The Martyrs of Prairial

Although my body is subject to the law, my soul remains independent and cannot be crushed. 

Defence of Gilbert Romme, deputy to the Convention and designer of the Republican Calendar

We will find each other once more; we will all see each other again; eternal justice still has something to accomplish when it leaves me under the weight of ignominy.  

Letter of the deputy Goujon to his wife, written three days before his suicide. 

The Republican tradition has long honoured the memory of Romme and his companions: they are the "martyrs of Prairial".  They rank among those men whom concern for the common good,  faithfulness to principles, and a devotion, perhaps arrogant but total, to the Revolution led to the supreme sacrifice....
Albert Soboul, writing in 1966.

Charles Ronot, Les derniers Montagnards, 1882.   (Oil,  315cm x 202cm)
Musée de la Révolution française, Vizille
Les derniers montagnardsPortail des collections Département de l'Isère (isere.fr)

On 29 Prairial, Year III, 17th June 1795, the mathematician Gilbert Romme, and five of his fellow Montagnard deputies, were sentenced to death by the Military Commission set up after the uprising of  Prairial.  Rather than submit to the Thermidorean state, the deputies chose to take their own lives in an act of collective suicide. It was a crude and desperate affair.  Shortly after the sentence was handed down, they stabbed themselves with makeshift weapons - two concealed knives and the blade from some scissors, which they passed from one to another. Three managed to kill themselves outright;  a third was dead by the time he reached the guillotine.

In the years which followed, the "martyrs of Prairial" rapidly earned a hallowed place in the radical Republican tradition, particularly through the work of Pierre-François Tissot, the brother-in-law of Goujon, who in 1799 published a volume of moving letters and documents relating to the case. More grandiose commemorations, like Ronot's picture above, are mostly the product of the Third Republic in the 1880s. (Ronot's canvas, at over 3 metres high, is truly colossal)

Who were the Martyrs of Prairial?

Gilbert Romme, aged forty-nine, deputy for Puy de Dôme.

Jean-Michel Duroy, aged forty one, deputy for Eure

Jean-Marie Claude Alexandre Goujon, aged twenty-nine, deputy for Seine-et-Oise

Pierre Bourbotte, aged thirty-two, deputy for Yonne

Ernest Dominique Duquesnoy, aged forty-seven, deputy for Pas-de-Calais

Pierre Aimable Soubrany, aged forty-two, deputy for Puy de Dôme.

ARREST

The prelude to Prairial

Why were these six men singled out for death?

Anxious as they were to avoid charges of conspiracy, the six denied that they knew known each other. However, this was not entirely true.  Certainly Romme and Soubrany, both natives of Riom, were firm friends. Their close intellectual ties are attested by Soubrany's correspondence which was published in 1867. Goujon, on mission with the Army of the Rhine, co-signed letters with Bourbotte.  All six had been out of Paris "on mission" at the time of the fall of Robespierre and returned to the Convention to find the political situation vastly changed.  Soubrany exemplified a general determination to hold fast to Jacobin principles: "Several of my colleagues, returning from mission, aware of the new system, had the weakness, from fear of being attacked, not to go back to the Mountain;  I would have been ashamed to stoop to such a measure". [Soubrany, Dix-neuf lettres, p.45].

