58 France: Badge for the members of the "Comité du Salut Publique" (Committee of Public Safety's "reign of terror" )
The decoration in the form of the lictor bundle made of bronce partially gilded and silver-plated. On it's exceptionally elaborate embroidered original ribbon in the colors of the tricolor with gold embroidered oak leaf garlands. In the center large medallion in finest polychrome silk embroidery with the symbols of the French Revolution: lictor bundle crowned by the Jacobin Cap in the colors of the tricolor and underlaid by a triangle. Framed by oak branches. The whole surrounded by the gold embroidered inscription: "CONVENTION NATIONALE - COMITE DE SALUT PUBLIC". The reverse with white cloth cover.
The Committee of Public Safety's (Comité de salut public in French) was established by the National Convention on April 5 and 6, 1793, during the French Revolution, as a committee of public welfare and general defense. It served as the executive body of the National Convention.
After the less radical Girondists were eliminated in mid-1793, Jacobin leaders (Robespierre, Danton, who had already been among the first members of the Committee and in whose place Robespierre had stepped in on July 27, 1793, and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just) succeeded in bringing the Committee under their control. They transformed the Welfare Committee into the central locus of power by the end of 1793. On October 10, the committee was granted unlimited powers. Under Robespierre's influence in particular, the Welfare Committee, endowed with dictatorial powers, became the organ of the Jacobin reign of terror.
The first Committee of Public Safety (April to July 1793) was composed of the following members:
Bertrand Barère, deputy from Hautes-Pyrénées, Théophile Berlier, from Côte d'Or (June 25-July 30, 1793), Jean-Jacques Bréard, from Charente-Inférieure, resigned June 25. June 1793, Pierre Joseph Cambon, from Hérault, Georges Danton, from Paris, Jean Antoine Debry, from Aisne, resigned and replaced by Robert Lindet, from Eure, Jean-François Delacroix, from Eure-et-Loir, Jean-François Delmas, from Haute-Garonne, Louis Bernard Guyton-Morveau, from Côte d'Or, Jacques Alexis Thuriot, from Marne, Jean-Baptiste Treilhard, from Seine-et-Oise, resigned June 16, 1793.
During the period of the Terror (Reign of Terror) from September 20, 1793 to July 27, 1794, the composition of the Committee of Public Safety was unchanged, with a few exceptions:
Bertrand Barère from the Hautes-Pyrénées department, Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne, deputy from Paris, Lazare Carnot, from Pas-de-Calais, Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois, from Paris, Jeanbon St. André, from Lot, Georges Couthon, from Puy-de-Dôme, Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelle, from Seine-et-Oise (expelled in December 1793, executed April 5, 1794), Pierre Louis Prieur, from Marne, Claude-Antoine Prieur, from Côte-d'Or, Maximilien de Robespierre, from Paris, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, from Aisne, Robert Lindet, from Eure.
The Committee of Public Safety was abolished on the 4th Brumaire of Year IV (October 26, 1795), when the Convention was dissolved and the Constitution of the 5th Fructidor of Year III (August 22, 1795) came into force, which established the Directory.
Highly important and magnificent object relating to the history of the French Revolution and of the utmost rarity, as the Comité de Salut Publique comprised only the members listed above.
To my knowledge the only known badge worldwide.
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