While Johann Most was sowing the seeds of terrorism in America, his comrades were actively at work in Europe. And, if the tactics of Most led eventually to petty thievery, somewhat the same degeneration was overtaking the Propaganda of the Deed in Europe. Up to 1886 robbery had not yet been adopted as a weapon of the Latin revolutionists. In America, in Austria, and in Russia, the doctrine had been preached and, to a certain extent, practiced, but l'affaire Duval was responsible for its introduction into France. Unlike most of the preceding demonstrations, the act of Duval was essentially an individual one. On October 5, 1886, a large house situated at 31 rue de Monceau, Paris, and occupied by Mme. Herbelin and her daughter, Mme. Madeleine Lemaire, the well-known artist, was robbed and half burned. Some days later, Clément Duval and two accomplices, Didier and Houchard, were arrested as the perpetrators of this act. At first the matter was treated by the newspapers as an ordinary robbery. The Cri du Peuple called it a simple burglary, followed by an incendiary attempt. But after some days, Duval announced himself an anarchist and declared that his act was in harmony with his faith.
On January 11 and 12, 1887, the case came before the court. The discussions were very heated. After M. Fernand Labori, then a very young advocate, who had been appointed to defend Duval, had made his plea, Duval became anxious to defend himself. He threatened, in leaving the prison, to blow up with dynamite the jury and the court, and heaped upon them most abusive language. The president ordered that he should be removed from the court. An enormous tumult then ensued in that part of the hall where the anarchists were massed. "Help! Help! Comrades! Long live Anarchy!" cried Duval. "Long live Anarchy!" answered his comrades. Thirty guards led Duval away, and the verdict was read in the presence of an armed force with fixed bayonets. He was condemned to death and his two accomplices acquitted.
Eight days afterward, on January 23, an indignation meeting against the condemnation of Duval was organized by the anarchists, at which nearly 1,000 were present. Tennevin, Leboucher, and Louise Michel spoke in turn, glorifying Duval. The opposition was taken by a Blanquist, a Normandy citizen, who censured the act of Duval, because such acts, he said, throw discredit on the revolutionists and so retard the hour of the Social Revolution.
Duval's case was appealed to the highest court in France, but the appeal was rejected. The President of the Republic, however, commuted his sentence of capital punishment to enforced labor. Then followed a long period of discussions and violent controversies between the anarchists and the socialists over the whole affair. The anarchists claimed the right of theft on the grounds that it was the beginning of capitalist expropriation and that stolen wealth could aid in propaganda and action. The socialists, on the other hand, protested against this theory with extreme vigor.
After Duval, there is little noteworthy in the terrorist movement for a period of four years, but with May 1, 1891, there began what is known as La Période Tragique. Five notable figures, Decamps, Ravachol, Vaillant, Henry, and Caserio, within a period of three years, performed a series of terrorist acts that cannot be forgotten. Their utter desperation and abandon, the terrible solemnity of their lives, and the almost superhuman efforts they made to bring society to its knees mark the most tragic and heroic period in the history of anarchism. At Levallois-Perret a demonstration was organized by the anarchists for May 1. They brought out their red and black flags, and, when the police attempted to interfere and to take away their banners, they opened fire upon them. Several fell injured, while others returned the fire. The fight continued for some time, until finally reinforcements arrived and the anarchists were subdued. Six of the police and three of the anarchists were severely injured, one of the latter being Decamps, who had received severe blows from a sword. The trial took place in August, and, when Decamps attempted to defend himself, the judge refused to hear him. Finally he and his friends were condemned to prison.
The next year, 1892, the avenger of Decamps appeared. It was the famous Ravachol, who for a time kept all Paris in a state of terror. In the night of February 14 there was a theft of dynamite from the establishment of Soisy-sous-Etioles. On March 11 an explosion shook the house on Boulevard Saint-Germain, in which lived M. Benoît, the judge who had presided in August, 1891, at the trial of Decamps at Levallois. On March 15 a bomb was discovered on the window of the Lobau barracks. On March 27 a bomb was exploded on the first floor of a house on rue de Clichy, occupied by M. Bulot, who had held the office of Public Minister at the trial in Levallois. It was only by chance, on the accusation of a boy by the name of Lhérot, who was employed in a restaurant, that the police eventually captured Ravachol. He admitted having exploded the bombs in rue de Clichy and Boulevard Saint-Germain, "in order to avenge," he said, "the abominable violences committed against our friends, Decamps, Léveillé, and Dardare." [(1)] On April 26 a bomb was exploded in the restaurant where Lhérot, the informer, worked, killing the proprietor and severely wounding one of the patrons.
The public was thrown into a state of dreadful alarm. The next day, when Ravachol was brought to trial, some awful foreboding seemed to possess those who were present. All Paris was guarded. In spite of the efforts of the Public Minister, the jury spared Ravachol on the ground of extenuating circumstances. It is difficult to say whether it was fear or pity that determined the decision of the jurors. In any case, Ravachol was acquitted, only to be condemned to death a few months later for strangling the hermit of Chambles, and he was then executed.
"What shall one think of Ravachol?" says Prolo in Les Anarchistes. "He assassinated a mendicant, he broke into tombs in order to steal jewels, he manufactured counterfeit money, or, more exactly, substituting himself for the State, he cast five-franc pieces in silver, with the authentic standard, and put them in circulation. Lastly, he dynamited some property. He is of mystical origin. Profoundly religious in his early youth, he embraces with the same ardor, the same passion, and the same spirit of sacrifice the new political theory of equality. He throws himself deliberately outside the limits of the society which he abhors—kills, robs, and avenges his brothers. And let anyone question him, he replies: 'A begging hermit, he is a parasite and should be suppressed. One ought not to bury jewels when children are hungry, when mothers weep, and when men suffer from misery. The State makes money. Is it of good alloy? I make it as the State makes it and of the same alloy! As to dynamite, it is the arm of the weak who avenge themselves or avenge others for the humiliating oppression of the strong and their unconscious accomplices.'" [(2)]
Although the anarchists accepted Duval and defended his acts, Ravachol was variously appreciated by them. Jean Grave, the French anarchist, and Merlino, the Italian anarchist, both condemned Ravachol. "He is not one of us," declared the latter, "and we repudiate him. His explosions lose their revolutionary character because of his personality, which is unworthy to serve the cause of humanity." [(3)] Élisée Reclus, on the contrary, wrote of Ravachol in the Sempre Avanti as follows: "I admire his courage, his goodness of heart, his grandeur of soul, the generosity with which he has pardoned his enemies. I know few men who surpass him in generosity. I pass over the question of knowing up to what point it is always desirable to push one's own right to the extreme and whether other considerations, actuated by a sentiment of human solidarity, ought not to make it yield. But I am none the less of those who recognize in Ravachol a hero of a rare grandeur of soul." [(4)]