Françoise Brunel, historian of the "Last Montagnards", observes that the glorification of the "martyrs of Prairial" -  a tradition which goes back to Tissot and Buonarroti - has tended to isolate the men from their political context.  Her researches on the composition of the Convention in the post-Thermidor period, suggest there were perhaps a hundred or so deputies associated with the extreme Left ("les crêtois", ie. the crest of the Mountain).  In the months before Prairial the six were not necessarily more active than other radical deputies, although they did make notable interventions: on 11-12 Fructidor (28th-29th August 1794) Goujon denounced Tallien's speech on the Terror and opposed Le Cointre's accusations against members of the Committees of Year II: "terror" had not been the system of Robespierre but the policy of the Convention.  In later retellings, he cuts a conspicuous figure - only twenty-nine and six-feet tall, with long flowing hair, he combined Romantic good looks with "the presence of a Spartan".  In Brumaire  Romme, was chosen by lot as one of the Commission of Twenty-One charged with examining the case against Carrier. He cast doubt on the documentary evidence against Carrier and questioned the good faith of his denunciators.  Bourbotte, who had just returned from twenty months on mission, stated that, if Carrier had committed crimes, it was only through error and "delirious patriotism" During the insurrection of 12 Germinal  Romme, Soubrany and Bourbotte were among the 51 signatories to the demand for an appel nominal against the proscription of Barère, Billot, Collot and Vadier.  From then on, radical deputies were obliged to lay low - this was true even of  Romme who was a member of the Commission of Sixteen charged with implementing the 1793 Constitution.  According to Tissot, "The patriots, menaced from all sides, incarcerated or slaughtered, could not meet together for any enterprise. Wealth, journals, power, public opinion, were all in the control of their enemies(...) From 12 Germinal to the 1 Prairial, Goujon was unable to utter a word in the Assembly" [Tissot, Vie de Goujon, quoted by Françoise Brunel]

The events of 1er Prairal, however, were to seal the deputies' fate. 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1er_prairial_an_III.jpg

The events of Prairial

On 1er Prairial Year III (20 May 1795) an angry and volatile crowd of demonstrators invaded the Convention, demanding "Bread and the Constitution of '93". In the course of the ensuring confrontation, the head of the deputy Feraud was paraded threateningly in front of the president, Boissy d'Anglas.  The deputies had been in their seats at ten in the morning; by the evening they were at breaking point. At seven o'clock, at the insistence of the crowds, it was finally agreed that the representatives of the Mountain should descend to the lower benches to deliberate. Now, irrevocably, the radicals of the Left gave voice to their convictions. 

It is impossible to say, in the ensuring chaos, whether the deputies were consumed with enthusiasm or merely carried along by events.  The six maintained afterwards, that they had sought only to preserve the Assembly from popular anarchy.  Proposals flew to and fro. After several hours of commotion, Romme demanded the release of the patriots arrested on 12 Germinal.  He also proposed that there should  be only one sort of bread (le pain d'égalité) and that domiciliary visits should be carried out to find stores of grain and flour.   Bourbotte demanded the arrest of reactionaries. More coupably still,  Soubrany proposed the nomination of an extraordinary commission of four to replace the government committees.  Duquesnoy, Prieur de la Marne, Bourbotte and Duroy were duly nominated as the members.  The sections were to remain in permanent session.

This time, of course, the popular agenda was destined not to prevail.  By midnight the troops of Legendre, Auguis and Kervélégan, had put down the insurrection with sabres and bayonets. Order was restored to the Convention and the members of the Mountain stood accused of orchestrating the revolt.

DETENTION:  In the Château du Taureau - a suicide pact 

There was some initial hesitation about which deputies would be singled out for proscription.  At the close of the session on 1er Prairial, the arrest of fourteen deputies was decreed.  However, only eight - the six later condemned to death and two others - were subsequently taken into detention;  Philippe Rühl and Prieur de la Marne were held in house arrest, others were released;  Antoine Albitte later managed to evade capture.

The six were apprehended on the spot - only Soubrany had left the building, but he elected to return and share the fate of his friend Romme. They had time only to scribble a few lines to their families - Romme's note of farewell to his pregnant wife is dated "from the Committee of General Security, 2 Prairial, between 3 and 4 in the morning" (reproduced Vissac, p.199)

With Paris in a state of insurrection, it was considered imperative to remove the prisoners to a safe distance as quickly as possible. The Adjutant General Margaron escorted them out of Paris, bound for the Château du Taureau, a forbidding fortress in the waters of the Baie de Morlaix off the coast of Finistère, 500 kilometres away. The journey was to take eight days.  They were first taken on foot through the capital then, at the Porte-du-Point-du-Jour, loaded on to hospital carts, without springs and without benches, or even straw, to sit on. A captain and ten gendarmes formed the guard.  At Dreux the postmaster's cabriolet was requisitioned.  After Caen the convoy slowed down.  It was threatened at several points by armed bands.  More hurried letters mark the stages of the prisoners' progress west; as a surviving note of Goujon's testifies, they were obliged to leave their letters at the roadside with a plea to the finder to deliver them.  

