Ballad of the Anarchist Bandits

by John Merriman

  27 F7 13053, “Notes sur l’Anarchie en France,” April 25, 1913, and BA 1499, report of April 12, 1913; Victor Serge, Le Rétif, pp. 26, 125; L’Anarchie, September 7, 1911; Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, p. 18; Vivien Bouhey and Philippe Levillain, Les anarchistes contre la République, pp. 373–379 (June 17, 1908), 420; Victor Serge, “Méditation sur l’anarchie,” Esprit, 55, April 1, 1937, pp. 36–37; Émile Michon, Un peu de l’âme de bandits: étude de psychologie criminelle (Paris, 1913), p. 197; Gaetano Manfredonia, Anarchisme et changement social: Insurrectionnalisme, syndicalisme, éducationnisme-réalisateur (Loriol, 2007), p. 341. The thirty-nine goups were counted in 1913.

  28 Jean Maitron, Le mouvement anarchiste. Vol. 1, Des origines à 1914, pp. 414–423, citing Le Libertaire, August 7–13, 1898; Robert Le Texier, De Ravachol à la bande à Bonnot (Paris, 1989), p. 143.

  29 Jacob may have been the inspiration for Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin, gentleman cambrioleur, which had considerable success after its publication in 1907, and L’Arrestation de Arsène Lupin (1913) [Michel Winock, Les derniers feux de la Belle Époque (Paris, 2014), pp. 62–67]. Lupin’s thefts were from bankers, financiers, and German barons, thus acceptable to a sizeable public.

  30 BA 1499, report of July 9, 1907.

  31 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 18.

  32 Vivien Bouhey, Les anarchistes contre la République, pp. 363–424, 442–459; L’Anarchie, April 18, 1912.

  33 Maitron, Le mouvement anarchiste. Vol. 1, Des origines à 1914, pp. 423–424; Luc Nemeth, “On Anarchism,” in Susan Weissman, ed., The Ideas of Victor Serge: A Life as a Work of Art (N.p., 1997), p. 121.

  34 Victor Méric, Les bandits tragiques (Paris, 1926), pp. 83–84.

  35 Victor Serge, Le Rétif: Articles parus dans “L’Anarchie,” 1909–1912, edited by Yves Pagès (Paris, 1989), pp. 7, 23: “Rétif, ive, adj, se dit d’un cheval ou autre bête de monture qui refuse d’obéir. Fig. Se dit des choses qui n’obéissent pas,” Dictionary Littré.

  36 Yves Pagès, in Victor Serge, Le Rétif, p. 26; Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, p. 29.

  Chapter 5: Rirette Maîtrejean

  1 Anne Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise (Paris, 2013), pp. 7–11.

  2 Rirette Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 72–73; Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, pp. 10–11; Anne Steiner, Les En-dehors: anarchistes individualistes et illégalistes à la “Belle Époque” (Paris, 2008), pp. 15–18; see Judith Coffin, The Politics of Women’s Work: The Paris Clothing Trades, 1750–1915 (Princeton, 1996).

  3 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 72–73.

  4 Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, p. 11.

  5 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 15.

  6 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 16.

  7 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 26.

  8 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 15; Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 23–25.

  9 Céline Beaudet, Les milieux libres. Vivre en anarchie à la Belle Époque (Paris, 2006), p. 185; Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 25–27; Gaetano Manfredonia, La chanson anarchiste en France des origines à 1914 (Paris, 1997), pp. 239–250.

  10 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 73; Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 30–34.

  11 JA 16, report of June 3, 1912; Gérard Jacquemet, “La violence à Belleville au début du xxe siècle,” Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Île-de-France, 1978, pp. 150–163. Jacquemet argues that Belleville’s reputation for crime and delinquency was unjustified in that its rate of criminality at this time was slightly less than Paris as a whole and that arrests of young people did not increase. Yet he admits that arrest for coups et blessures and drunkenness did increase, at least until 1911. Moreover, the number of murders rose from sixty-two between 1904 and 1908 to eighty between 1909 and 1913.

  12 Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, pp. 24–25.

  13 Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 38–40.

  14 Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 44–50; Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, pp. 25–31.

  15 EA 141 L’Aurore, June 17, 1968; Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 14–15; Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, pp. 23–27, 34–35.

  16 BA 928, November 23, 1907, and April 11, 1908.

  17 BA 928, May 5, 14, and 25, 1908. Yet Libertad remained resilient. On May 25 he and thirty young men and women took the train from Gare Saint-Lazare to Garches, where they distributed copies of L’Anarchie and papillons anarchists, before a déjeuné sur l’herbe with provisions they had brought along.

