ALMOST ALL the illegalists who were associated with the Bonnot Gang were born in the late 1880s or early '90s, into a society completely torn by class division. Above all, it was the suppression of the Paris Commune in 1871 that had consolidated the climate of mutual hatred between the workers and the bourgeoisie. The Commune, a minimal attempt at social-democracy by workers and impoverished petit-bourgeois, was drowned in the blood of thirty thousand people by an army acting on the instructions of a ruling class infuriated at this challenge to their monopoly of power. The bloody repression of the Commune marked the birth of the Third Republic and served as a constant reminder to workers that they could expect nothing from this 'New Order' except the most brutal repression.
By 1906 the Republican Bloc had successfully beaten off the challenge to its power of the extreme right-wing, a struggle which had lasted for ten years and which had been crystallized in the Dreyfus affair. Essentially, it was a show-down between the more 'progressive' capitalists who sought to usher France into the era of mass-production, and the backward, pro-monarchical forces of the Catholic church and army, who still harked after the feudal traditionalism of the Ancien Régime. It was a struggle that French Capitalism as a whole could not afford to lose, and, needless to say, clerical militarism was routed, the State took control of mass-education, and the 'Radicals' were at last left free to deal with the working class.
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Around ten o'clock the next morning, David Belonie left his room in Belleville and went to retrieve the package from the left-luggage office, but no sooner did he have the package in his hands then he was seized by several detectives. Under questioning, he refused to give his name and said that the package had been left in his safekeeping by 'Charles' whom he'd met in a cafe on the boulevard Clichy; he knew his companion only as 'Roger'. He did admit knowing Bonnot from Lyon, but that was not in itself a crime.
By the time one company of 'Republican Guards' and another of 'Guardians of the Peace' reserves arrived, the house was well and truly surrounded. The thin walls, made only of wood, plaster and vitrified slag, were holed in hundreds of places and the house began to look like a pepper-pot, with a gun occasionally protruding from some of the enlarged holes and flashing at the beseigers.
Some time after ten, Lépine himself turned up in the company of other big-wigs, including Guichard's brother Paul, the Special Police Superintendent for Les Halles, Gilbert, the investigating Magistrate, and the Public Prosecutor Lescouvé. Soon after taking charge Lépine narrowly missed being hit by a bullet fired either by Bonnot or by one of the many trigger-happy idiots who had already succeeded in slightly injuring the odd spectator. Sightseers were now arriving in droves, keen to see the final hours of France's most redoubtable bandit; some, holding onto picnic hampers, were even going to make a meal of it, and for those who couldn't be in at the kill, it was all being recorded on celluloid as some of the earliest cinema-vérité. By now, Lépine was using most of the forces at his disposal simply to hold back the crowds. When a second company of Republican Guards was ferried to the front in a fleet of taxis, the mass of spectators greeted them with cries of, "Vive La Garde! Vive L'Armée!" in a scene reminiscent of some Napoleonic battle. Meanwhile the fusillade continued like some ritualistic ceremony designed to purge society of its enemies, its necessary scapegoats, in order to maintain its own fictitious unity. By midday it was quite evident that all this shooting was getting them nowhere, so Lépine ordered a cease-fire to be announced by a fireman's bugle, it would also give him some peace and quiet in which to consult with his colleagues about what to do next. They were still awaiting the arrival of the artillery from the fort at Vincennes, but Churchill hadn't made use of it at Sydney Street, and it was thought better to try something else in the meantime. Some army sappers had already brought a case of dynamite, and it was agreed to act on Lieutenant Fontan's readiness to go forward and blow the house up. By coincidence Fontan was from a regiment based in Lyon, and had only been in the Republican Guards two weeks; he was one of the few to gain combat experience on French soil before August 1914.
As the dust settled, the mass of spectators, their collective consciousness whipped into a frenzy by the noise of battle, began their habitual chant, "A Mort! A Mort! A Mort! A Mort!" and tried to surge forward to attack the object of their hatred. Only with difficulty did the police and Republican Guards manage to restrain them. Lépine ordered his men to wait and see if there was any sign of life, and to let the fire take a better hold. After ten minutes they plucked up the courage to advance, the cart rolling forward once more, sheltering Lépine, Fontan, the Guichard brothers and more than a dozen detectives. They dragged Dubois' corpse from the smouldering garage and laid it out on the grass, then began the slow advance up the outside stairs protected by mattresses. Finding the first room empty, the Lieutenant fired four shots at random into the back room, and received a half-hearted shot in reply from a barely-conscious Bonnot lying underneath a mattress. He had just enough strength to shout out, "Bunch of bastards", before a hail of lead struck him in the head and arms, and the last thing he felt was the Browning being plucked from his hand. Guichard strode in, pointed his gun at Bonnot's head and delivered the coup de grâce.
