Maximilien Robespierre: Encyclopedia II - Maximilien Robespierre - Family and early life

Maximilien Robespierre - Family and early life

He was born in Arras, France. A myth persists that his family was of Irish descent, having emigrated from Ireland at the time of the Protestant Reformation for religious reasons, and that his direct ancestors in the male line had been notaries in the little village of Carvin near Arras from the beginning of the 17th century. However, several genealogists have traced his family back to the Middle Ages in Northern France.

His paternal grandfather established himself in Arras as an advocate. His father, who followed the same profession, married Jacqueline Marguerite Carraut, daughter of a brewer, in 1757. Robespierre was the eldest of four children. In 1767 Madame Derobespierre, as the name was then spelled, died, and her husband left Arras and wandered about Europe until his death in Munich in 1777. The children were raised by their maternal grandfather and aunts. Robespierre also had to take care of his siblings.

Maximilien was sent to the college of Arras. In 1770, on the recommendation of the bishop, he obtained a scholarship at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. Here his learning was steeped in admiration of the idealized Roman Republic and in the rhetoric of Cicero, Cato, and other classic figures; his fellow pupils included Camille Desmoulins and Stanislas Fréron.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Family and early life", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki