DROUET, JEAN BAPTISTE French revolu tionary, was born at Ste.-Menehould, where his father was post master. The carriages conveying Louis XVI. and his family on their flight to the frontier stopped at his door on the evening of June 21, I 791 ; and the passengers were recognized by Drouet, who took steps which led to their arrest and detection on reaching Va rennes. For this service he declined a reward. In Sept. 1792 he was elected deputy to the Convention. He voted the death of the king without appeal, showed implacable hostility to the Girondins, and proposed the slaughter of all English residents in France. He was captured at the siege of Maubeuge, and imprisoned at Spiel berg till the close of i 795. He then became a member of the Coun cil of Five Hundred, and was named secretary. Drouet was impli cated in the conspiracy of Babeuf, and was imprisoned; but he made his escape into Switzerland, and thence to Teneriffe. There he took part in the successful resistance to the attempt of Nelson on the island, in 1797, and later visited India. The First Empire found in him a docile sub-prefect of Ste.-Menehould. After the second Restoration he had to leave France. Returning secretly he settled at Macon, under the name of Merger and a guise of piety, and died there on April II, 1824.
See G. Lenotre, Le Drame de Varennes (Paris, 19o5) .