FOUQUIER-TINVILLE, ANTOINE Q U E N T I N , French revolutionary, was born at Herouel, Aisne. Originally a procureur attached to the Chatelet at Paris, he sold his office in 1783, and became a clerk under the lieutenant-general of police. He was public prosecutor to the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris (March 1o, 1793 to July 28, 1794). His function was not so much to convict the guilty as to see that the proscriptions ordered by the faction for the time being in power were carried out with a due regard to a show of legality. He was as ruthless and as incorrupt as Robespierre himself ; he could be moved from his purpose neither by pity nor by bribes. His passionless de tachment made him an effective instrument of the Terror. He had no forensic eloquence ; but the cold obstinacy with which he pressed his charges was more convincing than any rhetoric, and he seldom failed to secure a conviction.
His horrible career ended with the fall of Robespierre and the Terrorists on the 9th Thermidor. On Aug. 1, 1794, he was im prisoned by order of the Convention and brought to trial. His defence was that he had only obeyed the orders of the Committee of Public Safety ; but, after a trial which lasted 41 days, he was condemned to death, and guillotined on May 7, See the documents relating to his trial enumerated by M. Tourneux in Bibliographie de l'histoire de Paris pendant la Revolution Francaise, vol. i. Nos. (1890) ; also F. Dunoyer, Fouquier-Tinville . . .