Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ʒyst]; 25 August 1767 – 9 Thermidor, Year II [28 July 1794]), was a French revolutionary, political philosopher, member and president of the French National Convention, a Jacobin club leader, and a major figure of the French Revolution. He was a close friend of Maximilien Robespierre and served as his most trusted ally during the period of Jacobin rule (1793–94) in the French First Republic. Saint-Just worked as a legislator and a military commissar, but he achieved a lasting reputation as the face of the Reign of Terror where he was named the Archangel of the Terror. He publicly delivered the condemnatory reports that emanated from Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety and defended the use of violence against opponents of the government. He supervised the arrests of some of the most famous figures of the Revolution, many of whom ended up at the guillotine.