 Finally, on the evening of 9 Prairial, the men reached Château du Taureau.  As political prisoners, the they were treated relatively well during their brief stay.  They were allowed to remain together and take their meals at the same table. They were also furnished with spare linen, allowed newspapers and given the wherewithal to write.

Meanwhile, on 8 Prairial it was formally decreed that the accused deputies, together with Rühl, Prieur de la Marne and  Antoine Albitte, should stand trial before the Military Commission. Tissot,  in a pamphlet written in the name of the "Widow Goujon" protested in vain against this violation of the immunity of the people's representatives.   Rühl  anticipated the six by stabbing himself to death in his lodgings;  Prieur and Albitte fled into hiding.  On 10 Prairial, eighteen other deputies, including David, were also arrested. 

Six days after their arrival the commander of the fort brought news of their impending trial to the prisoners.  They were under no illusion as to the likely outcome.  Tissot recounts that they gathered in Romme's chamber and agreed to commit suicide rather than submit to execution:  "They swore to stab themselves in the tribunal and to lend their hand to assist any among them surprised at the last moment by weakness" ("Vie de Goujon", quoted by Françoise Brunel).  Later historians add, probably fancifully, that they cemented their vow by singing a patriotic hymn which Goujon had composed in prison (subsequently published by Tissot).

Hymne des prisonniers du Château du Taureau

Goujon's "Hymn" had in fact originally been written for a civic festival at Bourg-en-Brest in 1789. It was reproduced by Tissot in his Souvenirs de prairial in 1799. If you are feeling brave you can listen to it on YouTube (sung by Rosalie Dubois): https://youtu.be/sid8zTDiCGs

This is an early edition from collections of the musée de Bretagne in Rennes. http://www.collections.musee-bretagne.fr/ark:/83011/FLMjo239756

Their written defences reveal the rationale behind the decision to take their own lives. The language of these writings is throroughly Stoic.  Romme asserted "although my body is subject to the law, my soul remains independent and cannot be crushed".  His colleagues,  Soubrany, Goujon and  Bourbotte similarly used the rhetoric of Epictetus and Seneca, and invoked the example of Cato the Younger. The deputy Marc-Antoine Baudot  was later to refer to the six as "the last of the Romans" (M.-A.  Baudot, Notes historiques sur la Convention nationale (1893) p.153)

The journey back from Brittany was rapid.  On 20 prairial at eight in the evening, seven  of the representatives detained in the Taureau (Forestier was substituted for one of the eight), arrived in Paris where they were held in the Prison des Quatre-Nations in the rue Mazarine. Here they were kept under strict surveillance, though relatives were allowed limited access.  When Romme's wife visited him, she found him dining with Soubrany on chicken and veal: they are fattening us up to kill us, Soubrany quipped, to which Romme remarked plaintively that he would prefer to be at home with only bread and water.

 

TRIAL

 The trial began on 24 Prairial (12th June 1795). The transfer of the prisoners to the Maison d'arrêt of the Commission, which sat in the former mairie at 174 rue Neuves-des-Capuchines, took place at three in the morning under strictest security. A force of a hundred cavalrymen provided the escort and the National Guard patrolled neighbouring streets. By daylight a crowd had gathered, but despite rumours of insurrection, the onlookers were silent and subdued.  

