Joseph Chénier

Marie-Joseph Chénier (11 February 1764 – 10 January 1811) was a French poet, dramatist and politician of Greek descent, as well as the brother of fellow poet André Chénier.

In 1794, André was sentenced to death after opposing Jacobin leader Maximilien de Robespierre through his poems. Around June of that year, Joseph wrote a letter to Robespierre in an attempt to save his brother. In it, he wrote that André had been arrested and imprisoned without a warrant, and that his poems in the Journal de Paris came from an "intemperate poet's heart". Naming his brother the greatest poet of France, he pleaded with Robespierre to spare him.

Despite Joseph's letter, Robespierre was unmoved. On 25 July, André was guillotined.

Reference

• Assassin's Creed: Unity