Antoine Simon
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Antoine Simon (1736 – 28 July 1794) was born in Troyes, France, the son of François Simon and Marie-Jeanne Adenet. He was a shoemaker at Rue des Cordeliers in Paris. A member of the Club of the Cordeliers, representative of the Paris Commune, on 3 July 1793, he was designated to watch over Louis XVII at the Temple.
Royalist authors painted the image of a violent, vulgar and alcoholic Simon, acting brutally toward the child; however, this has never been proven. Author Georges Bordonove traces the portrait of a Simon with limited intelligence, entirely devoted to the ideals of the Revolution, and strongly influenced by political leaders such as Pierre Gaspard Chaumette and Jacques Hébert. Simon seems to have followed Chaumette's idea to "give some education to the prince [...] to make him lose the idea of his rank" (lui donner quelque éducation [...] pour lui faire perdre l'idée de son rang.[1] He requested that his wife Marie-Jeanne (1745–1819) help him in the care of the boy.
On 19 January 1794, Simon was removed from his position and left the Temple in company of his wife.
On 28 July 1794, Simon was among the 21 to be sent to the guillotine together with Robespierre at the Place de la Révolution, today's Place de la Concorde, in Paris, in an execution which marked the end of the Terror.
Simon's wife Marie-Jeanne died in Paris in 1819 at the Hospice des Incurables.[2]
He is mentioned in the video game Assassin's Creed Unity as the shoemaker that abused Louis XVII.
References
- ^ Bordonove, Georges, Louis XVII et l'énigme du temple, Pygmalion-Gérard Watelet, 1995, pp. 177-179.
- ^ Founded in 1634, the Hospice des Incurables was renamed Hôpital Laennec in 1878, in honor of the physician René Laennec.
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