From March 1793 he served as the "public prosecutor" in Paris, demanding the execution of numerous accused individuals, including famous ones, like Marie-Antoinette, Danton or Robespierre and overseeing the sentencing of over two thousand of them to the guillotine.

[2] In April 1794, it was decreed to centralise the investigation of court records and to bring all the political suspects in France to the Revolutionary Tribunal to Paris.

Generally, his defense involved shifting the blame for the executions onto the Committee of Public Safety, especially on Maximilien de Robespierre.

Despite this defense, he was sentenced to death, alongside the judges and some jurors of the Revolutionary Tribunal, among other charges, for abusing his authority and neglecting proper legal procedures during trials.

[4] Antoine Fouquier de Tinville was born in Hérouel on 10 June 1746, and was baptized two days later (which often leads to confusion regarding his birthdate).

For six years he studied law in Noyon and in 1774 purchased a position as prosecutor or procureur attached to the Châtelet in Paris, which was an exceptional royal jurisdiction tasked with targeting, among other things, revolutionaries.

In September 1791 former "advocates" lost their title, their distinctive form of dress, their status, and their profession orders and adapted their practices to the new political and legal situation.

On 26 September 1793 Martial Herman was appointed as president and René-François Dumas as vice president; Coffinhal and Joachim Vilate were each appointed as one of the judges and jurors, Adrien Nicolas Gobeau as substitute of the public accuser Fouquier lived at Rue Saint-Honoré but moved to Place Dauphine and then to fr:Quai de l'Horloge both on Île de la Cité.

[20] His office as public accuser arguably reflected a need to display the appearance of legality during what was essentially political command, more than a need to establish actual guilt.

The Convention, all of France, accuse those whose trial is being conducted; the evidence of their crimes is evident; everyone in their hearts is convinced that they are guilty; the tribunal can do nothing on its own, it is obliged to follow the law; it is up to the Convention to remove all the formalities that hinder its progress.Early April 1794 Fouquier-Tinville asked the tribunal to order the Indulgents who "confused the hearing" and insulted "National Justice" to the guillotine.

Claiming the Dantonists were not serving the people and were "false patriots", who had preferred personal and foreign interests to the welfare of the nation.

[22] He did not align with any specific political movement, keeping his distance from factions such as the Jacobins, and he did not maintain any particular relationships with leaders from the Montagnards, such as Maximilien Robespierre, as reported by Antoine Boulant.

The tribunal became a simple court of condemnation that refused suspects the right of counsel and allowed only one of two verdicts – complete acquittal or death - based not on evidence, but on the jurors' moral conviction.

.who were charged with consorting together and scheming to trouble the State by provoking civil war with their fanaticism...Instead of living at peace within the bosom of the Republic, which had provided for their subsistence, and instead of obeying the laws, adopted the idea of residing together in this same house...and of making this house a refuge for refractory priests and counter-revolutionary fanatics, with whom they plotted against the Revolution and against the eternal principles of liberty and equality which are its basis.

[17]Apparently, the nuns, whom he called criminal assassins, were corrupted by the ex-Jesuit Rousseau de Roseicquet, who led them in a conspiracy to poison minds and subvert the Republic.

[17] On 26/27 June, Robespierre demanded that Fouquier-Tinville, involved in the trial of Catherine Théot, be replaced as too bound to the Committee of General Security.

When Robespierre and his supporters gathered that evening at the Hôtel de Ville, Fouquier-Tinville declined an invitation by answering he recognized the Convention alone.

[21] He received news of Maximilien de Robespierre's escape to the town hall while he was with Gabriel-Toussaint Scellier, a judge from the Revolutionary Tribunal.

[37] Although he was briefly kept as the new government's prosecutor, as confirmed on 28 July 1794 by Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac and the convention, Fouquier-Tinville was arrested after Louis-Marie Stanislas Fréron denounced him as an accomplice of Robespierre.

This is generally interpreted as a maneuver aimed at preventing Fouquier-Tinville from providing lists of deputies who may have been complicit in his judicial work, including Tallien himself.

[21] In a letter to his wife and children dated 12 November 1794, in which he enclosed a lock of hair, he maintained his innocence, claimed to be the victim of slander, and stated that he was "sacrificed to public opinion.

"[21] Among the witnesses for the defense was the owner of the Palais de Justice tavern, who claimed that Fouquier-Tinville had complained to her about the number of executions, and the lawyer Bernard Malarme, who asserted that he had released many patriots.

[21] Generally, he defended himself by assigning responsibility for the executions of the Revolutionary Tribunal to the Committee of Public Safety, especially Maximilien de Robespierre.

[39] Those were his final words, which he wrote before his execution:[21][40]I have nothing to reproach myself with; I have always complied with the laws, I have never been a creature of Robespierre or Saint-Just; on the contrary, I have been on the verge of being arrested four times.