BABEUF, FRANCOIS NOEL known as GRACCHUS BABEUF, French political agitator, was born at St. Quentin on Nov. 23 1760. Until the outbreak of the Revolution he was a domestic servant, and from 1785 occupied the invidious office of commissaire a terrier, his function being to assist the nobles and priests in the assertion of their feudal rights as against the unfortunate peasants. The first germ of his future socialism is contained in a letter of March 21 1787, addressed to the secretary of the Academy of Arras. In 1789 he drew up the first article of the cahier of the electors of the bailliage of Roye, demanding the abolition of feudal rights. During the earlier period of the Revolution he served in various minor posts in Paris and in the provinces. In 1794 he settled in Paris, and on Sept. 3 published the first number of his Journal de la liberte de la presse, afterwards Le Tribwz du people. The execution of Robespierre had ended the Terror, and Babeuf—now self-styled "Gracchus" Babeuf—defended the men of Thermidor and at tacked the fallen terrorists with his usual violence. But he also attacked, from the point of view of his own socialistic theories, the economic outcome of the Revolution. This was an attitude which had few supporters, even to the Jacobin club, and in October Babeuf was arrested and sent to prison at Arras. Here he came under the influence of certain terrorist prisoners, notably of Lebois, editor of the Journal de l'egalite. He emerged from prison a confirmed terrorist and convinced that his Utopia, fully proclaimed to the world in No. 33 of his Tribun, could only be realized through the restoration of the constitution of The universal misery due to the fall in the value of the assignats gained him a hearing. He gathered round him a small circle of his immediate followers known as the Societe des Egaux, soon merged with the rump of the Jacobins, who met at the Pantheon.
After the club of the Pantheon was closed by Bonaparte, on Feb. 27 1796, his aggressive activity redoubled. In Ventose and Germinal he published, under the nom de plume of "Lalande. soldat de la patrie," a new paper, the Eclaireur du peuple, ou le de f enseur de vingt-cinq millions d'opprimes; in March of the same year the attempt of the Directory to replace the assignats (q.v.) by a new issue of mandats created fresh dissatisfaction after the breakdown of the hopes first raised. On April 4 it was reported to the Government that 500,000 people in Paris were in need of relief. From the iith Paris was placarded with posters headed Analyse de la doctrine de Baboeuf, tribun du peuple, of which the opening sentence ran : "Nature has given to every man the right to the enjoyment of an equal share in all property," and which ended with a call to restore the constitution of 1793. Babeuf's song Mourant de faint, mourant de froid (Dying of hunger, dying of cold), set to a popular air, began to be sung in the cafes, with immense applause; and reports were current that the disaffected troops in the camp of Grenelle were ready to join an emeute against the Government. The Directory thought it time to act; the bureau central had accumulated through its agents, notably the ex-captain Georges Grisel, who had been initiated into Babeuf's society, complete evidence of a conspiracy for an armed rising fixed for Floreal 22, year IV. (May II 1796), in which Jacobins and socialists were combined. On May Io Babeuf was arrested with many of his associates, among whom were A. Darthe and P. M. Buonarroti, the ex members of the Convention, Robert Lindet, J. A. B. Amar, M. G. A. Vadier and Jean Baptiste Drouet.
The coup was perfectly successful. The last number of the Tribun appeared on April 24, but Lebois in the Ami du peuple tried to incite the soldiers to revolt, and for a while there were rumours of a military rising. The trial of Babeuf and his ac complices was fixed to take place before the newly constituted high court of justice at Vendome. On Fructidor io and I I (Aug. 27-28), when the prisoners were removed from Paris, there were tentative efforts at a riot with a view to rescue, but these were easily suppressed. The attempt of five or six hundred Jacobins (Sept. 7) to rouse the soldiers at Grenelle met with no better success. On Prairial 7 (April 26 1797) Babeuf and Darthe were condemned to death; some of the prisoners, including Buonarroti, were exiled; the rest, including Vadier and his fellow conventionals, were acquitted. Drouet had succeeded in making his escape, according to Barras, with the connivance of the Directory. Babeuf and Darthe were executed at Vendome on Prairial 8 Historically, Babeuf's importance lies in the fact that he was the first to propound socialism as a practical policy, and the father of the movements which played so conspicuous a part in the revolutions of 1848 and 1871.