The Dynamite Club: How a Bombing in Fin-de-Siecle Paris Ignited the Age of Modern Terror

by Merriman, John

  Yet something of a minor cult of Émile began, and not only among anarchists. A Belgian newspaper published a special edition devoted to his life. Its correspondent in Paris was sent searching for copies of his poems and correspondence. Items related to or belonging to Émile Henry were briefly traded much like baseball cards are today. Anonymous articles that had appeared in anarchist newspapers were now attributed to him. Old copies of Père Peinard sold for a high price. Émile's portrait circulated in the French provinces, especially in the Loire, the birthplace of Ravachol. People lined up to buy a photo of Émile distributed by a publicity agency in Paris. In London, anarchists penned poems in his honor, and the "individualist" faction of the Italian anarchists in London smuggled into Italy a pamphlet saluting his deed and calling for vengeance.

  The "propaganda by the deed" anarchists hailed Émile. In November, someone put red and yellow flowers on his tomb, and on that of his father, in the cemetery of Limeil-Brévannes. On the second anniversary of his execution, an article in an anarchist newspaper in Paris asked why Mirbeau, such a conscientious writer, had condemned the courageous young anarchist's deed. Émile had reacted reasonably to the increasingly evident inequalities in a poisoned society. If he had lashed out, it was because "his sensitivities so full of love" had been tortured by the sad scenes he saw in Paris. He had begun with love and ended with an "implacable hatred for those directly responsible for our miseries." Ravachol, often depicted as a savage beast, had gone hungry while giving what he had to the miserable vagabonds he encountered. Émile was a model of charity, as had been Vaillant. Only death could have extinguished Émile's hatred. In contrast, anarchist theoreticians were too cowardly to risk their lives. Acts of revolt undertaken by "those who love," like Émile, would be the motor of progress.

  His wife expecting a child, the anarchist Augustin Léger playfully suggested naming their new baby Émilienne-Henriette, in honor of the executed anarchist, or even Ravacholine. In the end, he and his wife named their baby boy Henry. The child, born into misery, died as an infant. Léger could not contain his bitterness. He had lost one child, and his two other children shivered virtually unclothed on the sidewalk. He hated the "dirty bourgeois" with all his soul. Shortly after the death of his son, his spouse, Célestine, also died of pneumonia.

  Vengeance for Auguste Vaillant had not been long in coming. For Émile, it also came quickly. On June 24, President Sadi Carnot visited Lyon. As his carriage drove down rue de la République on the way to an elegant evening at the Grand Theater, a man jumped past guards into the carriage and plunged a knife into the president. Twenty years old, Santo Caserio, a former apprentice baker from Lombardy and an anarchist, had read in a newspaper about the execution of Émile and noticed, by chance, that the president of France would be traveling to Lyon. He rode a train from the small French Mediterranean port town of Séte for as far as he could afford the fare; Caserio then walked the rest of the way to Lyon. His knife avenged Émile Henry. Carnot died of his wounds several hours after the attack. Another head of state had fallen. Caserio, who evoked "the great human family" in his defense, was condemned to death and guillotined on August 15, 1894. (At his trial, when the prosecution claimed that he wanted to kill both the king of Italy and the pope, Caserio joked, "Not both at once ... they never go out together.")

  The "dynamite psychosis," which the Parisian press succeeded in deepening, led the Chamber of Deputies to pass a third "scoundrelly law" on July 28, 1894. While the previous laws had cracked down on anarchist publications, the new law sought to abolish the movement altogether by expanding further the definition of anarchist propaganda and what constituted complicity with anarchist deeds.

