Antoine-François Momoro

Antoine-François Momoro was born in 1756 from Franche-Comté in eastern France. Momoro moved to Paris when he was very young and he became a member of the printers’ guild in 1787.  

This was an opportune time to become a printer as  the Revolution had started and freedom of the press was declared, his output soared.  He published many of the revolutionaries’ speeches as well as being the official publisher of the Paris Commune and the journal of the Cordeliers Club.

He was one of the signatories of the petition for the demand of the overthrow of the monarchy which led to the Massacre at the Champ de Mars.  He was imprisoned until September 1791.  After his release he went back to printing and started publishing Jacques-René Hébert's radical newspaper, Le Père Duchesne.

He took part in the actions surrounding the attack of the Tuileries Palace on 10th August 1792.  He was elected by his section to the Council of the Department of Paris and used his energy to recruit volunteers to fight against Austria and Prussia.  It has been suggested he was the inspiration to have the words Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité on the façades of all public buildings.

He was one of the key founders of the dechristianisation movement and Cult of Reason.  The peak of which was the Festival of Reason on the 10th of November 1793 at Notre Dame.  It was here that his wife Sophie played the Goddess of Reason.  It was perhaps this that set him at odds with Robespierre who saw the need for some form of deity based religion and disdained the activities of the atheist Cult of Reason.  

Momoro supported the attacks on Danton and the Indulgents regarding them as far too weak on what he saw as the counter revolutionaries.  He also attacked Robespierre for being far too moderate.  He was arrested alongside the Hébertistes on 13 March 1794 put on trial and not allowed to mount a defence.  He was executed alongside Hébert on the 24th March 1794.