Armand Gensonné

Armand Gensonné ( born August 10, 1758 in Bordeaux, † October 31, 1793 in Paris) was a politician during the French Revolution.

He was the son of a military surgeon's and studied law. At the outbreak of the Revolution he was a lawyer at the Parliament of Bordeaux. In 1790 he was prosecutor of the Commune, and in July 1791, he was chosen by the newly created department of Gironde member of the Court of Appeal. In the same year he was elected as a deputy of the department in the National Assembly. As rapporteur of the diplomatic committee, in which he supported the policy of Brissot, he struck out two of the most revolutionary measures to the Assembly: the decree of accusation of the brothers of the King (1 January 1792), and the declaration of war against Bohemia and Hungary (20 April 1792).

He was energetic in his denunciations of the intrigues of the court and of the " Austrian Committee "; but the violence of the extreme democrats, which culminated in the storming of the Tuileries on August 10, troubled him. When he returned to the National Convention, he attacked the Paris Commune to ( 24-25. October). At the trial of Louis XVI. he supported an appeal to the people, but eventually voted for the death penalty. ( 7 to 21 March 1793) As a member of the Defence Committee and President of the Convention, he participated in the bitter attacks of the Girondists to the Montagnards. On the fateful day of June 2, his name was among the first on the indictment list. He was taken on October 24, 1793 before the revolutionary tribunal process; he was sentenced to death and guillotined on the 31st of the month. Gensonné was considered a brilliant orator, though his eloquence was a little cold, and he almost always was reading from the sheet.