#lepeletier

Since my camera is absolute trash indoors, I had to resort to ~creative angles.

François Jean-Baptiste Topino-Lebrun, La Mort de Caius Gracchus (1798 Marseille, musée des Beaux-arts)

Topino Lebrun is an interesting revolutionary, though often overshadowed by other revolutionary artists like Jacques Louis David. According to the Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française, he was a lifelong patriot, whether as a student of Jacques Louis David or in Rome. Then, in 1793, he became a juror of the Revolutionary Tribunal, a position he maintained even after 9 Thermidor.

Although a democrat and a staunch Jacobin, close to the revolutionary Antonelle (who is featured in a post here: Antonelle), and a subscriber to the Tribun du Peuple, he may have transmitted a text written in prison that became issue 34 of Tribun du Peuple. While he sympathized with Babeuf, he was by no means a Babouvist, at least not involved in the Conspiracy, contrary to popular belief. However, he was part of the "Société du Manège," where former Jacobins gathered at the Manège Hall of the Tuileries (according to the website Les Amis de Gracchus Babeuf, this society had 3,000 members, including former Babouvists like Drouet, Félix Lepeletier, etc.). Claude Mazauric places Topino Lebrun in the Directorial Left, close to Marc-Antoine Jullien and Antonelle, but not within Babouvism.

Now, where there is uncertainty is in understanding Topino Lebrun's true intentions when painting La mort de Caius Gracchus translate in english The Death of Caius Gracchus (which he began in 1792). Was he aiming, by the time of its completion, to make the painting a tribute to Babeuf, who had recently been executed by guillotine? Claude Mazauric believes it is not a Babouvist propaganda painting but "a sort of specific contribution to the maintenance of the revolutionary myth in the national consciousness," though there is a tribute to the revolutionary tribune. According to the Amis de Gracchus Babeuf, Topino Lebrun intended for this painting to allude to Babeuf's death, making it a homage.

In 1800, following the royalist-led attack on Rue Saint-Nicaise, Bonaparte seized the opportunity to eliminate the Jacobins (as discussed here: The Jacobins Executed by Bonaparte). Topino Lebrun's artist friend, Giuseppe Ceracchi, was implicated in the so-called "Opera Dagger Plot" (a fabricated scheme) and was tortured. To stop the pain, the poor Ceracchi gave up Topino Lebrun's name (or perhaps he was forced to mention him, given Topino Lebrun's association with the republican and Jacobin opposition). Through torture, a role was fabricated for Topino Lebrun, who was falsely accused of supposedly supplying twelve daggers to conspirators. Thus, a dark legend arose about him as an assassin, or in the words of Claude Mazauric, "an unaltered blood-drinker." Bonaparte said of him and his comrades, "these craftsmen, reinforced by these painters (presumably referring to Ceracchi and Topino Lebrun, among others), have a fiery imagination, a bit more education than the people, they live among the people and exert influence over them."

Thus, five years after Babeuf, Topino Lebrun joined him on the scaffold.

Sources:

Claude Mazauric: Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française, report on the painter Topino Lebrun.

Revolutionary fan

Depicting Robespierre in a scene from the Festival of the Supreme Being (middle), as well as Lepeletier (left) and Marat (right).