An issue of a bourgeoise family of Haute-Marche, he was the son of François Vilate, a surgeon juror of
Ahun, and Marie Decourteix (or de Courteix). He studied at
Eymoutiers and later at
University of Bourges, where he studied philosophy. After his father's death he attended a seminary at
Limoges, and was named by the administrators of the second professor's department along with the city's royal college, in 1791, he was a rhetoric at
Saint-Gaultier in Indre. In March 1792 he arrived in Paris to study medicine. He lived in
Rue du Bac. In September 1793 he was appointed as one of jurors. On 12 October 1793 when Hébert accused Marie-Antoinette during her trial of incest with her son, Vilate had dinner with
Barère, Saint-Just and Robespierre. Discussing the matter, Robespierre broke his plate with his fork and called Hébert an "imbécile". According to Vilate Robespierre then had already two or three bodyguards. In the morning of 8 June, before the
Festival of the Supreme Being Vilate invited Robespierre for lunch. Vilate was arrested on 20 July 1794 (3 Thermidor, year II) on orders of
Billaud-Varenne for the crime of having invited Johann David Hermann, the
piano-forte teacher of the royal family, to the sessions of the tribunal. He was released from
La Force Prison on
9 Thermidor. Vilate was the author of
The Secret Causes of the Revolution of 9th and 10th Thermidor and its two sequels, published during the
Thermidorian reaction, while he was in prison. He accused Barère, Billaud-Varenne and Robespierre of trying to decimate the convention. Exaggerating the numbers, raged against Robespierre keeping 300,000 people in prison and trying to guillotine two or three hundred people every day. Sentenced to death, he was guillotined, with fourteen other defendants on 18 Floreal, Year III (May 7, 1795), in the
Place de Grève, Paris at about eleven o'clock in the morning. ==See also==