Fabre d'Églantine
Philippe François Nazaire Fabre d'Églantine (1750 – 1794), commonly known as Fabre d'Églantine, was a French actor, dramatist, poet, and politician of the French Revolution.
Biography[edit | edit source]
Early life[edit | edit source]
D'Églantine produced numerous poems. At a young age, he won the lys d'argent, silver lily, second prize in a poetry competition. However, he took on the name Églantine from the name of the first prize, the églantine d'or, the golden wild rose, which he claimed to have won. He soon became a traveling singer under the name Fabre d'Églantine, and wrote the famous song Il pleut, il pleut, bergère, meaning "it rains, it rains, shepherdess".[1]
French Revolution[edit | edit source]
The revolution became his claim to fame. Although King Louis XVI's letter of remission saved him from debtor's prison, d'Églantine began rioting against the monarchy at the outbreak of the revolution, becoming involved in shady dealings with Jean-Paul Marat and Georges Danton and joining the Jacobin Club while writing popular plays. In order to maintain his luxurious lifestyle, he offered his services to the monarchy, accepting three million livres in exchange for creating a royalist faction within the Jacobins.[1]
Around this time, d'Églantine also became a member of the Bande noire, a black market gang which acquired buildings through fake auctions. During one of these auctions to buy a church, d'Églantine made a bid of 200 livres. However, the gendarme Jean-Baptiste Dossonville, who intended to disrupt the auction, outbid him by increasingly larger amounts. After Dossonville accused the auctioneer of corruption, guards attacked the gendarme himself. He fought them off with the aid of the French Assassin Arno Dorian and put an end to the auction.[2]
After Danton became Minister of Justice in 1792, he hired d'Églantine as his secretary. Maximilien de Robespierre soon blamed him for interfering with army supplies and having made a vast profit by ordering thousands of pairs of boots for the troops, which were never delivered. D'Églantine came up with names for months of the revolutionary calendar, and was among those blamed for the September Massacres. After becoming involved in the fraudulent affairs of the French East India Company, he was targeted by Robespierre as a way to eliminate his rival Danton.[1]
Death[edit | edit source]
On 5 April 1794, d'Églantine was guillotined along with Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles, and Pierre Philippeaux. Robespierre came to describe d'Églantine as "Talented, but with no soul. Skilled in the art of depicting men, even more skillful in deceiving them". The historian Jean Tulard called him a "lazy, unstable, handsome hunk".[1]
Appearances[edit | edit source]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Assassin's Creed: Unity – Database: Fabre d'Églantine
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Unity – La Bande Noire