Cast of Characters

PART I

In Guise:

Jean-Nicolas Desmoulins, a lawyer

Madeleine, his wife

Camille, his eldest son (b. 1760)

Elisabeth, his daughter

Henriette, his daughter (died aged nine)

Armand, his son

Anne-Clothilde, his daughter

Clément, his youngest son

Adrien de Viefville
Jean-Louis de Viefville} their snobbish relations

The Prince de Condé, premier nobleman of the district and a client of Jean-Nicolas Desmoulins

In Arcis-sur-Aube:

Marie-Madeleine Danton, a widow, who marries

Jean Recordain, an inventor

Georges-Jacques, her son (b. 1759)

Anne Madeleine, her daughter

Pierrette, her daughter

Marie-Cécile, her daughter, who becomes a nun

In Arras:

In Paris, at Louis-le-Grand:

Father Poignard, the principal – a liberal minded man

Father Proyart, the deputy principal – not at all a liberal-minded man

Father Herivaux, a teacher of classical languages

Louis Suleau, a student

Stanislas Fréron, a very well-connected student, known as ‘Rabbit’

In Troyes:

Fabre d’Églantine, an unemployed genius

PART II

In Paris:

At the rue Condé:

Claude Duplessis, a senior civil servant

Annette, his wife

Adèle
Lucile} his daughters

Abbé Laudréville, Annette’s confessor, a go-between

In Guise:

Rose-Fleur Godard, Camille Desmoulins’s fiancée

In Arras:

Joseph Fouché, a teacher, Charlotte de Robespierre’s beau

Lazare Carnot, a military engineer, a friend of Maximilien de Robespierre

Anaïs Deshorties, a nice girl whose relatives want her to marry Maximilien de Robespierre

Louise de Kéralio, a novelist: who goes to Paris, marries François Robert and edits a newspaper

Hermann, a lawyer, a friend of Maximilien de Robespierre

The Orléanists:

At Danton’s chambers:

Jules Paré, his clerk

François Deforgues, his clerk

Billaud-Varennes, his part-time clerk, a man of sour temperament

At the Cour du Commerce:

Mme Gély, who lives upstairs from Georges-Jacques and Gabrielle Danton

Antoine, her husband

Louise, her daughter

Catherine
Marie} the Dantons’ servants

Legendre, a master butcher, a neighbour of the Dantons

François Robert, a lecturer in law: marries Louise de Kéralio, opens a delicatessen, and later becomes a radical journalist

René Hébert, a theatre box-office clerk

Anne Théroigne, a singer

In the National Assembly:

PART III

PART IV

At the rue Saint-Honoré:

Maurice Duplay, a master carpenter

Françoise Duplay, his wife

Eléonore, an art student, his eldest daughter

Victoire, his daughter

Elisabeth (Babette), his youngest daughter

Charles Dumouriez, a general, sometime Foreign Minister

Antoine Fouquier-Tinville, a lawyer; Camille Desmoulins’s cousin

Jeanette, the Desmoulins’s servant

PART V

Politicians described as ‘Brissotins’ or ‘Girondins’:

Implicated in the East India Company fraud:

Some members of the Committee of Public Safety:

Saint-André

Barère

Couthon, a paraplegic, a friend of Robespierre

Robert Lindet, a lawyer from Normandy, a friend of Danton

Etienne Panis, a left-wing deputy, a friend of Danton

At the trial of the Dantonists:

Hermann (once of Arras), President of the Revolutionary

Tribunal

Dumas, his deputy

Fouquier-Tinville, now Public Prosecutor

Fleuriot
Liendon} prosecution lawyers

Fabricius Pâris, Clerk of the Court

Laflotte, a prison informer

Henri Sanson, public executioner