Saint-Just, Louis (-Antoine-LÉOn) De

Louis de Saint-Just, portrait after a red chalk drawing by Christophe Guérin, 1793. [Credit: Courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris]

25, 1767, Decize, France—died July 28, 1794, Paris) French Revolutionary leader. In support of the French Revolution, he wrote the radical Esprit de la révolution et de la constitution de France (1791) and was elected to the National Convention in 1792. A close associate of Maximilien Robespierre and a member of the Committee of Public Safety, he was elected president of the Convention in 1793 and sponsored the Ventôse (March) Decrees, which confiscated property of the Revolution's enemies and redistributed it to the poor. He led the victorious attack against the Austrians at Fleurus (in modern Belgium). A fanatical leader of the Reign of Terror, he was arrested in the Thermidorian Reaction and guillotined.