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Saint Ravachol

A Handwritten Manuscript by Ravachol (1892)

July 11, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
A HANDWRITTEN MANUSCRIPT BY RAVACHOL Since his condemnation to death, Ravachol has written a great deal in prison. Here is a long handwritten text that we have been able to obtain, not without great difficulties. We have confided the reproduction of this interesting document to the house of Sédard in Lyon. It is written on two pages, and in it Ravachol explains his theories. [The manuscript combines bad spelling, horrible penmanship, rotten grammar and nonexistent punctuation. Decoding it has been a long process. But here is a rough translation.] Society can only be improved by a complete transformation of its […]
Saint Ravachol

“Ravachol’s Experiment” (April 17, 1892)

July 11, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
RAVACHOL’S EXPERIMENT. He Felt the Revolutionary Pulse and Found It Does Not Beat. Paris, April 17. — In an interview with his brother today Ravachol said: “I am neither a visionary nor a firebrand. I wished to feel the pulse of the revolutionary movement. To be candid, I find it does not beat. If it did, my example would be followed by others. Instead of this, they call me a criminal. I have written my memoirs covering my whole life. Let me be judged by these.” The persons on the jury list likely to be empanelled for the Ravachol case […]
Saint Ravachol

The Voice of the Penal Colony (1893)

July 11, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE VOICE OF THE PENAL COLONY While the populations panic and cheer the hangman tsar, while the bourgeois and the governmentals congratulate themselves on the success of their stratagems and observe that human stupidity is always so great, a protest must come, proud and energetic, to remind the bourgeois that there are still free men, even, and especially, in their prisons and their penal colonies. We must remind our leaders, who, in the joy of their triumph, lick the boots of the hangman of nihilists and whipper of women, that in the French penal colonies are also found those whose […]
Saint Ravachol

“A Whisky Anarchist” (Cleveland, OH, 1887)

July 11, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
A WHISKY ANARCHIST A Young Man Excites People by Calling for Nitro-Glycerine to Make Bombs With. George A. Schroeder, who keeps a drug store at No. 423 St. Clair Street, telephoned the central police station about 7 o’clock saying that a man had just entered his place and asked for nitro-glycerine. He asked the druggist if he knew how to make a fuse, to which the latter replied that he did not. Then the fellow said that four ofhis brethren had been hanged in Chicago yesterday and he meant to avenge their death, for which he would be vindicated by […]
Saint Ravachol

Max Nettlau on the Ravachol Meetings (July 20, 1892)

July 11, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 0px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 0px”] [MAX NETTLAU ON THE RAVACHOL MEETINGS] JULY 20, 1892 Comrade, Having been present at the two meetings held with the object to discuss Ravachol’s acts, I should like to make a few remarks on the two currents dividing at the present time the anarchist movement. I have not read everything publishing on both sides as I am too old to crave for knowing what opinion this, that or the other authority expresses on the subject, but as I understand the three languages used at the meetings I could fairly follow the […]
Saint Ravachol

An Unexpected Interview (March 28, 1892)

July 11, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
AN UNEXPECTED INTERVIEW Conversation with the untraceable anarchist A reporter who has long followed the socialist and anarchist meetings came last night to tell us that, in a café near one of our great stations, he had encountered the elusive Ravachol, after whom all the bloodhounds of the prefecture of police have been sent. After we made inquiries about his identity, we thought we could welcome, at least on the grounds of curiosity, the details you are about to read: — There are many reasons why they won’t pinch Ravachol any time soon: first, that name is not his own; […]
Saint Ravachol

The Interview of the Two Brothers (April 18, 1892)

July 11, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE RAVACHOL CASE Publication of the indictment. — Proceedings against “La Lanterne.” In our issue bearing the date of April 16, we published the indictment against Ravachol. For that, our manager today received a summons to appear, Wednesday, April 20, before the 8th district court. We will, moreover, have lots of company; for, as we have informed our readers, we have sent that subpoena to the Temps, and many of our colleagues have done as we have. ________ THE ANARCHISTS INTERVIEW OF THE TWO BROTHERS Henri Kœnigstein and Ravachol. — In the visiting room of the Conciergerie. — Attitude of […]
Saint Ravachol

Octave Mirbeau, “Ravachol” (May 1, 1892)

July 10, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
Ravachol by Octave Mirbeau Translated and introduced by Robert Helms Francois-Claudius Koeningstein (Oct. 14, 1859 — July 11, 1892), known to posterity as Ravachol, was born to Dutch and French parents at Saint-Chamond, near St. Etienne in Eastern France. He was angered by two actions taken by the French government on May 1, 1891. One was at Fourmies, where the newly designed Lebels machine gun was used against a peaceful May Day rally at which women and children were carrying flowers and palms. Casualties there numbered 14 dead and 40 wounded. The other incident was at Clichy, where police attacked […]
Saint Ravachol

Errico Malatesta, “A Little Theory” (August 17, 1892)

July 10, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
A LITTLE THEORY Revolt rumbles everywhere. Here it is the expression of an idea, and there the result of a need; most often it is the consequence of the intertwining of needs and ideas which mutually generate and reinforce each other. It fastens itself to the causes of evil or strikes close by, it is conscious or instinctive, it is humane or brutal, generous or narrowly selfish, but it always grows and extends itself. It is history which advances: it is useless to take time to complain about the routes that it chooses, since these routes have been marked out […]