
Ernest Coeurderoy


Ernest Cœurderoy, Letter on the amnesty of August 1859
I declare that I have never accepted the amnesty that affects me. The motives for my resolution of the sort that every man with a heart will understand, and that it would be too long to outline in a journal. I reserve, moreover, the option of making them known when the time seems more opportune to me, and in the form that I judge best. […]


Ernest Coeurderoy, “Demolish Authority!” (1850)
From Days of Exile, Vol. 1: To make the Revolution pass, like a red-hot iron, across this century, one thing alone must be done: Demolish authority. This proposition has no need of demonstration. […]

Pruning the Rhizome (review of “Disruptive Elements”)
Disruptive Elements: The Extremes of French Anarchism Ardent Press, 2014 available from Little Black Cart —— a review —— “Tant pis pour ceux qui souffrent et n’osent pas prêcher l’extermination et l’incendie!” Most history […]

Four Visions, from Ernest Coeurderoy’s “Hurrah!!!”
Cursed be the hour that I was born! Cursed be the morning star which watched over my mother as she was in labor! Cursed be the first bird that greeted that deplorable day! Cursed be the shepherd and cursed the vineyard keeper who dried the tears of the dew on the hillsides of Bourgogne! Cursed be the midwife who did not smother me in the passage! Cursed be the dog who licked my stains! Cursed, the attentive friends who came to compliment my father because a son had been born to him!! […]

Max Nettlau, Biographical Notice of Ernest Coeurderoy
In June 1852, two events, quickly covered with the veil of silence, would deeply effect the exile community in London. Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc, Pierre Leroux, Cabet, Félix Pyat and their friends, some Blanquists, Proudhonians and independent socialists, some refugees from May 15 and June of 1848, as well as June 13, 1849, and the great majority of the outcasts from the coup d’état, rubbed elbows then in a common exile. […]


To the Socialist Democrats of the Department of the Seine, 1850
TO THE SOCIALIST DEMOCRATS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE SEINE. Some men and women whose devotion to the Republic has cast them into exile, some comrades in belief and in misfortune, lack everything, and […]

Coeurderoy and Vauthier, “The Barrier of the Combat” (1852)
I’ve posted a working translation of The Barrier of the Combat, by Ernest Coeurderoy and Octave Vauthier. For some explanation of the title, see my earlier post on La Barrière du Combat. The essay, which […]