All the time the besieging forces were increasing: two hundred and fifty police arrived from the capital, some with dogs, then came members of the Gendarmerie, and scores of 'Republican Guards' bringing a vast crowd of civilians in their wake. The Military were ordered to come to the aid of the civilian power, from the nearby forts of Nogent, Vincennes and Rosny. Four hundred bearded Zouaves dressed in red bloomers, embroidered blue jackets and fezes arrived at the double from the fort at Nogent, and took up positions on the railway viaduct overlooking the house, and began to set up their machine-guns. Many had arrived without arms and so were used as stewards to keep the ever-growing crowd at bay. A company of the 23rd Dragoons came from Vincennes, but without any dynamite, which had to be got from Rosny. The odds were now five hundred to one and going out further every minute, and the crowd of punters, over twenty thousand strong, stretched right down to the casino and ballroom on the riverside. As night fell, they were treated to a real son-et-lumière experience: firemen illuminated the house with a searchlight set up on the viaduct, and stuck acetylene flares in the grass all around, while detectives lined up their automobiles and switched on all the headlights.[27]
The Valet family, despite their respectability, were forbidden to see the body of their son, due to malice or the shocking state that the body must have been in. In any event they refused to allow Monsieur and Madame Valet to give René a proper funeral, saying that the bodies of both bandits were state property and theirs to do with what they pleased. The bewildered and humilated parents were reduced to beseeching the President of the Republic to help them, but by the following morning it was too late. At nine o'clock the bodies were transported to Bagneux cemetery guarded by dragoons who rode with sabre in hand. One detective acted as witness as Garnier and Valet were laid to rest in unmarked graves in the forty-second division, at the start of the nineteenth line, not far from Bonnot and Dubois at the end of the twenty-first.
The trial had opened on Monday 3rd February 1913, and all around the Palais de Justice special security measures were in force. Not only were the general public completely barred from entering the building, but no crowds were allowed to gather outside the court, groups being dispersed and forced to stand across the road in the Place Dauphine. Troops guarded the so-called 'public entrance', while, inside, the building was continuously patrolled by armed police and the Republican Guards, some of the latter being placed as sentries at the entrances to the courtroom. The public gallery was packed with police and a few carefully selected invitees, while journalists were vetted and only allowed in on production of a pass signed by the President of the Court. Despite this stringency, the dock itself had been altered to exclude any possibility of communication between the accused and the 'public'. Each prisoner was guarded by a warder and the six more 'desperate characters' were in the custody of Republican Guards. Sitting in three rows behind the fifteen defence counsel, most of the men looked like workers in their 'Sunday best', some looking anxious, others affecting an air of indifference. Victor Kibalchich was distinguished by his Russian peasant-style blouse, while Rirette, wearing a black blouse and her dark hair cut in a bob, appeared very young, and attracted the sympathy of the press who compared her to the naive 'Claudine', heroine of Colette's famous series of novels. Arranged on the tables between the barristers and the judge's dais there were approximately seven hundred exhibits, including a notably impressive collection of firearms. The jury had to hear the evidence of between two and three hundred witnesses, and decide on three hundred and eighty-three matters; in case the newly installed electric lighting failed, a gas supply was laid on and the court was supplied with oil lamps and candles, so that there would be no interruptions to the administration of justice. A film crew was refused permission to capture the proceedings on celluloid. All in all, it had all the features of a 'show trial'.
After his death, the regime at La Santé was reviewed and the straightjackets were removed from the condemned men, Callemin, Soudy, Monier and Dieudonné. The executions were now set for 22nd April, at dawn. Their only hope now lay in making a plea for mercy to the newly incumbent President of the Republic, Poincaré, Fallières' successor. Alone of the four, Raymond refused to sign the plea. Soudy's mother wrote her own appeal for clemency on behalf of her son who was barely out of his teens. 2ff7e9595c
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