  18 BA 928, February 8, 18, and 20 and March 10, 17, and 24, 1908.

  19 William Caruchet, Ils ont tué Bonnot: Les révélations des archives policières (Paris, 1990), pp. 21, 38–39. See Charles Tilly, The Contentious French (Cambridge, MA, 1986).

  20 Anne Steiner, Le gout de l’émeute: manifestations et violences de rue dans Paris et sa banlieue à la “Belle Époque” (Paris, 2012), pp. 9–16.

  21 Jacques Julliard, Clemenceau briseur de grèves (Paris, 1965), p. 23.

  22 Céline Beaudet, Les milieux libres. Vivre en anarchie à la Belle Époque (Paris, 2006), pp. 171–172, 183–185, 191, 199–208; Castelle, Paris Républicain, p. 199. Yet in 1913, only 13 percent of the work force had joined unions (Michel Winock, La Belle Époque, p. 150).

  23 Eugen Weber, France, Fin-de-Siècle (Cambridge, MA, 1986), p. 139.

  24 Michel Winock, La Belle Époque (Paris, 2002), pp. 336–337.

  25 Steiner, Le gout de l’émeute, pp. 25–56.

  26 Steiner, Le gout de l’émeute, pp. 9–17.

  27 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 75–76.

  28 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 74–76; Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 60–61; Steiner, Le gout de l’émeute, pp. 25–56; Jacques Julliard, Clemenceau briseur de grèves (Paris, 1965), pp. 21–23, 47–48; Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 58–63.

  29 Julliard, Clemenceau briseur de grèves, pp. 9–10, 99.

  30 BA 928, reports of November 14 and 15, 1908; Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 22. Suspicion abounded in anarchist circles that he died as a result of police blows on a Montmartre stairway (Victor Méric, p. 58, quoting André Colomer).

  Chapter 6: A Love Story

  1 Anne Steiner, Les En-dehors: anarchistes individualistes et illégalistes à la “Belle Époque” (Paris, 2008), p. 67; Rirette Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 27.

  2 Alain Rustenholz, Paris ouvrier: des sublimes aux camarades (Paris, 2003), p. 325; Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 27–28; Anne Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise (Tulle, 2013), pp. 35–36; Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 64–65. Belgian police indicated in a letter to their French counterparts that Rirette had gone to Belgium in 1909 (EA 141, interrogation of Femme Maîtrejean), presumably early in the year, with Mauricius or with Victor. Rirette notes that another anarchist had entered Belgium with her papers, and then had been kicked out because of her efforts in diffusing anarchist propaganda.

  3 Rirette Maîtrejean, “De Paris à Barcelone,” Témoins, no. 21, February 1959, pp. 37–38.

  4 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 30–31.

  5 Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary (New York, 2012), pp. 25–26.

  6 JA 19 report of January 26 and May 21, 1912, and n.d.; JA 24, accountant of company, September 29, 1911; Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 29–31, 85; Robert Le Texier, De Ravachol à la bande à Bonnot (Paris, 1989), p. 158.

  7 Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, pp. 28, 37–39; Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, p. 23.

  8 Anne Steiner, Le gout de l’émeute: manifestations et violences de rue dans Paris et sa banlieue à la “Belle Époque” (Paris, 2012), pp. 21–22, 101–106, 198–199; Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, pp. 33–34. A police report indicates that Victor was expelled in August 1909, along with Rirette, but this seems unlikely (J[ean] Maitron, “De Kibaltchiche à Victor Serge. Le Rétif [1909–1919],” Mouvement social, 47, avril–juin 1964, p. 47).

  9 Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 78–79
.

  10 Victor Serge, Mémoires d’un révolutionnaire, pp. 33–37; Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, p. 35; Victor Serge, Le Rétif, pp. 118–119, L’Anarchie, October 20, 1910; Steiner, Le gout de l’émeute, pp. 120–145, 199.

  Chapter 7: A Bitter Split

  1 Rirette Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie (Quimperlé, 2005), pp. 28, 78.

  2 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 28; Anne Steiner, Les En-dehors: anarchistes individualistes et illégalistes à la “Belle Époque” (Paris, 2008), p. 75.

