Born at St. Quintin in 1764; died May 25, 1797.
In early life he was apprenticed to an architect, and when quite a
young man he wrote articles for newspapers at Amiens. He hailed with
joy the principles of the Revolution.
He was tried in 1790, in Paris, owing to the violence of his writings;
although acquitted, he had to undergo another trial in 1792, under an
accusation of embezzlement, when he was a second time acquitted and
soon after appointed administrator of a Department; he did not return
to Paris until Thermidor 1794.
He created the journal _Le Tribun du Peuple_, and developed in its
pages, under the synonym “Caius Gracchus,” the doctrine of the absolute
equality of mankind. Two years later Babœuf and his followers, now a
numerous body, constituted themselves into a secret society, with the
object of re-establishing the _régime_ of 1793.
This society spread its emissaries over France, and early in 1796 was
prepared for a rising. With the aid of 16,000 men, soldiers belonging
to the garrison of Paris, and of artillery posted at Vincennes and at
the Invalides, and of certain disaffected members of Grenadiers and
police, together with a large number of the labouring classes--these
conspirators planned to seize the Directorate, the Legislative
Assembly, and the Military Staff of the Etat Major. Their arrangements
were apparently perfect, but, as is usual in such cases, traitors among
the plotters revealed the whole scheme to the Directorate. The heads
of this conjuration, to the number of sixty-five, were arrested, and
Babœuf himself was seized just as he was dictating the manifesto which
was to be issued after the rising had taken place.
The trial of the conspirators lasted three months and was held at
Vendôme. After the sentence of death was pronounced, Babœuf and
his friend Dârtre stabbed themselves, but were nevertheless, like
Robespierre and his friends, carried in an expiring condition to the
scaffold and beheaded.
Babœuf’s principles were those of the most advanced Socialism, one of
his precepts for the government of the Utopia of his dreams being,
“Whoever pronounces the word ‘property’ shall be imprisoned as a
dangerous madman.”