Ballad of the Anarchist Bandits

by John Merriman

  The prosecution lumped Victor Kibaltchiche and Rirette Maîtrejean together with the Bonnot Gang, particularly during the interrogation of Callemin. Neither Victor nor Rirette had had anything to do with the gang’s misdeeds, and they were now well known for their opposition to illegalism. But they were anarchists—and for the prosecution, for the police, that was enough. Victor stood accused of approving of the crimes of the Bonnot Gang, and of serving as an “ideologue,” pushing the gang members toward crime. In the political climate of 1912, it was easy to accuse Victor and Rirette of being part of a highly organized association des malfaiteurs, however little evidence existed to prove the claim. The indictment, communicated to the press on November 25, 1912, insisted that the Bonnot Gang was an organized band, whereas as Rirette noted in retrospect, “what the band most lacked was precisely organization!”4

  As the trial approached, Victor expressed hope that this “imbecilic and undeserved nightmare” would soon end. He and Rirette agreed perfectly about the lines of their defense. In particular, Victor believed that the courtroom would not be the place for him to speak against illegalism. If the prosecution tried to link him to crimes “that I find repugnant,” he would have to explain himself, but he would do so carefully in a way to prevent the prosecution from turning his words against other defendants. He would refuse, no matter what, “to become an informer.”

  In L’Anarchie, Victor, the so-called “ideologue” of the Bonnot Gang, had done no more than insist that “the bandits are the consequences of causes well beyond them,” while recognizing “the legitimacy of all revolt.” Victor still found it difficult to imagine how former comrades could have carried out “the butchery of Thiais.” He would limit himself “to prove that I never encouraged nor was ever partisan of this theory.” He began to second-guess himself: if at some point he had been “more firm,” would his old friend Valet still be alive and “poor Soudy free. I only lacked combativity.”5

  The trial began on February 3, 1913, in the Palais de Justice in Paris. Along with lawyers and policemen out of uniform, there were highly placed personages with connections—even some ladies from high society, dressed as for a Parisian show, sat in the audience. The twelve jurors seemed on the elderly side, a variety of shapes and appearances.

  There would be twenty-one sessions. The prosecutor, Attorney General Joseph Fabre, presented thirty-one different allegedly criminal affairs. Twenty people were accused of participation in an association des malfaiteurs. Barbe Le Clerch, who had been arrested on October 25 with 975 francs in cash and some items taken in the burglary in Pavillons-sous-Bois, and Marie la Belge stood accused of complicity in theft. Fifteen lawyers would defend the accused. Fabre was resplendent in his bright red robe with fur trim, leading Rirette to admire “without reservation the majesty of his appearance” and his “sober and cool elegance.” Rirette had the impression of standing helplessly before “an amazing force, prodigious, against which the paltry theories of illegalism could never prevail.” Victor was less impressed by the bench, “composed of short or fat old men, drowsy or nearsighted.” The court president, whose role was to interrogate the accused, referred reverentially to “society” as he stood before this group of anarchists who did not accept its laws. He began by insisting that this was not a political trial, but rather one considering serious crimes. Yet inevitably the presiding magistrate admitted that during the trial it would be impossible, given the circumstances, not to consider the doctrine of anarchism.6

  The twenty men and women accused stood and then sat in the dock. Charges included murder, armed robbery, assault and battery or grievous bodily harm, theft and possession of firearms, being part of an association des malfaiteurs, or assisting in criminal acts. Some seven hundred pieces of evidence were displayed on tables, including suitcases, burglary tools, and, safely within a glass case, rifles and Browning pistols. During the month-long trial, 239 witnesses testified. Some related the most improbable tales, contradicting one another, reflecting pressure from the police, as had happened during previous testimony before the investigating magistrate.7

  L’Anarchie—which proclaimed in February that the “only crime is to judge!”—provocatively listed the names and occupations of the forty jurors initially convoked and then the twelve jurors ultimately selected to decide the fate of the accused, potentially putting them at risk. Of the twelve jurors and two alternates, there was not a single worker. A notary’s clerk, a clerk for a stockbroker, and another white-collar worker would certainly feel a bit out of place among men of means, including, appropriately, an automobile manufacturer.8

  As the trial began, L’Anarchie once again defended the bandits, who had been “brought up in misery” without “the care of a family.” How could one be surprised that they revolted against society in a country in which “misery grows each day”? Ordinary workers, who earned so little money when they could find jobs, could only watch as “their masters live in sumptuous palaces and the bourgeois class revels in gold and joy. They see millions and hundreds of millions pile into the safes of financiers, industrialists, politicians, and speculators.”9

  The Parisian dailies feasted on the proceedings. A prominent lawyer was scathing about the role of journalists, who provided all possible information not only on the accused but also on the lawyers for the defense. The press had become a “supplementary and extra-legal but overwhelming and imposing judge.” The Parisian press covered the trial, reporting what had occurred, based on the accounts of those actually in the courtroom—but with a strong bias against the anarchists, whom they believed threatened society. Coverage of the trial dramatically increased the number of copies of each edition published, as readers impatiently awaited details of what was transpiring in the courtroom.10

  Rirette was the first summoned to face judge and jury, which suggested that she was the leader of the band. Dressed in a black smock with a high collar and with her hair cut short, she appeared severe, described in one of the thirty or so newspapers closely covering the trial as “a schoolgirl, lively and mischievous, holding her notes in her hands, with a notebook for her homework, and at the end of her fingers a small pencil on which she gnawed the lead.” Rirette’s calm and reasonable replies to questioning during the trial impressed even hostile onlookers. She later recounted having the impression of being in “sort of a fog that prevented me from seeing the court and [making] out the jurors.” Her voice seemed to her “distant, strangled, strange. I had an incredible difficulty swallowing.”