  A professor of criminal law named Garraud was among those defending the new laws. In his view, anarchist intellectuals had formed a "school of crime" wherein masters worked to recruit students. Peddlers of anarchism had successfully infiltrated proletarian neighborhoods, where they helped form anarchist groups. No longer content to "intoxicate" workers with anarchist doctrine, the movement's intellectuals had directly provoked violent acts, even publishing formulas for putting together bombs. Then, in various publications, they celebrated those who undertook such deeds, depicting them as martyrs. Anarchist newspapers were one of the chief instruments of the cause's success. Therefore the law of December 18, 1893, took aim at them: it made it possible to repress "associations of evil-doers," whose ranks were now expanded to include newspapers or other publishers of "clandestine propaganda." Correctional tribunals were endowed with the right to suspend publication of any of them. The sweep of this new law raised concerns even outside anarchist circles; socialists feared that it would allow judges to conflate any form of political opposition with anarchism, despite the minister of justice's contention that it was aimed only at proponents of "propaganda by the deed."

  Trials for provoking or excusing "acts of violence" were taken away from juries, who tended to be lenient. This gave the judge more power. Misdemeanors committed by anarchists had not been previously considered political in character. Now anyone accused of spreading anarchist propaganda could be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, a measure added at the request of (the aptly named) Léon Bourgeois, a former minister of justice. The third law also designated as "propaganda" what anarchists said in their own defense in trials—as in the case of Émile's widely read "Declaration." Judges could prevent newspapers from reporting what had been said in court, defining such statements as "propaganda enacted through the judiciary." The law effectively banned the publication of trial proceedings.

  The December law aimed at "associations of evil-doers" led to the arrest and trial of thirty anarchists the following year. The "Trial of the Thirty," which began on August 6, 1894, lasted eight days and put in the docket intellectuals such as Sébastien Faure, Félix Fénéon, and Jean Grave, along with three anarchist thieves, including Léon Ortiz. All stood accused of belonging to an association formed with the goal of destroying society through theft, pillage, arson, and murder. The most prominent among the accused were Émile's friends. Partly because of the lack of evidence and partly because the prosecution was overwhelmed by the intellectual firepower of the defendants, the Trial of the Thirty proved an embarrassing failure for the prosecutor, Bulot, and the government.

  At one point, Bulot interrupted the proceedings because "a package arrived for me by mail containing fecal matter!" He asked to go and wash his hands. Fénéon quipped that no one had washed his hands "with so much solemnity" since Pontius Pilate. Fénéon helped destroy the prosecution's case with his biting humor. When the judge accused him of being "the intimate friend of the German anarchist Kampffmayer," Fénéon replied, "The intimacy could not have been very great. I do not know a word of German, and he does not speak French." When the beleaguered judge held up a flask of mercury that had been found in Fénéon's office in the ministry of war (a most unlikely place for an anarchist to find employment), Fénéon indicated that it had belonged to Émile. When the judge reminded him that mercury could be used to make mercury fulminate, Fénéon reminded the court that it could also be used to make thermometers and barometers. Ortiz and the two other thieves were convicted, the former sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor. The intellectuals were all acquitted.

  The acquittals helped bring an end to the dangerous days of "propaganda of the deed" in Paris. A historian warned not long after that "exceptional legislation should be avoided. It is in no way justified ... Punishment appears to fanatics who long for the martyr's crown as no longer a deterrent but atonement." After all, the executions of Ravachol, Vaillant, and Émile Henry did not prevent the assassination of Carnot. Did this mean "that society is helpless in the face of anarchism"? His answer was yes, if the state relied on repression "and not the power to convince." Many people had turned to anarchism because the state treated them as common criminals simply for harboring anarchist sympathies. Only justice and freedom could defeat anarchism, not sheer force and continued injustice. Maurice
Barrés had already come to the same conclusion. In his view, Émile's execution was a disservice to society. The battle against anarchist ideas required intellectual weapons, not Deibler's "accessories." Marie-François Goron, a former head of security, also believed that intimidation had proved a poor deterrent. Fear of imprisonment or even execution had not stopped Ravachol or Émile. Ultimately it was self-defeating to arrest hundreds of people who had been denounced by police informers, separate them from their families, and increase their hatred for the state and society. The most recent roundup of anarchists had brought extremely meager results. The jury in the Trial of the Thirty had shown more sense than had the police. The acquittals helped end anarchist attacks because there was nothing to provoke retaliation. Previously, the state's overreaction to the words and deeds of anarchism had incited further violence. This cycle was broken now.

