Abstract EN:

With the exception of P. Montarlots study at the beginning of 20th century, there is no other biography of Jean-Louis Carra (1742-1793), a man of letters, journalist and politician during the French Revolution. This thesis is organised chronologically and falls into two parts, before and after 1789, subdivised into twenty-eight chapters. The first chapter focuses on Carra's childhood and youth. The following chapters deal with some unknown aspects of his life (his epistolary relations with Voltaire and his experience as secretary of the marquis Voyer d'Argenson) and less wellknown aspects: his days wandering around Europe, the succession of jobs before he worked at the Bibliothèque du Roi, and his literary and scientific work. The second part of the thesis spans the last five years of Carra's life during the revolution. His work as a publicist is fully considered in the analysis. However, his role as a revolutionnary on the political scene (as Paris' elected delegate, member of the Jacobin Club and citizen of the district of Filles-Saint-Thomas) becomes one of the main interests of the study. The establishment of the Annales patriotiques et littéraires enabled him to increase his political prominence. Some chapters highlight the dramatic moments in this progression, such as: his contribution to revolutionary propaganda (particulary in the "Comité autrichien" case), his behaviour and role in the fall of the monarchy and his involvement in the elections for the Convention, when he was sent as a representative to the army of the North and Center, and to the departments of the Vendée and Deux-Sèvres.