Maximilien Robespierre was a French lawyer, politician, and one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Estates-General, of the Constituent Assembly and of the Jacobin Club, he defended the abolition of slavery and of the death penalty, he supported equality of rights, universal suffrage and the establishment of a republic. As a member of the Committee of Public Safety, he was instrumental in the period of the Revolution commonly known as the Reign of Terror, which ended a few months after his arrest and execution in July 1794.