The Commission refused to allow the accused to speak in their own defence; they were permitted only to submit written depositions.  Each man was subject to a prolonged individual interrogation, then  made  to "confront" the witnesses for the prosecution. The fullest account was published in the Moniteur for 4 Messidor (22nd June). The writer, Aimé Jourdan, was himself a key witness for the prosecution since he had been responsible for the Moniteur's record of events in the Convention on 1er Prairial.  He reports that he attended the trial assiduously for two days, and was personally confronted by the defendants for nine hours.  He leaves a memorable pen-portrait of individuals under extreme stress.  According to Jourdain, each man behaved differently:  Romme and Duquesnoy denied all the charges, whereas Duroy approached the confrontation with an air of submission and concentrated on defending his conduct during his missions in Calvados and the Bas-Rhin. Whilst Goujon preserved a morose sang-froid, Romme was visibly terrified.  Soubrany abandoned the haughty air he had always maintained in the Convention, to answer with frankness.  However, it was Bourbotte, a young man of thirty-two, who clearly impressed Jourdan most.  He responded with calm and grace, bowed  to the judge, and addressed himself frequently to the women in the audience; his tension was betrayed only by because he fidgeted ceaselessly with his snuffbox. 

The defendants were allowed to nominate witnesses for the defence but the majority, who were members of the Convention, declined to appear.  Lajuinais, to whom Goujon had appealed, left only a short written deposition.  By three o'clock on the afternoon of 28 Prairial the proceedings were finally completed and the Commission retired to consider its verdict.  At two in the morning of 29 Prarial Sansom received the instruction to have the guillotine erected on the place de la Révolution and a cart made ready to transport six persons. 

The accused had been advised that they could  receive their relatives for one last time on the morning of the 27 Prarial.  Goujon's mother arrived, accompanied by her younger sons, Alexandre and Antoine.  According to family tradition, Antoine, a little boy of eleven, had the fatal knife concealed in his clothing.  Goujon entrusted his mother with a final letter; despite repeated appeals the family were not to be allowed to appear before the Commission or to see Goujon again.  On the morning before the verdict was delivered, the accused wrote their farewell notes.  Bourbotte  drew up a will: "Bourbotte, convinced in advance he is to be assassinated, wrote these lines a few hours before his death.....:" (see Guyon, p. 258).

SUICIDE

At midday on 29 Prairial, the men were brought in to have the verdict read. They stood in front of the judge separated by a table, with six grenadiers at each end.  Goujon, in his deputy's coat, with his long hair, was a head taller than the soldiers. The six were condemned to death and the seventh man Peyssard to deportation; the case against Forestier was dismissed due to lack of proof, though he was to remain held in prison.

Philippe-Auguste Hennequin, The suicide of the Crêtois, c.1831, Musée Carnavalet 
Suicide des Crêtois après leur condamnation à mort le 1er Prairial de l'an III (20 mai 1795). | Paris Musées

The most reliable account of what followed comes again from Aimé Jordan in the Moniteur. He notes that he had gone to unusual trouble not only to record what he saw but to seek clarification from other witnesses.  Although by no means sympathetic to their political views, Jourdan was clearly impressed by the bravery of the six deputies and disgusted at their fate: 

After the judgment was read, Forestier laughed.  Goujon placed a portrait of himself on the table requesting it to be given to his wife.  Duquesnoy handed over a letter containing his farewells to his wife and friends. "I  want my blood to be the last innocent blood to be spilled; let us hope it will serve to consolidate the Republic.  Long live the Republic!"

The enemies of liberty were the only ones who wanted my life; said Bourbotte; my last vow, my dying breath will be for my country." 

The condemned men placed on the desk their identity cards as deputies, their pocketbooks etc. to be handed over to their families.

They were taken out.

Going down the stairs, they stabbed themselves with knives and scissors.   It was reported that Bourbotte exclaimed, as he stabbed himself, "This is how a man of courage finishes his life!".

The men had only two knives and an old pair of scissors between them, which they took turns to use, one after the other. They were taken into a room on the ground floor which had formerly served as their prison.

An officer of the gendarmes  brought the president of the Commission the knife which Bourbotte had used to stab himself.  Soon afterwards it was announced that the five others had also stabbed themselves.  The second knife and the scissors were brought in. 

