12 Facts About Jacques Roux

Jacques Roux was a radical Roman Catholic priest who took an active role in politics during the French Revolution.

Jacques Roux skillfully expounded the ideals of popular democracy and classless society to crowds of Parisian sans-culottes, working class wage earners and shopkeepers, radicalizing them into a revolutionary force.

Jacques Roux was considered the most extreme spokesman on the left for the interests of the Parisian sans-culottes.

Jacques Roux consistently fought for an economically equal society, turning the crowds of sans-culottes against the bourgeois torpor of the Jacobins.

Jacques Roux demanded that food be made available to every member of society, and called for the wealthy to be executed should they hoard it.

Jacques Roux tirelessly voiced the demands of the poor Parisian population to confiscate aristocratic wealth and provide affordable bread.

Jacques Roux became popular enough that, as the split between the Girondins and the Montagnards grew wider, his voice helped remove the Girondins from the National Convention in 1793.

Maximilien Robespierre, fearing Jacques Roux threatened the dominance of the Jacobin government, presented accusations of him being a foreign spy intentionally trying to disrupt the revolutionary government and the Committee of Public Safety.

Jacques Roux assured the revolutionary committee of section Gravilliers that he did nothing of the sort and that his enemies were working against him.

Jacques Roux was released into the custody of two of his friends, where he continued fighting for his ideals.

Jacques Roux is featured in a mission in French Revolution-set Assassin's Creed Unity, in which the player is tasked with assassinating him.

In most productions, the actor portraying Jacques Roux is costumed in a straight jacket, which symbolizes the asylum's desire to restrain political radicals such as himself.