COUTHON, GEORGES , French revolutionist, was born in Orcet, Puy-de-Dome, and was admitted advocate at Clermont in 1785. On the outbreak of the Revolution, Couthon, who was then a member of the municipality of Clermont-Ferrand, published his L'Aristocrate converti, advocating constitutional monarchy. He became president of the tribunal of the town of Clermont in 1791, and in September of the same year was elected deputy to the legislative assembly. In Sept. 1792 Couthon was elected member of the national convention, and at the trial of the king voted for the sentence of death without appeal. After some hesitation he joined Robespierre, and became his staunch friend and adherent. He was the first to demand the arrest of the proscribed Girondists. On May 3o, 1793, he became a member of the committee of public safety, and in August was sent as one of the commissioners of the convention attached to the army before Lyons. Impatient at the slow progress made by the be sieging force, he decreed a levee en masse in the department of Puy-de-Dome, collected an army of 6o,000 men, and himself led them to Lyons. When the city was taken, Oct. 9, although the convention ordered its destruction, Couthon did not carry out the decree, and showed a certain moderation which led to his recall on Oct. 29. The wholesale massacre in the city began only after the arrival on Nov. 3, 1793, of Collot d'Herbois. Couthon returned to Paris and on Dec. 21 was elected president of the con vention. He shared in the prosecution of the Hebertists, and pro moted the law of the 22nd Prairial, which in the case of trials before the revolutionary tribunal deprived the accused of the aid of counsel or of witnesses for their defence. During the crisis preceding the 9th Thermidor, Couthon remained in Paris, in order, as he wrote, that he might either die or triumph with Robespierre and liberty. Arrested with Robespierre and Saint-Just, his col leagues in the triumvirate of the Terror, he was taken to the scaffold on the same cart with Robespierre on July 28, (loth Thermidor).
See Fr. Mege, Correspondance de Couthon . . . suivie de "l'Aristo crate converti," comedie en deux actes de Couthon (1872) , and Nou veaux Documents sur Georges Couthon (Clermont-Ferrand, 189o) ; also F. A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Legislative et de la Convention, ii. (1885-86) .