The president read out the Commission's order that the men  were to be searched, on the evening before and again on the morning of the judgment, in order to remove their knives, scissors, and any other sharp objects; even  their beds were to be checked.  It was believed that the weapons had been concealed in the lining of their coats.  

The commander of the guard was immediately arrested.

A medical officer was summoned to assess the state of the condemned men and to ascertain whether they could be transported from the prison to the place of execution.  He reported that Romme, Goujon and Duquesnoy were dead.  It seemed that Romme had stabbed himself not only in the body, but in the throat, and even the face; the amount of blood with which he was covered, rendered him unrecognisable.

Goujon seemed to have suffered some sort of spasm in death, since his face, and particularly his lips were strikingly contracted.

Tissot's Souvenirs of 1799 provides a few more details, though whether these are absolutely accurate is hard to say. He reports that it was  Goujon, the youngest of the men, who stabbed himself first, shouting out,  "I die for the people and for equality!"  Romme and Duquesnoy followed, snatching the knife from the chest of  their colleague.  Soubrany and Duroy, both severely wounded, implored the guards to finish them off. 

Tissot specifies that Bourbotte,  who had remained behind his colleagues, stabbed himself on the steps of the vestibule, in full view of the gendarmes and the crowd of onlookers who had gathered in the courtyard. He plunged into his chest a dagger which he had concealed under his coat. As he collapsed into the arms of the surrounding gendarmes, he cried out out: "Here is how a free man escapes from the scafford of tyranny!".  He was then carried into the room on the ground floor where his colleagues lay dead or dying; he was still able to give them words of encouragement: "My poor Duroy, I see that you suffer badly, but it is for the Republic"  (Tissot, Souvenirs, p.xiv and  note).  

Jules Claretie, author of Les dernier Montagnards (1874), had seen for himself the two knives which the men had used, preserved with the dossier in the Archives. The first, which had been employed by Bourbotte, was  22 centimetres long with a white and black bone handle, the blade two-and-a-half centimetres wide.  The second, which had served the other five, was  two centimetres longer, and still blood-stained;  this was a more vicious weapon - "une vraie lame de bistouri" (p.227 nt).  

Michel Biard, in his study of the deaths of deputies of the Convention, notes that guns or blades were the preferred method of suicide.  The weapons were easily to hand, lent themselves to  dramatic effect, and were considered masculine and honourable.  Of sixteen successful suicides among the deputies, eight involved guns and five daggers or knives.  To kill oneself with a blade, particularly a makeshift weapon, was no easy matter. In the  18th century  it was not common practice to slit one's wrists or throat;  a dramatic plunge through the heart was required, a feat which required not only a strong nerve but a certain amount of expertise. Those who managed successfully usually had a military background - as, for example, the Girondin Valazé, or Duquesnoy, who was a former dragoon.  Of the six martyrs of Prairial, only three managed to kill themselves outright - Romme it seems succeeded only though sheer determined frenzy.

Claretie  reproduces the report of the medical officer who confirmed that the three dead men were wounded "through the nipple" on the left-hand side of the chest.  Soubrany, who was almost dead, and Bourbotte, who was dying, also had wounds to the chest.  Duroy had evidently missed his target and aimed too low.  The officer reported that he had staunched the bleeding of those still alive.  Duroy could have been tended and his life saved, but there was no point as he was about to be executed.(p.255) 

Charles-Edmond Chabrillac, Mort de Goujon, c.1830 (Oil sketch, 19.8 cm x 18.8 cm c.1830)
"They killed themselves with the same knife that they passed from one to the other, crying out "Vive la République
La mort de Goujon Portail des collections Département de l'Isère 

EXECUTION

Aimé Jourdan continues: 

Of the three taken out to be executed, Soubrany seemed the most severely injured.  His wound was in his side, and he was bleeding profusely.  He was very weak from loss of blood and lay flat in the cart. 

Duroy appeared normal.  

Bourbotte was the one who showed the greatest courage.  He sat up and looked around him.  