  Rirette rejected the prosecution’s attempt to present her as one of the leaders of the Bonnot Gang by virtue of her legal capacity as managing director of L’Anarchie. As she explained, someone had to have that legal status in order for the newspaper to publish. She was simply a “comrade,” like all the others who worked on the newspaper, and she insisted that the newspaper provided a means of bringing together men and women who wanted to study and learn. Certainly, the anarchist newspaper condemned social inequalities and bourgeois morality, she allowed, but it had never incited anyone to crimes and murder. Rirette denied that she had benefited from thefts committed by illegalists. The proof was that they had remained poor and had never had enough to eat. They had always lived honestly. Neither she nor Victor had stolen stamps from post offices, even if they had used them to send out their newspaper. When asked about stolen identity and military papers found in the offices, she explained that they had been left by comrades, but that “[anarchists] never ask a comrade his name or where he is from.” And what about the two revolvers police found in their apartment? “I am not a thief!” Rirette sharply replied. She had no way of knowing that the weapons had been stolen by another anarchist.11

  Rirette made clear that she had not asked Garnier, Valet, or de Boe to come to Romainville. Indeed, they were already living there when she and Victor arrived. When the court president asked her about earlier crimes allegedly committed by Callemin, Soudy, and Carouy, Rirette insisted, again, that it was part of the culture�
�indeed, the morality—of anarchism that one never asked newly arrived comrades to discuss their lives. Anarchists came and went. After Rirette testified and returned to the benches reserved for the defendants, Raymond Callemin assured her that she had done very well. Even the hostile royalist Action Française newspaper admitted that Rirette had defended herself “with considerable strength.”12

  Victor, the second to face judge and jury, wore the shirt of a Russian peasant for the trial. He spoke easily, softly, and clearly, with “a vocabulary even better than proper.” The court president began his interrogation by stating, “You appear to have never been previously convicted.” The defendant replied, “I don’t just appear to have never been! I have never been convicted.” Like Rirette, he rejected the idea that he and L’Anarchie were in any way responsible for the crimes committed by the illegalists. He stated, clearly and unequivocally, “You are confusing Madame Maîtrejean and me with comrades who do not share our ideas.… You refuse to distinguish between L’Anarchie of Romainville and that of rue Fessart.” He insisted, “Between those who are sitting on the [courtroom] bench and us, there are enormous differences. Rirette Maîtrejean and I, we are neither criminals nor thieves.” None of the illegalists at Romainville had gone with them to rue Fessart. Most of the crimes, Victor reminded the jury, had occurred when he was already in jail. He found himself on trial, he argued, because “I am an anarchist.”13

  Speaking calmly and with composure as always, Victor made clear that he had indeed been friends with Callemin, Carouy, and de Boe, but they had gone their separate ways because of their ideological differences. He insisted that most anarchists were not illegalists. Moreover, Victor, like Rirette, was not the director of L’Anarchie; there was no real director—everyone was a comrade. The anarchist intellectual Sébastien Faure spoke in defense of Victor and Rirette, providing a brief history of anarchism and making clear that the very term anarchism glossed over absolutely significant differences between anarchists, making preposterous the term association des malfaiteurs used by the prosecution. As the first day of the sensational trial came to a close, most journalists concluded that Victor would be acquitted.14

  Eugène Dieudonné came next, on the second day of the trial. He defended himself awkwardly, particularly when asked if his separation from his spouse Louise was mutual. Although she had run off with Lorulot, he tried to explain, they had remained on good terms. Any attempt to prevent her from leaving would have run counter to his “social ideas.” “What morals!” interjected the court president, shocked at such an affirmation. Dieudonné admitted having received a telegram from Raymond la Science on December 19 while in Nancy, telling him to come to Paris immediately. Yet Dieudonné insisted that this missive was related to his attempt to work out a reconciliation with his wife. He asserted that he was not an illegalist and was appalled by Bonnot’s acts. Moreover, he claimed that he had never met Garnier, despite the fact that his name turned up in the latter’s notebook, nor had he met Bonnot. He told the court that it was a coincidence that he took a room on rue Nollet just after Bonnot had departed. As for the surgeon’s tool kit, it had been left by a comrade whose name he would not reveal.

  Dieudonné made a point of not invoking any other anarchists, for fear of compromising them. It was like that in the anarchist world. He had been “an anarchist, as one is Christian, Jewish, or Muslim.”

