Babeuf, FRANÇOIS NOEL

Babeuf, FRANÇOIS NOEL, a communist of the time of the French Revolution, was born in 1762 or 1764 at St Quentin, in the department of Aisne, France. He was land-surveyor at Roye in Picardy, and on the breaking out of the Revolution in 1789 he became an adherent of the most extreme revolutionary party. We hear of him for the first time in 1790, when he receives honourable mention from Marat in his paper, The Friend of the People. As one of the extreme left, he opposed Robespierre during the Reign of Terror. In 1793 Babeuf had started a newspaper, to which in 1794 he gave the name of Tribune of the People; and he began to sign himself 'Gracchus Babeuf.' In this paper he advocated the most violent measures; particularly a rigorous system of communism, by which private property should be abolished, and the fruits of the common industry placed in a common magazine, from which they should be distributed with the most scrupulous equality. A secret conspiracy was formed, the aim of which was the destruction of the Directory and the establishment of an extreme democratic and communistic system. The plot was discovered, and Babeuf and other chiefs were brought to trial. Babeuf was condemned to death, and guillotined in 1797. He was an enthusiast, without talent or culture, but has a certain importance as a forerunner of the social revolutionary movement.