This is a partial list of people involved in the French Revolution. It includes both supporters and opponents of the revolution. It attempts to give identifying facts and ultimate fates. As a rule, the best place to clarify complexities is in the article on the individual in question.
A
B
- François-Noël Babeuf - proto-socialist, guillotined in 1797 after a coup attempt
- Jean Sylvain Bailly - President of the Third Estate who administered the Tennis Court Oath, made mayor of Paris after the storming of the Bastille, guillotined during the Reign of Terror
- Paul François Jean Nicolas Barras - Montagnard, then a Thermidorian, finally the main executive leader during the Directory regime
- Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave - constitutional monarchist / Feuillant (faction)
- François Barthélemy - briefly a Director, exiled to French Guiana, returned during the Empire
- Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte - General, later king of Sweden
- Joséphine de Beauharnais - Empress, wife of Napoleon
- Louis Alexandre Berthier - General, effectively Napoleon Bonaparte's chief of staff
- Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne - on Committee of Public Safety, more radical Robespierre, but survived on 9 Thermidor; was later deported to French Guiana
- Joseph Bonaparte - oldest Bonaparte brother, supported his brother and later made King of Naples, and then of Spain.
- Lucien Bonaparte - younger brother of Napoleon, a politician under the Directory whose presence as President of the Assembly of the 500 at the time of the coup was invaluable to his brother's success. Later fell out with Napoleon.
- Napoleon Bonaparte - French general, seized power as First Consul in the coup of 18 Brumaire
- Louis Henri, duc de Bourbon - a Prince of the Blood, son of the Prince de Condé and father of the Duc d'Enghien. Emigrated
- Louis de Breteuil - royalist, briefly supplanted Necker in the royal cabinet
- Cardinal Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne - royalist, President of the Royal Council of Finances shortly before the Revolution
- Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville - Girondist (faction), (Girondists are sometimes designated "Brissotins"), guillotined
- Guillaume Marie Anne Brune - political journalist, Jacobin, friend of Georges Danton. Went directly from civilian life to being a general; later marshal of France. Murdered by royalists during the White Terror
- Edmund Burke - English philosopher and politician, author of a famous 1790 polemic against the Revolution
C
- Charles Alexandre de Calonne - French Controller-General of Finances from 1783 to 1787, whose discovery of the terrible state of French finances in 1786 precipitated the Revolution crisis
- Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès - a moderate throughout the Revolutionary era, Second Consul under Bonaparte, chief contributor to the Napoleonic Code
- Pierre Joseph Cambon - Member of the Legislative and the Convention, directed French financial policy and aided in the Thermidor Coup.
- Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot - mathematician, physicist, on Committee of Public Safety, the "Organizer of Victory," turned against Robespierre on 9 Thermidor, a Director, ousted in 18 Fructidor coup
- Louis Philippe, duc de Chartres - eldest son of the Duke of Orleans, he defected to the Austrians along with Dumouriez in 1793. Would later (1830) become King of the French.
- Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, like Jacques HĂ©bert a devotee of the Cult of Reason, guillotined with HĂ©bert
- André Chénier, poet, guillotined
- Étienne Clavière - Girondist (faction), finance minister in 1792, died in prison 1793
- Anacharsis Cloots-philosopher and writer, guillotined
- Jean Marie Collot d'Herbois - actor, part of the insurrectionary Paris Commune (French Revolution), belated Montagnard (faction), on Committee of Public Safety. After the Thermidorian Reaction, was deported to French Guiana, where he died
- Louis Joseph de Bourbon, prince de Condé - Prince of the Blood, a leading Emigré who composed the Brunswick Manifesto
- Marquis de Condorcet - philosopher, mathematician, loosely associated with the Girondist faction, probably suicide in prison.
- Louis François de Bourbon, prince de Conti - Prince of the Blood, briefly emigrated from 1789-1790, but returned in France thereafter, despite the seizure of his possessions, and managed to survive the Terror. He was expelled from France by the Directory, and died in exile.
- Charlotte Corday - assassin of Marat
- Charles-Augustin de Coulomb - major contributor to the metric system
- Georges Couthon - Montagnard (faction), on Committee of Public Safety, guillotined after 9 Thermidor
D
- Georges Danton - writer, Jacobin but neither a Girondist nor a Montagnard (factions), on Committee of Public Safety, guillotined 3 months before Robespierre
- Pierre Claude François Daunou - historian, loosely associated with the Girondist faction, survived to serve under the Directory and Empire as well.