  3 JA 17, dossier Callemin, especially report of July 3, 1912; JA16, “Mes Mémoires: (Callemin dit Raymond la Science): Pourquoi j’ai cambriolé Pourquoi j’ai tué”; Céline Beaudet, Les milieux libres. Vivre en anarchie à la Belle Époque (Saint-Georges-d’Oléron, 2006), pp. 101, 187: “Telle est la definition même de l’anarchisme, que le melieu libre reprend au sens propre: ni domination, ni hiérarchie, ni structure figée”; Victor Serge, Le Rétif: Articles parus dans “L’Anarchie,” 1909–1912, p. 10; Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 93. The account of his life that he provided Émile Michon in 1913 (Un peu de l’âme de bandits: étude de psychologie criminelle, pp. 197–201) differs somewhat, having Callemin arriving in Paris with his girlfriend in 1910. He describes this as the beginning of his “nomadic” period, followed by work in Lausanne (where his friend met him), the best time of his life with her and two French friends. Unemployment in Paris followed, and then it was back to Lausanne, and then to Marseille, where Callemin and his girlfriend apparently briefly explored possibilities of going to Algeria or Cairo, but with no work assured there and confronted by police, he was forced to return to Paris, using up all his money to get there. He claimed his girlfriend ended up in Paris. Given Raymond’s reputation for misogyny, it seems possible that he invented this girlfriend.

  4 Émile Michon, Un peu de l’âme de bandits: étude de psychologie criminelle (Paris, 1913), pp. 197–201.

  5 Victor Méric, Les bandits tragiques, p. 67.

  6 JA 16, dossier Carouy, report of July 5, 1912; EA 141, Le Temps, June 2, 1912.

  7 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 17, 83; Dominique Depond, Jules Bonnot et sa bande, pp. 47–48, Victor’s description; Émile Becker, La “Bande à Bonnot,” pp. 65–66. Later, Jeanne became Lorulot’s lover. A police report had his father being a well-respected customs employee (JA 16, report of July 5, 1912).

  8 JA 15, “Anarchistes signalés comme étant en rapport avec le Né Carouy Édouard,” September 22, 1911.

  9 Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary (New York, 2012), p. 40.

  10 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 32–33, 78; Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, pp. 40–41.

  11 JA 18, report of June 13, 1912.

  12 JA 19, report of June 13, 1912; Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 97–98, 219–220; Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 31–34, 78–79; Victor Serge, Mémoires d’un révolutionnaire, 1901–1941 (Paris, 1978), p. 41; Frédéric Lavignette, La bande à Bonnot à travers la presse de l’époque, pp. 224–225, 484; Le Petit Parisien, April 1, 1912; Excelsior, May 29, 1912; Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, pp. 41–41.

  13 Victor Méric, Les bandis tragiques, pp. 68–69.

  14 JA 19, dossier Lorulot, report of August 11, 1912; André Lorulot, Chez les loups: Moeurs anarchistes (Paris, 1922), while remaining loyal to anarchism: “L’anarchie… solutionne définitivement le problème sociale: elle met l’homme à sa place dans la nature.” Chez les loups is a supposedly fictional account but obviously closely follows the events in prewar Paris.

  15 L’Anarchie, July 6, 1911.

  16 Steiner, Les En-dehors, p. 81; Beaudet, Les milieux libres, p. 101, noting that Émile Armand frequently used this expression. The walls of Paris had long since lost any military value. The city of Paris and military authorities went back and forth following a law in 1898 that took away any control by the city in the military declassification of the fortifications. Finally, in 1904 the army abandoned any plan to consider the circumference of Paris as militarily useful and built more defenses on the edge of Paris, after refusing the city’s demand that the entire circumference be declassified and sold to the city in 1913. Thereafter, the exterior forts were considered the defense of Paris (Pierre Castelle, Paris Républicain, pp. 250–253). The remaining walls around Paris were scheduled for demolition in 1913, but that would have to await the end of the Great War.

  17 JA 18, report of May 23, 1913; Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 81–82; Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 38–44.

  18 Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, p. 38; Émile Michon, Un peu de l’âme de bandits: étude de psychologie criminelle (1913), pp. 197–198; Victor Méric, Les bandits tragiques, p. 71.

  19 Richard Parry, The Bonnot Gang (London, 1987), pp. 40–41.

  20 JA 19, dossier Vuillemin, femme Schoofs, p.v. January 24, 1912, interrogation of Madame Jouin (coincidence); Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, p. 38.

  21 JA 19, reports of January 2, 22, 25, 1912, p.v. of interrogation of Delinotte, Florine, who then admitted she was Marie femme Schoofs, Jouin, n.d., and p.v., May 24 and report of July 13, 1912.

  22 JA 19, p.v. January 24, 1912.

  23 Serge, Mémoires d’un révolutionnaire, p. 39; Victor Méric, Les bandits tragiques, pp. 70–71.

  24 Serge, Mémoires d’un révolutionnaire, p. 38–39; Méric, Les bandits tragiques, pp. 70–71.

  25 Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 30–38; Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 23–26, 38–39.

  26 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 41–42.

  27 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 23–26.

  28 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 39.

  29 JA 19, report of July 15, 1912; reports of August 27 and September 20, 1911, mandat d’amener; report of April 26, 1912.

  30 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 35–36, 78.

