FRERON

freron, louis marie stanislas (1754-1802), french revolutionist, son of the preceding, was born at paris on the 17th of august 1754. his name was, on the death of his father, attached to _l'annee litteraire_, which was continued till 1790 and edited successively by the abbes g. m. royou and j. l. geoffroy. on the outbreak of the revolution freron, who was a schoolfellow of robespierre and camille desmoulins, established the violent journal _l'orateur du peuple_. commissioned, along with barras in 1793, to establish the authority of the convention at marseilles and toulon, he distinguished himself in the atrocity of his reprisals, but both afterwards joined the thermidoriens, and freron became the leader of the _jeunesse doree_ and of the thermidorian reaction. he brought about the accusation of fouquier-tinville, and of j. b. carrier, the deportation of b. barere, and the arrest of the last _montagnards_. he made his paper the official journal of the reactionists, and being sent by the directory on a mission of peace to marseilles he published in 1796 _memoire historique sur la reaction royale et sur les malheurs du midi_. he was elected to the council of the five hundred, but not allowed to take his seat. failing as suitor for the hand of pauline bonaparte, one of napoleon's sisters, he went in 1799 as commissioner to santo domingo and died there in 1802. general v. m. leclerc, who had married pauline bonaparte, also received a command in santo domingo in 1801, and died in the same year as his former rival. fresco (ital. for _cool_, "fresh"), a term introduced into english, both generally (as in such phrases as _al fresco_, "in the fresh air"), and more especially as a technical term for a sort of mural painting on plaster. in the latter sense the italians distinguished painting _a secco_ (when the plaster had been allowed to dry) from _a fresco_ (when it was newly laid and still wet). the nature and history of fresco-painting is dealt with in the article painting.