Tallien
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a French revolutionist; born in Paris in 1769. His talent for writing and speaking soon brought him to the front at the Revolution. After being for some time connected with the "Moniteur," he became editor of the "Ami des Citoyens," a journal after the fashion of Marat's "Ami du Peuple." A prominent Jacobin, he became after Aug. 10 secretary of the Insurrectionary Commune, was one of the leading "Septembrists," and afterward eloquently defended the massacres he had promoted. His services on this occasion gained him a seat in the 1 Convention, where he of course joined the Mountain, and was an earnest defender of Marat, and a savage advocate for the execution of the king. Sent by the Convention to Bordeaux and the W. departments in 1794, he at first distinguished himself by a cruelty and profligacy worthy of the most infamous of the Terrorists. In the prison of Bordeaux, however, he met the beautiful Madame de Fontenay, née Senhorita Tereza de Cabarrus, for whom he conceived a violent passion, and liberated from prison. Recalled to Paris, he managed by an assumption of revolutionary fervor to avoid an immediate downfall, but the hatred and suspicion of Robespierre were not allayed. Madame de Fontenay was imprisoned. Tallien placed himself at the head of the party afterw afterward known as the Thermidorians, vigorously attacked the triumvirate of terror, and ultimately brought about its downfall. From this point his political influence declined. Madame de Fontenay, on the other hand, whom he now married, became the most prominent personage in Parisian society. Tallien continued in the legislature till 1798, when he accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt in the character of a savant. The ship in which he was returning was captured by an English cruiser, and he was fêted by the Whig party in London in 1801. In 1802 he was divorced from his wife, who afterward married the Prince de Chimay, and died Nov. 16, 1831. Tallien, after holding for some years the post of French consul at Alicante, died in Paris Nov. 16, 1820, in poverty and obscurity.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's 1921 sketch of Jean-Lambert Tallien still holds in its outline: the Bordeaux missionary of the Terror who fell for Thérésa Cabarrus, led the Thermidorians against Robespierre in July 1794, sailed to Egypt as a savant, and died poor in Paris in November 1820. Two details have been corrected: he was born in 1767, not 1769, and his ex-wife — the celebrated "Notre-Dame de Thermidor" — outlived him by rather longer than the 1831 given here, dying as Princesse de Chimay in 1835. The larger shift is interpretive. Where the older account reads Thermidor as Tallien's revolt of conscience and love, historians since the mid-20th century have stressed self-preservation: Tallien, like Fouché and other deputies recalled from bloody provincial missions, struck at Robespierre because he expected to be struck first.
Written for this edition, 2026.