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It was the famous Ravachol, who for a time kept all Paris in a state of terror. In the night of February 14 there was a theft of dynamite from the establishment of Soisy-sous-Etioles. On March 11 an explosion shook the house on Boulevard Saint-Germain, in which lived M. Benoît, the judge who had presided in August, 1891, at the trial of Decamps at Levallois.
France is the headquarters of Anarchism, Paris contains its leading journals, over all France there exists a network of groups; the propaganda of action here celebrated its saddest triumphs, as is only too well shown by the cases of Ravachol, Henry, and Caserio. Switzerland, the original home of the Anarchism of action, now gives rise to but little comment.
In La Période Tragique, when Duval, Decamps, Ravachol, and the other anarchists in France were committing the most astounding crimes, Jules Guesde and other socialist leaders condemned these outrages and protested against being associated in the public mind with those who advocated theft and murder as a method of propaganda.
Their addresses before condemnation were so eloquent and impressive as to awaken lively emotions among the most thoughtful and brilliant men in France. They challenged society. The judge refused Decamps a hearing, and Ravachol undertook individually to destroy the judge. Vaillant, deciding that the lawmakers were responsible for social injustice, undertook with one bomb to destroy them.
On the other hand, the Anarchists regard the justification of one of their own party as the strongest means of propaganda, and it cannot be denied that the Ravachol cult resulting from the execution of that common criminal, Ravachol, caused a considerable accession of strength to Communist Anarchism.
After Duval, there is little noteworthy in the terrorist movement for a period of four years, but with May 1, 1891, there began what is known as La Période Tragique. Five notable figures, Decamps, Ravachol, Vaillant, Henry, and Caserio, within a period of three years, performed a series of terrorist acts that cannot be forgotten.
Bakounin, Nechayeff, Most, Lingg, Duval, Decamps, Ravachol, Henry, Vaillant, Caserio, and Luccheni these bewildering rebels individually waged their deadly conflict with the world.
I came and went up and down the staircases and through the corridors. If anyone had asked me at the time if I were an accomplice of Ravachol, I would have answered, 'Probably." "When did all this take place?" "One o'clock in the morning; and the fourth examination did not take place until two. But, thank Heaven! in five minutes it was all made clear.
It is difficult to say whether it was fear or pity that determined the decision of the jurors. In any case, Ravachol was acquitted, only to be condemned to death a few months later for strangling the hermit of Chambles, and he was then executed. "What shall one think of Ravachol?" says Prolo in Les Anarchistes.
He has given example of a fine character and indomitable energy, at the same time that he has summed up in himself the vague anger of the revolutionists." Hardly had the people of Paris gotten over their terror of the deeds of Ravachol when August Vaillant endeavored to blow up with dynamite the French Chamber of Deputies. He was a socialist, almost unknown among the anarchists.
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