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Jacques Hebert

Jacques Hebert (15 November 1757-24 March 1794) was a deputy of the National Convention of France from 20 September 1792 to 23 March 1794. Hebert was known for his strong anti-clericalist views, leading to the persecution of the Catholic Church in France during the French Revolution.

Biography[]

Jacques Hebert was born in Alencon, France on 15 November 1757, and he worked several jobs; he once worked as a solicitor's clerk, then as a playwright and a corrupt doctor. In 1790, he came to prominence as a pamphleteer during the French Revolution, and he wrote polemical articles that were violent, abusive, and rife with foul language; this led to him appealing to the sans-culottes radicals. Hebert once supported the constitutional monarchy of King Louis XVI of France, but he called him "a cuckolded pig" after Louis' attempted 1792 flight to Varennes, and he supported a revolution against the monarchy. Hebert led the bourgeois Hebertistes in the National Convention, and he opposed a price ceiling on grain while supporting the Reign of Terror and the dechristianization of France during the early 1790s. However, he was seen as "too moderate" by Maximilien Robespierre, and he was treated as a thief while Georges Danton was called a "traitor". On 24 March 1794, he was executed by guillotine.

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