Bernard de Saintes

André Antoine Bernard (21 June 1751 – 19 October 1818) called Bernard de Saintes, was a French lawyer and revolutionary, one of the Jacobins responsible for the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution.

Bernard was a man of many names. Originally André Antoine Bernard, before the Revolution he added the name of a small property his family owned and became André Antoine Bernard de Jeuzines. Later he was called Bernard de Saintes, since he represented Saintes in the Legislative Assembly, but he disliked that and changed it to Bernard de Xantes, which looked less religious. Later, he called himself Pioche-fer Bernard, or Pick-axe Bernard. In the French revolutionary calendar, adopted in 1793, Bernard's name-day (30 November, for Saint Andrew) fell on the tenth day of Frimaire, and marked the Festival of the Iron Pick-axe. He liked the connection and changed his first name accordingly.

Bernard trained as a lawyer at the town of Saintes and became one of the 'new men' of 1789. He represented Saintes in the Legislative Assembly which sat from October, 1791, until September 1792, and then was a member from Charente-Maritime of the National Convention (20 September 1792, to 26 October 1795). Becoming a Jacobin, he was among those responsible for the Reign of Terror. In 1793 and 1794, he became notorious in the Haute-Saône and the Côte-d'Or for arresting suspected "enemies of the people", sending them to the revolutionary tribunal and the guillotine.

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