In the courtyard before they left, Duroy exclaimed, "Let the assassins enjoy their work...I am sorry to miss it.  How is it that these hand are bound by the bourreau!  Rejoice, messieurs les aristocrates!

He then hurled insults at several people in the courtyard.   

Soubrany said, "Let me die". 

When they arrived at the place de la Révolution, they had to carry Soubrany to the scaffold.  Bourbotte, who died last,  was required to give further proof of the courage which had never deserted him throughout the trial.  As they strapped him down, he was still talking to the people next to the scaffold.  But at the moment when he was lowered to receive the fatal blow, it was noticed that the blade had not been hoisted back up.  He had to be removed to reset the instrument.  He used the time to carry on speaking to those around him.  He is reported to have said that he died an innocent man and that he wanted the Republic to prosper.

The number of people who attended the execution was small; the condemned men were escorted by a regiment of cavalry.  A battalion of infantry was on watch in the Champs-Elysées and another stationed on the pont de la Révolution.

Such was the end of these men. 

Love of truth alone, and the desire leave a record for posterity, has persuaded me to linger so long over this painful subject and to seek information to supplement what I myself witnessed.

Happily I have no more to say.  All men of sensibility who read these details will surely think, like me that, whatever the crimes of the guilty, such spectacles  fatigue the  imagination, sadden the spirit and offend one's sense of humanity.

The men were brought to hear the verdict at midday.  By two o'clock in the afternoon they were all dead.

 

From the final letter of Goujon, entrusted to his mother, three days before his death. 

I have lived for liberty. I have always done what I believed to be good, just and useful to my country. My conduct has always been dictated by probity. I repent nothing; I will repent nothing even if it costs me my life. In the same circumstances, I would say and do the same things; for I have always believed that one should act, not according to personal advantage, but only as duty dictates. My life is in the hands of other men; it is the plaything of their passions; but the memory I leave behind does not belong to them, but to posterity; it is the heritage of all just men in all times, of sensitive and generous hearts, of true friends of the Fatherland, of Liberty, of Equality. (Tissot, Souvenirs, p.149)

The autograph manuscript of Goujon's last letter was sold by Piasa in May 2005.  The details don't quite tally: according to the lot essay,  it is addressed to his wife, and dated 29 Prairial, ie. the actual day of his death.  

Jean-Marie-Claude-Alexandre GOUJON (1766-1795) L.A.S., [29 prairial III (17 juin 1795)] | lot 691 | "Révolution Française", Faïences, Estampes, Souvenirs Historiques, Autographes chez Piasa | Auction.fr

 

From the last letter of Bourbotte, written a few hours before his death

I declare that I die innocent, pure, virtuous, always faithful to my country,  assassinated by tyrants who wish to oppress and enslave it. I forgive those who, by error, have helped them snatch away my life;  I give it up without regret because I am convinced that my sacrifice will be useful to liberty. I am honoured to be one of its martyrs.  I love liberty with passion, I uphold it with the courage of a man who defends the object of his greatest affections.....

Oh my country!  All my actions, all my vows, are devoted to your happiness.

Oh liberty! I live only for you and by you.

Oh Republic! You have no more faithful friend than me.   I die because I wanted to defend you....

Virtuous Cato,  no longer will it be your example alone that teaches  free men how to  escape the scaffold of tyranny.  Live forever, Liberty, Equality, and the one and indivisible French Republic!

Signed: Pierre Bourbotte, representative of the people. (Tissot, Souvenirs, p.195)

The aftermath

The execution had been carried out amidst high-security but in the end passed without incident; the crowd had been small and subdued, the prevailing mood one of nausée de guillotine.  The Commission asked for instruction from the Committee of General Security about how to dispose of the bodies of the dead men (The corpses of previous suicides, Valazé and Lebas had been ritually guillotined).  They were told to give them an ordinary burial.  The following day two gravediggers from the section place Vendôme, were charged with the burial of Romme, Goujon and Duquesnoy in the Cimetière des Errancis ;  subsequently they formally deposited the blade from a pair of scissors which had been concealed in the shoe of one of the men.  Claretie reproduces the catalogue of clothing and personal items removed from bodies (p.255).  The clothes were all carefully washed.  All three men were dressed in similar, modest outfits -  the blue coats of representatives with their uniform buttons, waistcoats, white cotton stockings, laced shoes and round hats;  Gomme wore yellow woolen breeches whilst Goujon, the younger man, had blue trousers.  In addition, the gravediggers collected a moving set of personal effects: papers, wallets and loose change, combs, pinboxes, Romme's wedding ring, and on Goujon a little copy of the works of the abbé Saint-Réal. 