  31 JA 17, report of June 20, 1911. “Mistral,” 20 to 22 years of age, 1 meter 64 in height, black hair, round face, teint mat, moustache noire, black eyes, “regard fuyant,” with “un nez large et aplati”; Gros, 28–30 Edouard, rather fat, chestnut hair, and a mustache.

  32 KC 19, dossier Louis Jouin: “travail d’épreuve,” February 16, 1898; personnel report, May 2, 1895; general secretary of the Prefecture of the Seine, July 2, 1895; “note de service 1902,” etc. The dossier included a letter from a commissaire in Puteaux (July 22, 1900) claiming that Jouin had “une sensibilité maladive. M. Jourin pleure à la plus petit contrarité.”

  33 KC 19, dossier Louis Jouin, report of April 25, 1912, etc.; Marcel Guillaume, Mes Grandes Enquêtes criminelles: De la Bande à Bonnot à l’Affaire Stavisky (Mayenne, 2005), pp. 51–53.

  34 Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 81–82, 89–92; Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, pp. 18, 43; Serge, Mémoires d’un révolutionnaire, pp. 29–30.

  35 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 40; Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 83–89, 216–217; Victor Serge, Le Rétif, “Vie de Victor Kibaltchiche, dit le Rétif, alias Victor Serge,” p. 12.

  36 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 40; Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 83–89, 216–217; Victor Serge, Le Rétif, “Vie de Victor Kibaltchiche, dit le Rétif,” p. 12.

  37 BA 1499, report of April 12, 1913; Rirette Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 82.

  38 Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, p. 38; Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 37, 44; Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, pp. 40–41.

  39 Victor Méric, Les bandits tragiques, p. 64; Luc Nemeth, “Victor Serge, marqué par son passé,” in Rirette Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 110–111.

  40 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 40, 82–84; Parry, The Bonnot Gang, p. 61.

  41 JA 19, report of July 15, 1912; Parry, The Bonnot Gang, pp. 57–58, adding that Carouy feared being extradited back to Belgium for the attempted murder of a policeman in Charleroi.

  42 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, pp. 38–44; JA 16, “Mes Mémoires: (Callemin dit Ray
mond la Science): Pourquoi j’ai cambriolé Pourquoi j’ai tué.”

  43 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 43; Parry, The Bonnot Gang, p. 58.

  44 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 44; Méric, Les bandits tragiques, pp. 68–69.

  45 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 44.

  46 Serge, Mémoires d’un révolutionnaire, p. 39; Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 44; Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 95–96; Luc Nemeth, “On Anarchism,” p. 123, from “The Unlawful,” Le Communiste, June 10, 1908; Victor Serge, Le Rétif, “Le Révolté,” February 6, 1909, p. 204.

  47 The number of Bretons living in Paris had increased from 88,000 in 1891 to 119,000 a decade later.

  48 JA 18, mayor of Le Faouët, April 9, 1911, reports of prefect of police March 28 and police reports of March 25 and 28, April 27, July 13, October 24 and 25, 1912, and January 31, 1913. See Leslie Page Moch, Pariahs of Yesterday: Breton Migrants in Paris (Durham, NC, 2012).

  49 JA 24, October 19, 1911; January 9 and October 18, 1912; JA 18, dossier Lecot. Metge was a suspect in a theft from a factory on rue de Metz in Romainville the night of March 7, 1911.

  50 Renaud Thomazo, Mort au bourgeois! (Paris, 2009), pp. 23–24, 116–117.

  51 Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 99–100; Émile Becker, La “Bande à Bonnot” (Paris, 1968), pp. 56–58.

  Chapter 8: Jules Bonnot

  1 JA 16, “Mes Mémoires: (Callemin dit Raymond la Science): Pourquoi j’ai cambriolé Pourquoi j’ai tué”; Marcel Guillaume, Mes Grandes Enquêtes criminelles: De la Bande à Bonnot à l’Affaire Stavisky (Mayenne, 2005), p. 56; Richard Parry, The Bonnot Gang (London, 1987), pp. 73–75.

  2 Michel Chomarat, Les Amants tragiques. Histoire du bandit Jules Bonnot et de sa maîtresse Judith Thollon (Lyon, 1978), p. 2.

  3 Dominique Depond, Jules Bonnot et sa bande (Paris, 2009), pp. 52–56. In 1913 Berliet employed 2,000 workers and turned out 3,000 vehicles.

  4 William Caruchet, Ils ont tué Bonnot: Les revelations des archives policières (Paris, 1990), pp. 20–21; Chomarat, Les Amants tragiques, pp. 5–6, referring to “des traitements inhumains infligés par Bonnot à son fils et à son épouse.” The Tribunal civil of Lyon officially granted the divorce in April 1912 (Émile Becker, p. 47).