  After denying the assertion of witnesses that he had been in Arnay-le-Duc, he also rejected the idea that he had ended up with a stolen bicycle. Where did he get it? Again, he refused to give the name of the comrade who had given it to him. To the court president’s scathing comment, “Too bad for you,” Dieudonné’s attorney replied, “A man has the right to say, ‘I don’t want to hand over another.’ That in itself is beautiful.”

  The most serious charge against Dieudonné was that he had shot the courier Ernest Caby as he approached the Société Générale branch on rue Ordener. Victor realized that witnesses had confused Dieudonné with someone else because of “a resemblance between his dark eyes and another pair of eyes, still darker, which were in the graveyard”—Octave Garnier.15 Several people from Nancy testified to Dieudonné’s presence in that Lorraine town on the day of the now-famous holdup and getaway. The court president attempted to undercut such testimonies that Dieudonné had been in Nancy that day by dismissing one of the witnesses as an anarchist. That Dieudonné clearly was right-handed, not left-handed, posed a problem for the prosecution. One of Dieudonné’s former employers testified that he could not loan his own tools to Eugène because he—the boss—was left-handed. Dieudonné found himself facing Caby in the courtroom. Again, Caby insisted that it was Dieudonné who had shot him on December 21—although from a police photo on an earlier occasion the courier had identified Garnier as having wielded the pistol and almost killed him. And when the court president reminded Caby that what he said could cost the head of a man, he again swore that Dieudonné had shot him. Peemans, the other employee of Société Générale who had gone out to meet Caby, also insisted that Dieudonné had fired the Browning.16

  Callemin followed Dieudonné on day two of the trial. The charges against Raymond la Science were the most serious, including several murders. He had been identified by two witnesses—but others had their doubts—at Montgeron. Callemin answered the questions with sarcasm, occasionally scribbling notes on a pad. He sneered when the clerk read from the indictment a witness’s testimony that he had “the look of a rosy baby.” Callemin told the court president that the magistrate was carrying out his duties “in bad faith,” and at one point he interrupted to say that his interrogator was “monologuing.” He would reply to his questions only when he felt like it. What did he do upon first arriving in Paris? Well, he worked. Where? He would rather not say. He repeated the assertion he had made when he was first questioned: the money he was spending had been won at the racetrack. As for the guns found in his possession when he was arrested, well, he needed them for a counterfeiting job. Rirette watched as “he got all tangled up in his sentences, became confused about dates, and in the end just mumbled.” In the end, Callemin denied all the accusations against him. When the judge asked if he had an alibi for March 25, 1912, the day of the events in Montgeron and Chantilly, he scoffed and replied, “I don’t keep a datebook.” Comparing Callemin’s performance to that of Dieudonné, Le Petit Parisien assessed that, “Callemin was without question the most mediocre.… He wanted to be ironic, insolent, but soon he realized that it was not working… far from showing himself to be brilliant, he was only ridiculous.”17

  When Callemin faced the court for the second time, the judge again asked if his name was Raymond Callemin. Raymond la Science replied that he had not changed his name since the previous day. At one point, he told the court that after being accused of one crime after another, he had written the investigating magistrate, “As you seem to take quite seriously… despite my assertions—[my role in] the murder of Charlemagne, I want to announce to you that I strangled Louis XVI with my own hands.”18

  Three guards testified that they had heard Raymond la Science admit to several of the crimes of which he stood accused. He had even assured the guards that because the robbery on the rue Ordener had not brought in enough money, they had to “do” Chantilly. He now claimed to have been kidding when he bragged about his responsibility for various crimes, although he admitted telling the guards that his head was now worth one hundred thousand francs, the reward offered by Société Générale, but that each of theirs had a value of seven centimes, the price of a bullet. A guard standing outside Callemin’s cell declared that he needed only one revolver to defend himself, to which Callemin had boasted, “Unlike me you have not used hundreds of cartridges to get to know Browning pistols.” He also told a guard, presumably the same one, that after the coup of the rue Ordener, the bandits had decided that if ever they were on the verge of arrest, they would enter a shop and defy a siege. That was why they carried so many guns and bullets. He had appa
rently added that the coups at Montegeron and Chantilly had been acts of desperation, although he had formally denied being involved in these two events.19

  When interrogated by the court president, Pas-de-Chance Soudy denied any participation in the murders in Montgeron and Chantilly. And he rejected the right of the court to judge him at all, while denying the assertions of witnesses that he had been the now-infamous “l’homme à carabine”—a man described as tall with a narrow, pale face and wearing a big coat that reached the tops of his shoes—who had fired his gun during the holdup at Chantilly in order to keep onlookers away. Some witnesses claimed that it was not the very thin Soudy who held a rifle, but rather someone much heavier. Marie la Belge told the president of the court that her lover Garnier had insisted it was Soudy who had carried the rifle. Soudy’s response was that her lawyer had put her up to saying that. Where did he get the 980 francs found in his pocket when arrested? From a theft, came the obvious answer. Why did he have pistols in his possession when arrested? To defend himself against arrest: “Banned from France, I decided to defend myself to the end.” Had he not been surprised by the police when taken, there would have been one more cadaver “because I have had it with spending my life in prisons and hospitals.”