Read Online The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection by Dorothy Hoobler, Thomas Hoobler - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Dorothy Hoobler, Thomas Hoobler
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Paris. His father had fled Russia some years earlier, wanted for revolutionary activities there, and settled in Belgium. The family was poor, and one of Victor’s brothers is said to have died of starvation because his father could not afford to buy enough food. The home was decorated with portraits of executed revolutionaries, and on many nights, as young Victor listened, would-be revolutionaries met there to discuss ideas and plans. While still in his teens, he began to write articles for an anarchist newspaper named Le Révolté, signing them with the pseudonym Le Rétif (“the Restless One”).
Anarchists were by no means united on the course of action they should pursue to attain their goals. One of the points of dispute centered around the practice of reprise individuelle (“taking back by individuals,” which a bourgeois might call stealing). In theory, reprise individuelle was intended to adjust the inequality between rich and poor. A more radical idea was illégalisme, which, although it might appear at first glance to be the same thing, justified any action that anarchists might use to support themselves or the cause of anarchism.
Victor was among the extremists. When two anarchist Latvian sailors stole the payroll from a factory in North London, they shot twenty-two people, killing three, including a ten-year-old boy, in their attempt to escape. Finally the two sailors, cornered, committed suicide. The event was widely commented on. In Le Révolté, Victor praised the bandits for having shown that “anarchists don’t surrender.” What about the innocent people they shot? “Enemies!” Victor declared. “For us the enemy is whoever impedes us from living. We are the ones under attack, and we defend ourselves.” 1
Though Serge was never to take part in any of the robberies carried out by the Bonnot Gang, his ideas provided the intellectual underpinnings and motivation for its members. When he reached Paris, he began to write for a newspaper named l’anarchie. Despite its name, the newspaper espoused a variety of views, not all political; it crusaded against smoking, drinking, and the consumption of meat. Its writers stood firmly in opposition to work, marriage, religion, military service, and voting. The editor, twenty-five-year-old André Roulot, who wrote under the name Lorulot, welcomed Serge as a colleague. Victor also reacquainted himself with Henriette “Rirette” Maîtrejean, a young woman anarchist he had met in Belgium. Two or three years older than Victor, she still looked like a teenager even though she had two children, by a husband she had married because he was an anarchist. Soon Rirette and her children moved in with Victor, and she too became a member of the staff of l’anarchie.
Victor’s inflammatory articles were popular and caused the circulation of l’anarchie to rise, but they also created problems for Lorulot, who wasn’t willing to embrace illegalism. Anarchist activity in Paris had stepped up lately, inspiring a police crackdown. A young worker had been sent to jail on the charge of being a pimp, even though the woman in the case was his lover and he had hoped to rescue her from prostitution. After serving his term, the worker obtained a revolver and shot four policemen. At the demand of the prefect of police, Lépine, he was sentenced to death. On the date of his scheduled execution, a mob gathered at La Santé Prison, determined to halt it. Rioting broke out and lasted through the night, and cavalry had to be assembled as the guillotine was set up. Victor and Rirette were among the protesters. “At dawn,” Victor later recalled, “exhaustion quietened the crowd, and at the instant when the blade fell… a baffled frenzy gripped the twenty or thirty thousand demonstrators, and found its outlet in a long-drawn cry: ‘ Murderers! ’” 2
Publications like l’anarchie had to be careful not to be seen as inciting such violence, for they could be closed or raided by the
Anarchists were by no means united on the course of action they should pursue to attain their goals. One of the points of dispute centered around the practice of reprise individuelle (“taking back by individuals,” which a bourgeois might call stealing). In theory, reprise individuelle was intended to adjust the inequality between rich and poor. A more radical idea was illégalisme, which, although it might appear at first glance to be the same thing, justified any action that anarchists might use to support themselves or the cause of anarchism.
Victor was among the extremists. When two anarchist Latvian sailors stole the payroll from a factory in North London, they shot twenty-two people, killing three, including a ten-year-old boy, in their attempt to escape. Finally the two sailors, cornered, committed suicide. The event was widely commented on. In Le Révolté, Victor praised the bandits for having shown that “anarchists don’t surrender.” What about the innocent people they shot? “Enemies!” Victor declared. “For us the enemy is whoever impedes us from living. We are the ones under attack, and we defend ourselves.” 1
Though Serge was never to take part in any of the robberies carried out by the Bonnot Gang, his ideas provided the intellectual underpinnings and motivation for its members. When he reached Paris, he began to write for a newspaper named l’anarchie. Despite its name, the newspaper espoused a variety of views, not all political; it crusaded against smoking, drinking, and the consumption of meat. Its writers stood firmly in opposition to work, marriage, religion, military service, and voting. The editor, twenty-five-year-old André Roulot, who wrote under the name Lorulot, welcomed Serge as a colleague. Victor also reacquainted himself with Henriette “Rirette” Maîtrejean, a young woman anarchist he had met in Belgium. Two or three years older than Victor, she still looked like a teenager even though she had two children, by a husband she had married because he was an anarchist. Soon Rirette and her children moved in with Victor, and she too became a member of the staff of l’anarchie.
Victor’s inflammatory articles were popular and caused the circulation of l’anarchie to rise, but they also created problems for Lorulot, who wasn’t willing to embrace illegalism. Anarchist activity in Paris had stepped up lately, inspiring a police crackdown. A young worker had been sent to jail on the charge of being a pimp, even though the woman in the case was his lover and he had hoped to rescue her from prostitution. After serving his term, the worker obtained a revolver and shot four policemen. At the demand of the prefect of police, Lépine, he was sentenced to death. On the date of his scheduled execution, a mob gathered at La Santé Prison, determined to halt it. Rioting broke out and lasted through the night, and cavalry had to be assembled as the guillotine was set up. Victor and Rirette were among the protesters. “At dawn,” Victor later recalled, “exhaustion quietened the crowd, and at the instant when the blade fell… a baffled frenzy gripped the twenty or thirty thousand demonstrators, and found its outlet in a long-drawn cry: ‘ Murderers! ’” 2
Publications like l’anarchie had to be careful not to be seen as inciting such violence, for they could be closed or raided by the
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