  For several years, a small group of compagnons commemorated Émile's execution by making a pilgrimage to the auberge in Brévannes. But over the years, their numbers dwindled. In 1896, someone managed to get into the cemetery to leave flowers, with the inscription MEMORY AND VENGEANCE. A rock was also placed on Émile's tomb, on which was written MURDERED, A VICTIM OF SOCIETY. In 1901, Madame Henry had apparently made it known that she would welcome "comrades" as she would any other clients but that she would not tolerate speeches and singing. Élisa Gauthey, although still living in Paris, had reap-peared in Brévannes on at least one anniversary of Émile's execution, chatting with the few compagnons present.

  After his release from prison, Fortuné Henry took a job working for the Central Pharmacy in Paris, where he had earlier been employed. In 1896, Fortuné and Jules told anarchists who came to the auberge to pay homage to Émile that the two of them would become "men of action" only after their mother's death. But in 1904, Fortuné founded an anarchist community in Aiglemont in the Ardennes, renting a small piece of land. He constructed a hut made of clay and branches. He later purchased the place for eight hundred francs, but because he never did believe in property, a friend became the nominal owner. Fortuné began raising vegetables and managed to attract eleven people there. This seemed to be the kind of ideal, natural community that Proudhon had predicted would bring happiness and transform society. However, the participants began to quarrel, perhaps because of Fortuné's rather authoritarian personality. The community struggled until 1909. After five years of "ridiculous deprivations and hurt feelings, the attempt just collapsed miserably." Fortuné's practical experience in anarchism had failed. As for Jules, he took over his mother's auberge when he came of age, several years after the execution. Instead of becoming a militant anarchist, he started a small business selling eggs and butter, and he prospered.

  Once "propaganda by the deed" no longer attracted adherents, anarchists turned their efforts to unionization, hoping that such organizations would provide a base for the future revolution. Unions had been illegal in France until 1884 (although in fact they had existed in many trades through aid or friendly societies, and some had served as "resistance societies" when necessary to support strikes). The National Federation of Unions was created two years later. In 1892, anarchists in London, among them Kropotkin and Malato, had already called for more involvement with unions. Pouget, in particular, had become impressed with the success of British trade unions and led his followers toward syndicalism. Like Errico Malatesta—whom Émile had attacked for his "associationalist" views—Pouget came to believe that the strength of the state could be countered only with organized labor. Moreover, unions pressed for reforms like the eight-hour day and, in doing so, helped integrate workers, unions, and socialism into the politics of the Third Republic.

  In 1895, Les Temps Nouveaux, begun in May of that year with the support of Reclus and Kropotkin, published an article by the militant labor organizer Fernand Pelloutier, "Anarchism and the Trade Unions." Fatally ill with tuberculosis, Pelloutier described what he hoped would be the "dying society" of capitalism and explained his shift to syndicalism. What was sometimes called "anarcho-syndicalism" insisted that the shop floor offered not only the best means of planning revolution but also a glimpse of future human solidarity and organization. To Pelloutier, such a view did not require dynamite to be heard. Direct action through unions, not individual action or bombs, or involvement in politics, would be the means to revolution.

  More militant workers, including many anarchists, also turned to unions, which made good use of the Labor Exchanges (Bourses du Travail) that had begun to spring up in French industrial cities in the late 1880s. Workers could go there to learn about job opportunities and to discuss their grievances and hopes for the future. Moreover, the Bourses provided solidarity and a social life for working-class families. The "heroic days of syndicalism" that began in 1895 and lasted in France until 1907 brought more strikes, as workers pursued the dream of a grand future General Strike, which would bring the capitalist state to its knees. In 1902, the Bourses joined the General Confederation of Labor (C.G.T.), which had been created in 1895 as an umbrella structure for trade unions. Achieving some palpable successes in reform, such as establishing an employer's legal liability for industrial accidents and reducing the workday to ten hours for women and children, the unions gradually improved the lives of many workers.