- Jacques Louis David - painter, Montagnard (faction), on Committee of General Security, fell from power after 9 Thermidor but survived
- Camille Desmoulins - journalist, Montagnard (faction), close to Danton and shared in his downfall, guillotined
- Denis Diderot - Enlightenment author and atheist philosopher, influential on the Revolution
- Jacques François Dugommier - General
- Charles François Dumouriez - General, sometime Girondist (faction), foreign minister in the Girondist cabinet, eventually defected to the Austrians
- Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours - constitutional monarchist, president of the National Constituent Assembly, eventual exile
E
F
G
H
J
K
L
- Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - Bonapartist general, author of Les Liaisons dangereuses
- Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette - general, constitutional monarchist
- Marie Thérèse Louise de Savoie-Carignan, princesse de Lamballe - friend of Marie Antoinette and victim of the September Massacres
- Alexandre-Théodore-Victor, comte de Lameth - a leading Feuillant, part of the "Triumvirate" with Barnave and Duport, eventually emigrated
- Charles Malo François Lameth - brother of Alexandre de Lameth, another emigrating Feuillant
- Jean Lannes - rose through the ranks to become general, marshal of France. Close to Napoleon Bonaparte, killed during the campaign of 1809
- Antoine Lavoisier - a major contributor to the metric system; guillotined for his role as a tax collector.
- Charles Leclerc - General, close to Napoleon Bonaparte, served in Haiti
- Louis LePeletier de Saint Fargeau - ex-noble, voted for the execution of Louis XVI, assassinated shortly thereafter.
- Jacques-Donatien Le Ray - a key figure in engineering French support for the American Revolution, but an émigré during the French Revolution.
- Robert Lindet - a rather independent member of the Committee of Public Safety, but opposed the Girondist faction
- Louis XVI of France - king at the start of the Revolution, deposed, guillotined
- Louis XVII of France - the "lost dauphin"
- François-Séverin Marceau - General
M
- Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes - while not particularly a royalist, was the former king's defense counsel at his trial.
- Marie Antoinette - queen at the start of the Revolution, deposed, guillotined
- Jean-Paul Marat - radical journalist, Montagnard (faction), assassinated by Charlotte Corday
- André Masséna - French general, victor of the Battle of Zürich.
- Jean-Sifrein Maury - royalist
- Philippe-Antoine Merlin a.k.a. Merlin de Douai - a Director, later a Bonapartist
- Honoré Mirabeau - Although noble, entered the Estates-General of 1789 as a representative of the Third Estate and was a major figure until his 1791 death from natural causes
- Montesquieu - Enlightenment political philosopher, influential on the Revolution
- Jean Victor Marie Moreau - general, with a complicated career full of intrigues, victor of Hohenlinden
- Joachim Murat - prominent cavalry general, became Napoleon's brother-in-law and eventually King of Naples
N
O
- Louis Philippe II, duc d'Orléans - First Prince of the Blood, a supporter of the revolution who took the name Philippe Egalité and voted for the death of the King, but was later executed during the Terror for supposedly plotting to make himself king
P
- Thomas Paine - American revolutionary writer, imprisoned and sentenced to death during Reign of Terror, but survived
- JĂ©rĂ´me PĂ©tion de Villeneuve - insurrectionary mayor of Paris, on the firstCommittee of Public Safety, loosely connected to the Girondist faction, ultimately a suicide during the Reign of Terror
- Pierre Phélippeaux - Montagnard (faction)
- Philippe-Egalité - Duke of Orleans, constitutional monarchist, voted for the execution of his own cousinLouis XVI; guillotined on (probably false) suspicions of intriguing
- Claude Antoine, comte Prieur-Duvernois (a.k.a. Prieur de la CĂ´te-d'Or) - engineer, on Committee of Public Safety, close to Carnot, turned against Robespierre on 9 Thermidor, under the Directory he sat in the Council of Five Hundred
- Pierre Louis Prieur (a.k.a. Prieur de la Marne) - on Committee of Public Safety
- Louis, comte de Provence - younger brother of Louis XVI, emigrated in 1791, became titular King as Louis XVIII in 1795
R
S
- Jean Bon Saint-André - Montagnard (faction), on Committee of Public Safety, later a naval officer
- Louis Antoine LĂ©on de Saint-Just - on Committee of Public Safety - Montagnard (faction), on Committee of Public Safety, close to Robespierre, prominent in Reign of Terror, guillotined after 9 Thermidor
- Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès - Although a member of the clergy, entered the Estates-General of 1789 as a representative of the Third Estate. Author of pamphlet "What is the Third Estate?". Instigated the coup of 18 Brumaire, but was outflanked by Napoleon Bonaparte
- Madame de Staël - salonière, writer, daughter of Jacques Necker
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