The public prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville brought the opponents of the Revolution before the court, the hand-picked jurors found them guilty, and the presiding judge pronounced the death sentence. This was the formal course of proceedings before the Revolutionary Tribunal. The judge’s name was Martial Herman. He owed his position to Robespierre, the Incorruptible. His predecessor as president of the court had shown himself too lenient during the trial of the young Charlotte Corday. Herman had no such scruples. He sent Marie Antoinette, the Girondins, Hébert, and Danton to the guillotine. For these services, he was rewarded with the chairmanship of the commission that replaced the Ministry of the Interior. In this position, he was able to work even more effectively to eliminate the enemies of the Republic. In the end, however, Herman too had to mount the scaffold.
August 29, 1759 · Martial Joseph Armand Herman is born in Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise, Artois, into a long-established family of lawyers.
July 29, 1783 · Admitted to the bar as a lawyer.
1786 · Deputy advocate general of the Provincial Council of Artois in Arras.
1791 · Judge at the criminal court of Pas-de-Calais.
August 28, 1793 · Herman succeeds Jacques-Bernard-Marie Montané as president of the Revolutionary Tribunal.
April 7, 1794 · Herman becomes head of the Commission for Civil Administration, Police and Courts, which replaces the Ministry of the Interior. René François Dumas succeeds him as president of the Revolutionary Tribunal.
July 30, 1794 · Three days after the fall of Robespierre, Herman is arrested.
May 6, 1795 · Herman is sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal. In protest, he throws his hat out of the window.
May 7, 1795 · Executed on the Place de Grève in Paris.
Martial Herman lived to be 35 years old.
Quotes
It is the French people who accuse Antoinette; all the political events of the past five years testify against her. Herman, 16 October 1793
To Fouquier. In half an hour, I shall have Danton’s defence suspended; a few practical measures will have to be taken. Herman, 4 April 1794, to the public prosecutor
To sleep, at last. Inscription at the entrance to the Errancis Cemetery, where those guillotined were buried, including Herman.
The public prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville brought the opponents of the Revolution before the court, the hand-picked jurors found them guilty, and the presiding judge pronounced the death sentence. This was the formal course of proceedings before the Revolutionary Tribunal. The judge’s name was Martial Herman. He owed his position to Robespierre, the Incorruptible. His predecessor as president of the court had shown himself too lenient during the trial of the young Charlotte Corday. Herman had no such scruples. He sent Marie Antoinette, the Girondins, Hébert, and Danton to the guillotine. For these services, he was rewarded with the chairmanship of the commission that replaced the Ministry of the Interior. In this position, he was able to work even more effectively to eliminate the enemies of the Republic. In the end, however, Herman too had to mount the scaffold.
