[2] During his employment, he conceived the idea of the journal-affiche, and after the arrest of the king at Varennes in June 1791 he placarded a large printed sheet on all the walls of Paris twice a week, under the title of the L'Ami des Citoyens, journal fraternel.

[2] On 8 July 1792, he was the spokesman of a deputation of the section of the Place Royale which demanded from the Legislative Assembly the reinstatement of the Mayor, Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve, and the Procureur, Louis Pierre Manuel.

Tallien was one of the most active popular leaders in the storming of the Tuileries Palace on 10 August; on that day he was appointed secretary to the insurrectional Commune of Paris.

[2] He was sent as representative on mission to the department of Indre-et-Loire in March 1793, and after returning to Paris took an active part in the insurrection of 31 May, which resulted in the overthrow of the Girondists.

Not long after the introduction of the Law of 22 Prairial Pétion de Villeneuve and Francois Buzot committed suicide; Marguerite-Élie Guadet and Charles Barbaroux were guillotined.

[4] Tallien's methodology of subjugation at Bordeaux has been described as "fear and flour": the guillotining of Girondist leaders and exploitation of food shortages by withholding bread from the already-hungry province.

As she was extremely wealthy and desired by many, it is possible that she became involved with Tallien in order to escape from the guillotine at Bordeaux and influence him to show lenience towards her aristocratic associates.

During a session at the National Convention on 9 Thermidor (27 July), Tallien interrupted Robespierre helper Louis Antoine de Saint-Just and, after going up to the tribune: "Yesterday a member of the government was left quite isolated and made a speech in his own name; today another one has done the same thing.

He was instrumental in suppressing the Revolutionary Tribunal and the Jacobin Club; he attacked Jean-Baptiste Carrier and Joseph Le Bon, who had been representatives of the Committee to Nantes and Arras respectively, and he fought with energy against the insurgents of Prairial (20 May 1795).

Tallien's actions and his motivation behind his shifting loyalties have been described thus: "His only claim to a place in history was to have realized that people were sick of the terror, that the inevitable reaction was imminent, and that it was better to be a part of it than to be crushed by it.

Tallien and the Thermidorians almost immediately repealed the law of 22 Prairial, ending the power of the Committee of Public Safety to arrest representatives without a hearing.

In a complete reversal of his earlier positions, Tallien appealed to the new rising class of the jeunesse dorée ("gilded youth"), who viewed him as their leader, by stating "I sincerely admit that I had rather see twenty aristocrats set at liberty today and re-arrested tomorrow than see a single patriot left in chains.

[18] With the threat of a Jacobin-Terrorist plot in the air, Tallien and Freron used public proclamations and physical intimidation (through the jeunesse dorée) to wipe out the central Parisian Jacobin club.

After the beginning of the French Directory, Tallien's political importance came to an end, for, although he sat in the Council of Five Hundred, the moderates viewed him as an enforcer of the Terror, and the extreme party as a renegade.

[2] Napoleon Bonaparte, however, who is said to have been introduced by him to Paul Barras, took him on to his military expedition to Egypt of June 1798 as part of the political economy section of the Institut d'Égypte, and after the capture of Cairo, he edited the official journal there, the Décade Égyptienne.

Eventually, through the interventions of Joseph Fouché and Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, Tallien was appointed consul at Alicante, and remained there until he lost the sight of one eye from yellow fever.

[2] Back in Paris, Tallien lived on half-pay until the fall of the Empire and the Bourbon Restoration in 1815, when he received the favour of not being exiled like the other regicides (those who had voted for the Louis XVI's execution) due to his poor health.

[1] He was forced to sell his collection of books in order to sustain himself, and in May 1818 asked the government of King Louis XVIII for some relief money, which was granted in 1000 francs by minister Élie Decazes.