Jean-Baptiste Drouet (French revolutionary)
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Jean-Baptiste Drouet (1763 - April 11, 1824), was a French Revolutionary, chiefly noted for the part he played in the arrest of Louis XVI at Varennes.
Drouet was born at Sainte-Menehould. He served for seven years in the army, and afterwards helped his father in his duties as post-master of Sainte-Menehould. The carriages conveying the royal family on their flight to the frontier stopped at his door on the evening of June 21, 1791; and the passengers, travelling under assumed names, were recognized by Drouet, who immediately took steps which led to their arrest and detection on reaching Varennes.
For this service the Assembly awarded him 30,000 francs, but he appears to have declined the reward. In September 1792 he was elected deputy to the Convention, and took his place with the most violent party. He voted for the death of the king without appeal, showed implacable hostility to the Girondins, and proposed the slaughter of all English residents in France. Sent as commissioner to the army of the north, he was captured at the siege of Maubeuge and imprisoned at Spielberg till the close of 1795. He then became a member of the Council of Five Hundred, and was named secretary. Drouet was implicated in the conspiracy of Baleuf, and was imprisoned; but he made his escape into Switzerland, and went from there to Tenerife, where he took part in the successful resistance to Nelson's attack on the island, in 1797; he later visited India.
By the first empire, he had become a docile sub-prefect of Sainte-Menehould. After the second Restoration he was compelled to leave France, but, returning secretly, he settled at Macon, under the name of Merger, and kept his identity hidden till his death.
This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.