title: Claude-François de Payan
text: # Claude-François de Payan
  
  Claude-François de Payan (4 May 1766, Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux - 28 July 1794, Paris) was a political figure of the French Revolution.
  
  He was guillotined 28 July 1794 with 21 others during the Thermidorian Reaction, including Saint-Just and Robespierre.
  
  ## Life
  
  ### Early career
  
  Payan was from a noble family in the Dauphiné, descended from the count palatines, which had held important army and magistrate posts. His father was the squire François de Payan and so Claude-François naturally joined an artillery regiment before the Revolution. On the Revolution he was highly enthused by the new ideas and fully subscribed to them. His elder brother Joseph-François de Payan was also a revolutionary.
  
  ## Sources
  
  * John Hardman (2018). Robespierre. Taylor & Francis. p. 82. ISBN 978-1-317-87460-7.
  * (in French) Albert Soboul, Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française, Paris, PUF, 2005
  * (in French) Notes et archives 1789–1794
  