On 14 Thermidor, the Military Committee, which was shortly to be wound up,  handed over the belongings to the families.  Among the claimants listed were Marie-Madeleine Chaulin, widow of Romme,  Marie-Louise Cormery, widow of Goujon and Marguerite Du Boys, mother and sole heir of Soubrany.  In Arras Duquesnoy's widow Marie-Anne Logez was obliged to make provision to  have her husband's clothes sold off in order to pay his debts.(Claretie p. 235).

References

Lettres écrites par Goujon à sa famille, depuis la jour de son arrestation jusqu'à la veille de sa mort edited by Tissot (1795)

https://archive.org/details/lettresecritespa00gouj

Pierre-François Tissot,  Souvenirs de la journée du 1er prairial, an III. Year 8 (1799)

Souvenirs de la journée du 1er Prairial, an III - Google Books

Les Martyrs de prairial : textes et documents inédits by Françoise Brunel and Sylvain Goujon (1992).  Contains Tissot's Vie de Goujon. Review by Raymonde Monnier: 

https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1994_num_297_1_1862_t1_0621_0000_2

Histoire Parlementaire de la Révolution française, vol.36 (1838).  Contains the account from the Moniteur and various other texts.

Histoire Parlementaire de la Révolution française, ou Journal des Assemblée... - Google Books

Dix-neuf lettres de Soubrany, ed Henri Doniol (1867)

Dix-neuf lettres de Soubrany ... - Google Books

Jules Claretie, Les derniers Montagnards. Histoire de l’insurrection de prairial an III (1874)
Les derniers Montagnards - Google Books

E. Champion, Pierre Bourbotte, membre de la Convention (1877)

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6469394q.texteImage

Marc de Baron Vissac, Un conventionnel du Puy-de-Domme: Romme le Montagnard (1883)

Un conventionnel du Puy-de-Dome - Google Books

R. Guyon, F. Thénard, "Le Conventionnel Goujon" (suite), Revue Historique, Revue Historique

T. 93, Fasc. 2 (1907), pp. 240-261;  T. 94, Fasc. 2 (1907), pp. 249-271

LE CONVENTIONNEL GOUJON (Suite) on JSTOR; 

LE CONVENTIONNEL GOUJON (Suite) on JSTOR

Modern works

Pascal Dupuy, "Les martyrs de prairial", Histoire par l'image.

http://histoire-image.org/de/etudes/martyrs-prairial

Gilbert Romme (1750-1795) et son temps. Colloque tenu à Riom et à Clermont, les 10-11 juin 1965.ed. Jean Ehrard, 1966

Gilbert Romme (1750-1795) et son temps. - Google Books

Gilbert Romme. Actes du colloque de Riom (19-20 mai 1995)
Annales historiques de la Révolution française, n°304, 1996. Gilbert Romme. Actes du colloque de Riom (19-20 mai 1995) - Persée (persee.fr)

Françoise Brunel, "Les derniers Montagnards et l'unité révolutionnaire", Annales historiques de la Révolution française  Année 1977  229  pp. 385-404
https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1977_num_229_1_1009

........,"Pourquoi ces « six » parmi les « derniers montagnards » ? Annales historiques de la Révolution française  1996  304  pp. 401-413
https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1996_num_304_1_1981

Michel Biard, La liberté ou la mort, mourir en député, 1792-1795 (2015)
La liberté ou la mort, mourir en député, 1792-1795 - Google Books