The Dynamite Club: How a Bombing in Fin-de-Siecle Paris Ignited the Age of Modern Terror (29 page)

Elisa Gauthey had entered the house through the garden. Since Émile's arrest, she had enjoyed the public attention, particularly spending time in the offices of the big papers to tell the story of the bomber's passion for her. She did not know how to keep quiet, even on this dreadful morning, babbling about Émile's love for her and relating intimate details of their "relationship." Elisa had treated him like a child, but in the end "he had shown himself to be an extraordinary man." Again, she expressed regret that she had not given herself to him. It would have made an even bigger story.

The journalist Madame Yver immediately went to Brévannes. She told Madame Henry, who was with Dr. Goupil, that she wanted to offer her consolation. She informed the grieving mother that her son had died bravely, walking to the guillotine with a sure step, his head held high. Madame Henry asked whether Émile had spoken of his mother before his execution. Madame Yver did not reply. Said Madame Henry, "What madness! Him, dying for the workers! But he was bourgeois to his soul. You understand, it was bad advice that lost him, as in the case of my other son." She then asked the journalist if she had actually watched the decapitation. No, said Madame Yver. She had turned away.

On May 24, Émile was buried in the cemetery of Limeil. Jules Henry and several
compagnons
later returned to plant a shrub at the tomb. In Belleville, as news of the execution spread, people looked at each other and asked, "Who is next?"

"To those who say: hate does not give birth to love, I reply that it is love, human love, that often gives birth to hate."

—ÉMILE HENRY

A WEEK AFTER
Émile Henry's bomb exploded in the Café Terminus, the anarchist art and literary critic Octave Mirbeau wrote, "A mortal enemy of anarchy could not have done more than Émile Henry against his cause when he threw his inexplicable bomb into the middle of quiet, anonymous people who had gone to a café to drink a beer before going home to go to bed." Charles Malato shared this view. Émile was an anarchist of great intelligence and courage, but his bomb "had above all struck anarchism." Malato approved any and all violence aimed at the enemy—the state and its props—but "not that which lashes out blindly," as had the bomb of his former friend. Émile Pouget, whose violent language in
Pére Peinará
had helped set the tone for "propaganda by the deed," viewed the recent attacks as an embarrassment to the anarchist cause.

At Leyret's Le Déluge in Belleville, the reaction to Émile's Café Terminus bombing was mixed. Unlike Vaillant's bombing of the National Assembly, there was no great joy about Émile's "deed." Why strike ordinary people sipping drinks in a café after work? That Émile was not a worker, like Vaillant, or "vulgar" like Ravachol, but rather an "intellectual born into the bourgeoisie" became a topic of conversation and reflection. There was something disconcerting about Émile's throwing away his diplomas and going on the attack. Yet there was also perhaps grudging admiration. Those frequenting Le Déluge had paid close attention to what Émile said during his trial, hanging on every word, repeating what he said, and taking pleasure in the way that he seemed to dominate his inquisitors. Leyret knew few workers, even socialists who remained inflexible adversaries of anarchists, who had not read and reread Émile's "Declaration." Émile, this self-proclaimed "resolute avenger, deliciously full of hate, supremely contemptuous," impressed even his critics in "People's Paris," with his learning and "by the precision of his tough reasoning." Still, Émile's execution brought considerably less sadness and anger than that of Vaillant. It had seemed inevitable.

Ordinary workers now pondered their fate. Would the state and bourgeois society triumph? The future would tell. Some workers who had suffered greatly over the past years seemed to be licking their wounds, perhaps preparing for vengeance. The faubourgs had once placed their hopes in the Third Republic, but they had been let down. The Panama Canal scandal had enriched some well-placed politicians and further fueled contempt for the upper clases and the state that defended their interests. Despotism and corruption had dashed workers' hopes for true fraternity and equality.

The conservative press generally approved of the execution of Émile. To
L'Écho de Paris,
Émile entered History, carrying, like Saint-Denis, his young head in his hands. It was shameful and even grotesque that this mere boy had already become a historical personage, complete with his legend and his apologists. The anarchists had succeeded in making society tremble. Most people living in cities and towns would have wanted to spare his life, not out of sympathy, but out of terror. This particular writer found the state of the contemporary French soul "nauseating." Too many people had already forgotten Émile's victims. Foreign visitors had packed up and fled the epidemic of dynamite in Paris. Industry and commerce had slowed, and winter, usually bustling, had been a dead season. And despite all of this, Émile had his adherents. The anarchists had become "our emperors: Hail, Caesar! The bourgeois about to die salute you!" A new era seemed to have dawned: Émile had not chosen prominent figures of state and capitalism as his targets, but rather peaceful citizens selected randomly by his "monstrous hatred."

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.