29 Floréal
An CCXXXIV
Robert Lindet
His was the name missing from the Committee of Public Safety’s arrest decree against Danton. He had not been elected, he said, to kill revolutionaries. Lindet was a revolutionary. He remained true to his convictions, but never attached himself to an ideology. He therefore tried to mediate in the conflict between the Mountain and the Girondins. When he saw that his efforts were futile, he no longer opposed the elimination of the opposition in the National Convention. He rejected the policy of price controls, but did not try to block it either. Even after the fall of Robespierre, Lindet remained a Montagnard. For his steadfastness, he was even briefly arrested. After Napoleon’s seizure of power, he withdrew from politics.
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1746 - 1825
- May 2, 1746 · Birth in Bernay, in the Eure department, as the son of a merchant.
- 1770 · (?) Lindet studies law, becomes a lawyer in Bernay, and later a prosecutor.
- August 1791 · The Eure department elects him as a deputy to the Legislative Assembly.
- September 1792 · Election as deputy for the Eure department to the National Convention.
- April 7, 1793 · Lindet becomes a member of the Committee of Public Safety.
- November 1793 · In the Committee of Public Safety, Lindet is made responsible for feeding the armies, transport, and supplying the armies with military equipment.
- March 30, 1794 · The Committee of Public Safety and the Committee of General Security decide to arrest Danton. Lindet does not sign the arrest warrant.
- October 6, 1794 · He is not re-elected to the Committee of Public Safety.
- May 28, 1795 · After the Prairial uprising, Lindet is arrested.
- October 26, 1795 · As part of the general amnesty passed by the outgoing Convention, Lindet is released from prison.
- 1796 · Lindet maintains contacts with the neo-Jacobin opposition to the Thermidorians and the Directory.
- May 26, 1797 · Judgment in the trial of the Conspiracy of Equals and the Amar Committee. Lindet is acquitted in absentia.
- April 14, 1798 · Elected as a deputy to the Council of Five Hundred for the department of Eure.
- May 11, 1798 · In the wake of the Directory’s Coup of Floréal, Lindet loses his seat on the Council of Five Hundred.
- July 20, 1799 · After the neo-Jacobin coup of the Councils on 30 Prairial, the new Directory appoints Lindet Minister of Finance.
- November 1799 · Napoleon seizes power. Lindet loses his post as Minister of Finance. He withdraws from politics and resumes his work as a lawyer.
- 1816 · Under Louis XVIII, Lindet is banished from the country as a regicide. Yet he remains in Paris.
- February 16, 1825 · Death in Paris.
Quotes
I cannot understand how anyone can waver as a republican when it comes to striking down a tyrant. I vote for death.
Lindet’s vote during the vote on the fate of the king.
I was elected to bring revolutionaries into the world, not to kill them.
Lindet on his refusal to sign the arrest warrant against Danton.
Lindet is buried in his offices.
Saint-Just in his last speech on 9 Thermidor, which he was unable to deliver.
Le Moniteur
Décadi, 10 Floréal, l'an de la République Française une et indivisible
(April 29, 1794)
The Committee of Public Safety
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