  In 1898, a character much like Émile appeared in French literature, in Zola's Paris (1898) as little Victor Mathis, "slight and almost beardless, with a straight, stubborn brow, gray eyes glittering with intelligence, a pointed nose and thin lips expressive of stern will and unforgiving hatred." Like Émile, Mathis was an educated bourgeois, and he could have entered the ficole normale. In the story, Mathis avenges the guillotining of the character Salvat, as Émile had that of Vaillant. Mathis is, like Émile, "the destroyer pure and simple, the theoretician of destruction, the cold energetic man of intellect ... in his desire to make murder an instrument of the social evolution ... a poet, a visionary, but the most frightful of all visionaries ... who craved for the most awful immortality." But by the time Paris was published, the era of "propaganda by the deed" in France had drawn to a close.

  Despite the fact that the "scoundrelly laws" had made the printing of anarchist propaganda extremely difficult, anarchists still published twelve newspapers in France in 1914. But they remained a small minority, on the fringe. In London, the anarchists had dispersed. Even Victor Richard's grocery store on Charlotte Street was considerably less welcoming to them. The funeral of Martial Bourdin, the French anarchist who had been blown up by a bomb as he walked through Greenwich Park on his way to destroy the Meridian, had been marked by counter-demonstrations, and the windows of the Autonomy Club had been smashed by a mob. The club closed in February 1894, and anarchists moved discreetly into more distant neighborhoods. They faced increasing hostility in London. On May Day of that year, crowds harassed anarchists gathering in Hyde Park.

  Across Europe, the number of militant anarchists was beginning to decline. In early March 1894, the prefecture of police concluded that no more than five hundred of them resided in Paris, a dramatic decline. In 1897, a police expert gave the figure of four thousand, out of a French population of 39 million people. Those considered truly dangerous were few and were loners, like Émile and Caserio, men who virtually never spoke or acted but readied themselves in the shadows. No one, not even the militant anarchists, could predict their intentions. The solitary actor, of which Émile was the prime example, was above all discreet, and his transformation into a murderer, an avenger of social wrongs, was often sudden. It was almost impossible to monitor such people.

  Isolated anarchist acts still occurred, to be sure. From December 1911 to May 1912, a band of self-styled violent anarchists terrorized France and Belgium. Led by a petty criminal and auto mechanic turned anarchist, Jules Bonnot, these men used automobiles (and thus were very modern) and rifles in a series of audacious and on occasion murderous hold-ups, notably of banks. They were killed or captured by the police, and three members were guillotined. Bonno
t's band terrorized on a small scale but did not set off a revival of "propaganda by the deed." The members of the band were "illegalists," on the fringes of what remained of the movement. In 1914, on the eve of World War I, only about a thousand militant anarchists lived in France. Terrorism was no longer seen as an effective means to an end; even hard-core anarchists shared this conclusion.

  Elsewhere anarchism continued a checkered course. In Italy, government restraint after the assassination of King Umberto I in 1900 by the anarchist Gaetano Bresci undercut the movement, reducing anarchist attacks. As in France, workers increasingly turned to unions and politics. In contrast, in Spain anarchism remained extremely potent, especially in the port and industrial suburbs of Barcelona and among the miserably poor, exploited laborers in rural Andalusia. In close alliance with nobles and churchmen, the government undertook a program of brutal repression following the enactment of legislation in 1896—which allowed, among other things, the torture of suspected anarchists—and this swelled the anger of the poor. As one Spanish anarchist put it, "The problem was not only one of bread but one of hatred." Executions brought reprisals, continuing a chain of violence.