Editing François-Noël Babeuf (section)

== Early life ==
Babeuf was born at St. Nicaise near the town of [[Saint-Quentin, France|Saint-Quentin]]. His father, Claude Babeuf, had deserted the [[French Royal Army (1652–1830)|French Royal Army]] in 1738 for the Austrian Imperial Army, reportedly rising to the rank of [[Major (rank)|major]]. Amnestied in 1755, he returned to France, but soon sank into poverty, and had to work as a casual labourer to support his  family. The hardships endured by Babeuf during his early years contributed to the development of his political opinions. His father gave him a basic education, but until the outbreak of the Revolution, he was a domestic servant, and from 1785 occupied the office of {{lang|fr|commissaire à terrier}} (commissary of land records), assisting the nobles and priests in the assertion of their [[French nobility|feudal rights]] over the peasants.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=93}}<ref name=Birchall1996>{{cite journal|last1=Birchall|first1=Ian|title=The Babeuf Bicentenary: Conspiracy or Revolutionary Party?|journal=International Socialism|date=September 1996|issue=72|url=http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj72/birchall.htm|access-date=2014-10-31|archive-date=27 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200227192839/http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj72/birchall.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> Accused of abandoning the feudal aristocracy, he would later say that "the sun of the French Revolution" had brought him to view his "mother, the feudal system" as a "hydra with a hundred heads."<ref>Bax, E.B. "The last episode of the French Revolution: being a history of Gracchus Babeuf and the Conspiracy of Equals." pp.66, Neil and Co, LTD, Edinburgh: 1911.</ref>