Guise was the birthplace of
Camille Desmoulins (1760–1794), a
journalist and
politician who played an important part in the
French Revolution, and that of
Jeanne Macherez who was a heroine during the World War I. Over a period of 20 years, beginning about 1856,
Jean-Baptiste Godin built the (the Social Palace), an industrial and communal residential complex that was a separate community within Guise. It expressed many of his ideas about developing social sympathy through improved housing and services for workers and their families, influenced by the ideas of the philosopher
Charles Fourier. In 1880 Godin created a cooperative association by which the workers owned and managed the complex. This continued until 1968. On the 29th of August 1914 the
Battle of St. Quentin (1914) was fought in and around the town. A memorial in Guise celebrates this event. ==See also==