Desmoulins, Camille

Desmoulins, Camille

(kämē`yə dāmo͞olăN`), 1760–94, French revolutionary and journalist. His oratory of July 12, 1789, contributed to the storming of the Bastille two days later. His pamphlets and journals, such as Révolutions de France et de Brabant (1789), were received with immense enthusiasm. Elected to the Convention (1792), he attacked the GirondistsGirondists
or Girondins
, political group of moderate republicans in the French Revolution, so called because the central members were deputies of the Gironde dept. Girondist leaders advocated continental war.
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 in the Histoire des Brissotins; but late in 1793, after the execution of Girondist leaders, Desmoulins, along with Georges DantonDanton, Georges Jacques
, 1759–94, French statesman, one of the leading figures of the French Revolution. A Parisian lawyer, he became a leader of the Cordeliers early in the Revolution and gained popular favor through his powerful oratory.
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, counseled moderation, publishing the journal Le Vieux Cordelier. He was arrested with Danton and others and was executed. His beautiful wife, Lucile Duplessis, was guillotined shortly after.

Desmoulins, Camille

 

Born Mar. 2, 1760, in Guise; died Apr. 5, 1794, in Paris. Figure in the Great French Revolution. Lawyer and journalist.

On the eve of the uprising of July 14, 1789, Desmoulins called the people to armed struggle against the monarchy. He edited several democratic newspapers. As a member of the National Convention he opposed the Girondists, and he was close to the right-wing Jacobins (the supporters of G. Danton). On the pages of his newspaper, Le Vieux Cordelier, Desmoulins demanded the repeal of the Law of the Maximum and the relaxation of the revolutionary terror, and he criticized the policies of M. Robespierre. Desmoulins was arrested and guillotined by decision of the revolutionary tribunal.

REFERENCES

Frantsuzskaia burzhuaznaia revoliutsiia 1789-1794. Moscow-Leningrad, 1941. Chapter 9.
Claretie, J. Camille Desmoulins, Lucile Desmoulins, étude sur les dantonistes, d’après des documents nouveaux et inédits. Paris, 1875.