He is best known for playing an instrumental role in the events that led to the Stormin ...

, Dumas became the president of the court, taking over from

Martial Joseph Armand Herman Martial Joseph Armand Herman (29 August 1759 – 7 May 1795) was a French lawyer and a wikt:chief judge, chief judge during the Reign of Terror. His most famous cases were against Marie Antoinette#Trial and execution (14–16 October 1793), Marie ...

who was appointed Foreign minister. In this quality, with

Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville Antoine Quentin Fouquier de Tinville (, 10 June 17467 May 1795), also called Fouquier-Tinville and nicknamed posthumously the Provider of the Guillotine was a French lawyer and accusateur public of the Revolutionary Tribunal during the French R ...

as the

public prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in civil law. The prosecution is the legal party responsible ...

, he headed several major political trials in which defendants were sentenced to death. The trial of the "first conspiracy of the prisons" on 13 April considered in particular the general Arthur Dillon, the archbishop constitutional of Paris Jean-Baptiste Gobel, procureur syndic of the

Commune of Paris The Paris Commune (, ) was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris on 18 March 1871 and controlled parts of the city until 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended Par ...

Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, and the widows Marie Marguerite Françoise Hébert and Lucile Desmoulins. In June the tribunal put in force the

Law of 22 Prairial The Law of 22 Prairial, also known as the ''loi de la Grande Terreur'', the law of the Great Terror, was enacted on 10 June 1794 (22 Prairial of the Year II under the French Revolutionary Calendar). It was proposed by Georges Auguste Couthon bu ...

. According to

Adolphe Thiers Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers ( ; ; 15 April 17973 September 1877) was a French statesman and historian who served as President of France from 1871 to 1873. He was the second elected president and the first of the Third French Republic. Thi ...

their goal was to keep the prisons empty. According to Fouquier-Tinville, Dumas and Coffinhal, the vice-president of the tribunal, went each morning to see Robespierre and did what he told them to do, not what the

Committee of Public Safety The Committee of Public Safety () was a committee of the National Convention which formed the provisional government and war cabinet during the Reign of Terror, a violent phase of the French Revolution. Supplementing the Committee of General D ...

had decided. His last victim was the Princess of Monaco on 28 July. At 4 pm a charge of 45 convicts was sent to the guillotine on the Place de la Nation but was stopped on the way in the

Faubourg Saint-Antoine The Faubourg Saint-Antoine () was one of the traditional suburbs of Paris, France. It grew up to the east of the Bastille around the abbey of Saint-Antoine-des-Champs, and ran along the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Location The Faubourg Sain ...

. Francois Hanriot, general of the Parisian National Guard, accompanied the procession. In the evening of 27 July Dumas joined the insurrectionary Commune of Paris to obtain the release of

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just (; 25 August 176710 Thermidor, Year II 8 July 1794, sometimes nicknamed the Archangel of Terror, was a French revolutionary, political philosopher, member and president of the National Convention, French ...

, Georges Couthon, Philippe-François-Joseph Le Bas and

Augustin Robespierre Augustin Bon Joseph de Robespierre (21 January 1763 – 28 July 1794), known as Robespierre the Younger, was a French lawyer, politician and the younger brother of French Revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre. His political views were sim ...

. In the morning of 28 July the group was arrested in the " Hôtel de Ville", taken to the

Conciergerie The Conciergerie () () is a former courthouse and prison in Paris, France, located on the west of the Île de la Cité, below the Palais de Justice. It was originally part of the former royal palace, the Palais de la Cité, which also included ...

and tried. Fouquier-Tinville, who was considered to be biased, was replaced. In the early evening the group was guillotined on the Place du Révolution.La révolution française
by Sophie Wahnich, p. 123

Biography

Notes and references

Further reading