LOUVET DE COUVRAI, JEAN BAPTISTE (176o 1797), French writer and politician, was born in Paris on June 12, 176o. He became a bookseller's clerk, and published two novels, Les Amours du chevalier de Faublas (1787-89), and Emilie de V armont, which attracted some attention. Paris justifie, a reply of Mounier's proposal that the court should be estab lished elsewhere (Oct. 1789), led to Louvet's election to the Jacobin Club, and he energetically opposed the moderate consti tutional royalty advocated by Lafayette and others. On Dec. 25, 1791 he presented at the bar of the Assembly his Petition contre les princes. He was elected deputy to the Assembly, and attached himself to the Girondists, publishing, at Roland's expense, a biweekly journal-affiche called La Sentinelle (March-Nov. 1792). On Aug. io he became editor of the Journal des Debats, in which he violently attacked Robespierre, Marat and the other Montag nards. His violent invective, coupled with his courageous attitude at the trial of Louis XVI. discredited the Girondists, and he fled after the crisis of May 31, 1793. (See GIRONDISTS.)
After Robespierre's fall, Louvet was recalled to the Convention and elected a member of the Committee of the Constitution, President of the Assembly, and a member of the Committee of Public Safety. He advocated union among republicans in La Sentinelle, which he revived. Under the Directory (1795) he was elected member and secretary of the Council of Five Hundred. The bookseller's shop which he had again set up in the Palais Royal was attacked, and Louvet and his wife again fled from Paris. He was appointed consul at Palermo, but died on Aug. 25, 1797, before taking up his post.
Louvet published a part of his memoirs in 1795 under the title Quelques notices pour l'histoire et le recit de mes perils depuis le 31 mai 1793, giving a vivid picture of the sufferings of the proscribed Girondists. The first complete edition was published in 1889, ed. F. A. Aulard, Memoires de Louvet de Couvrai.