Pierre Henri Hélène Marie Lebrun - Tondu Pierre - Henri - Hélène - Marie Lebrun - Tondu ( born August 27 , 1754 , Noyon – December 27 , 1793 , Paris ) was a journalist and a French minister , during the French Revolution . Before the Revolution . He was the son of Christophe Pierre Tondu , a well - to - do merchant also churchwarden of his parish , and Elisabeth Rosalie Lebrun . He was sent as a youngster as a student at College Louis - le - Grand , Paris , under benefit of a scholarship grant from the Chapter of Canons of Noyon , a common situation in such schools run by priests . Louis - le - Grand was attended during those years by such famous - to - be people as La Fayette ( a shade older than Tondu - Lebrun was ) , Maximilien Robespierre , Camille Desmoulins ( both younger ) , and a bunch of others that played some role in the French Revolution as well ( such as Feron , Noel . . . ) . However his family ran into financial trouble ( reasons are not known ) and he had to become a teacher at Louis - le - Grand , the which position required at that time to become some level of tonsured cleric ; thus he was known under the name " Abbot Tondu " ; he moved to be employed at the Observatory of Paris about in 1777 , where he devoted himself to mathematics and observations until early 1779 . Then , for two years , he was a soldier , before obtaining his leave . Involved in some unclear contestation of French politics , he was banned by Minister Baron de Vergennes and had to move in the Principality of Liège in 1781 under the name " Pierre Lebrun " , he became a foreman at the printing shop of Jean - Jacques Tutot , where he soon became editor , and married , in Liege on 28 July 1783 , Marie - Jeanne Adrienne Cheret ( as was written in French documents ; some Belgian registers also write " Cherette " ) , who gave him seven children , out of which six grew to be adults : Jean - Pierre - Louis ( born July 21 , 1784 ) , Josephine Barbe Marie ( born September 10 , 1786 ) , Théodore Charles - Joseph Gilbert ( born February 16 , 1788 ) , Marie - Francoise - Charlotte Henriette ( born August 11 , 1789 ) , Isabelle Civilis Victoire Jemmapes Dumouriez , ( born November 11 , 1792 ) , Sophie Minerve ( born February 13 , 1794 ) . In June 1785 , he left Tutot and , with Jacques - Joseph Smits , started the " Journal of General Europe " , based in Liege , a periodical favorable to new ideas that met with great success . Increasingly critical of the Prince - Bishop , he , in July 1786 , installed the presses in the Austrian Netherlands , in Herve ( Limburg ) , near Liege . Having acquired Liege citizenship , he was closely involved in politics and participated in the revolution Liege in 1789 , also writing the " Journal of Patriotic Liège " from March 18 to July 4 , 1790 . During that period he turned to radical views such were later on embodied by Girondins and early days Montagnards in Paris , and was linked to the more radical Liege activists . During the Revolution . Forced into exile during the restoration of 1791 , he moved to Lille in January , then to Paris , where he maintained some activity on account on the defunct Liege Republic , such as develop with other exiles a draft constitution proclaiming the equality of all citizens , freedom of the press and the formation of an assembly where national bourgeois representation would count twice as large as those of the clergy and nobility , or on 18 December appearing before the Legislative Assembly at the head of a Liège delegation . However he rapidly got engrossed in French Revolution politics through his newspaper he had revived starting March 1791 . This got him in acquaintance with forefront players of those days , such as Jacques - Pierre Brissot , Etienne Claviere , Eugene Roland and Charles François Dumouriez ; Tondu - Lebrun ' s familiarity with politics and power play between Powers - that - be ( England , German Empire , Prussia , France , Holland , Russia in Flanders and central Europe got him to be appointed as chief clerk of the 1st branch of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Dumouriez . After August 10 , 1792 , he became foreign minister in the Transitional Executive Council ( August 11 , 1792 ) and submitted to the National Convention a political picture of Europe as of September 25 . An advocate of an immediate peace with Prussia after the battle of Valmy , he conducted secret negotiations , and after negotiations failed , he was a supporter of the war of conquest and defended the annexation of Belgium and the Netherlands . On November 12 , he baptized his daughter , Civilis - Victoire - Jemmapes Dumouriez , and the God father was Dumouriez . Temporarily in charge of the Ministry of War after the resignation of Servan in October , he filed on December 19 and 31 , reports on projects of England against France , in which he supported , however , for a peace policy , and showed the protests of Spain for Louis XVI . Chairman of the Executive Committee , after January 20 , 1793 , he signed the execution order of Louis XVI . In the early months of 1793 , he tried to reconnect with Lord Grenville , to avoid a rupture with Great Britain . On March 7 , he reported to the Assembly of the rupture of diplomatic relations with Spain and its imminent entry into the war . On February 2 , he summoned Semonville to justify himself in Paris and suspended his office , after suspicision of links with Louis XVI from the publication of a letter from Antoine Omer Talon , found in late November 1792 . Denounced by the end of 1792 by The Mountain for his close links with the Girondins , suspected of complicity with Gen . Charles François Dumouriez , He was arrested on June 2 , 1793 with 29 members and fellow Girondin , Étienne Clavière . First held temporarily in office , he was brought with Claviere before the Revolutionary Court September 5 , but managed to escape the 9 , and went into clandestinity while remaining in Paris , where he hid under a variety of names during several months ; while under the name of Pierre Brasseur , citizen of Liege , he was arrested on 2 Nivose year II ( December 22 , 1793 ) , by Francis Heron , Agent of the Committee of General Security . Brought before the revolutionary tribunal , he was sentenced to death on 7 Nivose ( December 27 ) under a variety of contrived and undocumented treason against the unity of the Republic , conspiracy on account of foreign powers charges , the most obvious reason being of having been called to office by Roland , Brissot , Dumouriez , all guillotined or escaped from France . He was guillotined the following day . A barely sketched attempt at defense and justification , written by him ( this document does not exceed mere introductory terms in the rather pompous style of those days ) , was published in the year IV under the title : " Historical Memory and supporting my ministry . " Opinion of Madame Roland . In her memoirs , Madame Roland describes him thus : He was considered a wise man , because he had no outbursts of any kind , and clever man , because he was a very good clerk , but he had neither action , nor mind , nor character . This was hardly a fair view coming from a prejudiced woman whose husband had been a fellow Minister and very unpopular as Home Office Minister , with big responsibilities in the fall of the Girondins . Robespierre held some personal grudge against Lebrun . In a contray perspective , Lebrun , had led a full ten years of political militancy in Liege at personal risk while others were happily plying ordinary trades throughout the 1780s , a background only a few others , such as Jean - Pierre Brissaud or Mirabeau could claim with comparable legitimacy .