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# The First French Journalist to Mount the Scaffold in the Years of the Terror Was Durosoy
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/pervym-frantsuzskim-zhurnalistom-vzoshedshim-na-eshafot-v-gody-terrora-byl-farmian-diurozua/
- Published: 2022-08-25T20:58:03.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:38:02.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Monarchies, Society, Paris, People

The first French journalist to mount the scaffold in the years of the Terror was Barnabé Farmian Durosoy. Before his death he left a note: "A royalist such as I should die on the Feast of Saint Louis."

Saint Louis died on 25 August 1270\. Durosoy died on the same day 522 years later: he was sentenced at five in the evening and executed at nine in the morning.

Durosoy was a man of letters, a dramatist, philosopher and historian, but above all the founder, editor and author of the royalist daily Gazette de Paris. The mouthpiece of the royalists was printed in runs of 5,000 copies. The paper owed its popularity to its furious tone. And Durosoy had plenty to be furious about: in 1770 he had landed in the Bastille for 14 months over two works that he had not even written.

Although Marat had argued for freedom of the press, when the most dreadful events of the revolutionary Terror began he vehemently condemned any possibility of printing dissenting texts. Before long the executioners set their sights on Durosoy and had him thrown into prison, while his newspaper was hastily shut down. The publisher was accused of conspiracy.

He was condemned to death by the extraordinary criminal tribunal set up to try the royalists defeated on 10 August. In all, this tribunal considered 61 cases and passed 21 death sentences.

Chateaubriand, who described Durosoy's execution, remarked: "The press, which became free in 1789, ceased to be so on 17 August 1792."

The first to be executed for defending the monarchy were: the queen's tutor in languages, who had become secretary to the administration of the National Guard, Collenot d'Angremont; the civil councillor de La Porte, accused of paying for the printing of pamphlets in favour of despotism; and the impeccably honest journalist Farmian Durosoy, author of the "Catechism of French Honour", accused, quite literally, of writing for the old order.