Georges Couthon
Georges Auguste Couthon ( born December 22, 1755 in Orcet, Auvergne, † July 28, 1794 executed in Paris) was a French revolutionary and a close friend and follower of Robespierre.
Life
Couthon studied in Clermont to 1785 jurisprudence. On 11 December 1786, he was initiated as a Freemason there in the lodge Saint Maurice.
In 1791 he was elected as representative to the National Assembly. At this time he was already paralyzed from the waist down and used to propel a self-designed wheelchair.
While Couthon always referred to himself as an enlightened supporter of a constitutional monarchy in previous publications, it was the escape attempt of Louis XVI. and his family made in June 1791 ( flight to Varennes ), a bitter enemy of the king. For this reason, he agreed, was elected in September 1792 in the National Convention, in the trial of Louis XVI. for the death of the monarch. When he was in 1793 a member of the Committee of Public Safety on May 30, he was for some time an unconditional follower of Robespierre, with whose opinion he agreed, especially in religious matters. Together with Marie -Jean Hérault de Séchelles and Louis Antoine de Saint -Just Couthon also worked on the new constitution in I with the Republic. After his return from Lyon, where he had been summoned as a Commissioner of the Convention, to promote the " levée en masse ", Couthon on 21 December 1793 President of the National Convention.
Couthon brought on 10 June 1794 horrors of so-called law of 22 Glorious First of vote, which had been largely written by him and Robespierre. The Act abolished among others, the defense of the accused and allowed the courts a faster condemn all supposed revolution opponents. Couthon founded the law with the words: "It's not about punishing the enemies of the fatherland, is about to destroy them. " With this law, the final stage of the Reign of Terror, the Grande Terreur began.
On 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794), he and Robespierre, Saint -Just, and other imprisoned and guillotined on 28 July on the Place de la Revolution.