Re-elected to the
National Convention for the
département of
Loir-et-Cher, he voted for the
execution of
King Louis XVI, and opposed the proposal to prosecute the authors of the
September Massacres, as there were heroes of the
Battle of Jemappes among them. In March 1793, Chabot arrived in Aveyron as one of two
Representatives-on-mission to the department of Aveyron and the Tarn, the other being Jean-Baptiste Bô. As their first act, Chabot and Bô instituted a special commission for military recruitment from the region. Several days later, a war tax was instituted on the aristocrats and wealthy bourgeois. In an attempt to quell the specter of urban revolts (seen as parts of a single movement, and labelled by the Parisians as "federalism"), the two proceeded to suspend the democratic system, reserving the right to suspend or dismiss officials lacking in 'civic zeal'. Combined with crackdowns on local churches and the lifting of restrictions on governmental search and seizure, Chabot and Bô were infamous as two of the most activist Representatives-on-Mission in the country. On 5 May 1793, Chabot and Bô left their Aveyron commission; Chabot was reassigned to Toulouse, where his administration was quite similar. On the 1st of November 1793, Chabot, speaking in the Jacobins explained why, from 1788 to 1793 freedom of the press "was necessary against tyranny" this was no longer true. Now, he claimed that France had a popular regime and the press would not be permitted to diverge from the proper path. In November 1793, François Chabot was denounced by several members of the Convention, notably
Fabre d'Eglantine,
Jacques-René Hébert and Louis Pierre Dufourny de Villiers, on the grounds that he had attempted to falsify the finances of the
French East India Company, offering bribes to various elected representatives in the process. Chabot claimed to Robespierre that he had been, of his own initiative, infiltrating a pre-existing plot to meddle with the finances of the French East India Company. The plot, Chabot claimed, was hatched by the known royalist, the
Baron de Batz, with Hebert, Dufourny, and
Claude Basire, a fellow Cordelier, as key accomplices, with the plot’s ultimate originator being
William Pitt. Robespierre allowed Chabot to present his case before the Committee for Public Safety, from which he had been removed on suspicion of corruption one month earlier. Little evidence was brought against Chabot in the counter-denunciation; the greater part of Dufourny’s speech on the floor concerned Chabot’s marriage to Leopoldine Frey, sister to Austrian-Jewish banker
Junius Frey. Her nationality, along with the substantial dowry which Chabot received, was key in the discrediting of Chabot’s testimony. To quote Dufourney's testimony: In Dufourny's version of the East India scandal, Chabot and his close associates were working with the Baron de Batz, who had previously been accused of offering a bounty for the rescue of
Marie Antoinette, on behalf of members of the Austrian royalty. Batz had proposed turning Chabot and other leading figures of the Revolution against each other by using or fabricating financial conflicts. ==Execution==