Saint Ravachol

Ravachol spent his life as a sort of criminal jack-of-all-trades—smuggler, counterfeiter, grave-robber, murderer, bomber—and then, at the end of that career, was made a secular saint, “the violent Christ of anarchy.” And he was hardly the only one of the illegalists and attentateurs who was subsequently mythologized. Indeed, in the long war between anarchists and the agents of capitalism and the state, mythology has been a tool used on both sides. The items collected here are drawn from that war and are part of a literature in which history and myth are often inextricable. The collection includes items previously contained in the archives Relics of Saint-Ravachol and A Beautiful Nihilist.

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 […]
poetry

P. R. Bennett, “The Anarchist” (1912)

July 10, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[From P. R. Bennett, Ducdame; a book of verses. 1912.] The Anarchist [A critic in the New Age suggests that modern thought can submit no longer to the tyranny of rhyme and metre.] Ravachol Needham was a man of letters, Who refused to submit to the wretched fetters That sought by rules of rhyme and scansion To prevent his soaring soul’s expansion. He had languished long on a dismal sonnet And wasted his eagle spirit on it, Till the poor old bird had been imprisoned So long that it grew depressed and wizened, Drooped its feathers and nearly moulted, Could […]
Saint Ravachol

Charles Malato, “Some Anarchist Portraits” (September 1, 1894)

July 10, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
SOME ANARCHIST PORTRAITS. I AM an anarchist. I have known intimately most of those who have carried on the propaganda by word of mouth and by writing, and also by deed: and if I disallow the epithet of “anarchist,” as applied to certain acts of equivocal individuals, I am not the less convinced that social problems need, at certain moments, to be solved by force, when other means are ineffective. I love and admire Vaillant, for instance, just as some English republicans love and admire Cromwell, who also was a regicide. But I do not believe that rascality has anything […]
Saint Ravachol

Pierre Quillard, “Conversation on the Life and Death of Ravachol” (1892)

July 10, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] CONVERSATION ON THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RAVACHOL I see only condemnation to death which distinguishes a man, thought Mathilde: it is the only thing which cannot be bought. (de Stendhal — The Red and the Black.) These voices were heard near the sea, on a peaceful summer evening: half-naked, on the blond beaches, some men were lying lazily beside beautiful young women, and, although they lived today, the dying rays of the sun, the soft caress of the waves, the harmony of the twilight gave to their words and gestures […]
Saint Ravachol

Paul Adam, “Eulogy for Ravachol” (July 1892)

July 10, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] EULOGY FOR RAVACHOL Paul Adam In these times, miracles and saints seem set to disappear. We can easily believe that the souls of contemporaries lack the spirit of sacrifice. The martyrs of this century have always been obscure citizens, maddened by the din of political words, and then gunned down without mercy, in 1830, 1848, and 1871, for the benefit of certain parliamentary situations arranged by a few violent and shifty advocates. And it would even be imprudent to claim that no wish of individual interest committed these unfortunate combatants […]