Jean Baptiste Carrier

Carrier, Jean Baptiste (zhäN bätēstˈ kärēāˈ) [key], 1756–94, French Revolutionary. An extreme Jacobin, he demanded the establishment of a revolutionary tribunal, and, as a revolutionary representative to Nantes in the Reign of Terror, he instituted noyades, or wholesale drownings, and committed other atrocities. Although he was denounced to the Convention, of which he was a member, and was recalled to Paris, he temporarily escaped punishment during the Thermidorian reaction (July, 1794; see Thermidor). In November, however, he was tried by the Convention and executed.

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