Abbé Lemire had been wounded by the bomb. Yet when he wrote to the advocate of the man who had hurled it, he asked that this soul be granted time to repent. His letter arrived before a tribunal that had to decide whether an explosion that had slain no one warranted the death of its author. One could condemn the outrage without longing for the scaffold: the wounded deputy had come to recall that distinction to his peers and to the jury.
The accused was named Auguste Vaillant. He too bore wounds inflicted by his device. At the Court of Assizes, he was to admit his deed, contest his intent, and maintain that his own misery stood as an indictment of society. The letter of pardon, the declaration of revolt, and the prosecutor’s address did not share the same purpose. During that single day of January 1894, they converged upon a head that all present knew to be in peril.
A Card in the Name of Dumont
On December 9, 1893, Vaillant entered the Palais-Bourbon. He had prepared his arrival under the alias of Dumont. According to evidence tendered at the trial, he had procured calling cards under that name and had previously sought to obtain a seat in the galleries by appealing to Deputy Argeliès. That first attempt had come to naught. He had returned several days later.
The man who took his place among the visitors brought a bomb with him. He flung it toward the hemicycle; it burst before reaching its intended mark. The shrapnel injured persons in the chamber and in the galleries. Vaillant himself was struck. No fatalities were to be mourned, yet this absence of death rendered neither the act harmless nor the wounds illusory. It was to become the central point of contention between the prisoner and those who sought to establish his homicidal intent.
Contemporary accounts dwelt much upon the uninterrupted continuance of the session and the sang-froid of the parliamentarians. The inquest, for its part, had first to single out the perpetrator from among the spectators. Vaillant was conveyed to the Hôtel-Dieu on account of his injuries. Gendarmes stood guard over the ward where he lay. His bearing drew their attention; those relieving them were instructed to watch him closely.
An officer, formerly an artilleryman, drew him into conversation regarding the explosion. According to the court report published in the Journal du Lot, Vaillant’s explanations soon left no doubt as to his participation. He acknowledged his authorship and declared himself an anarchist. He subsequently wrote to the examining magistrate to announce his readiness to answer. The man who had wished to make a bomb speak now wished to be heard in his own voice.
Admitting the Deed, Contesting the Murder
Fernand Labori undertook his defence. At the Palais de Justice, precautions were formidable: guarded gates, scrutiny of all entrants, agents in uniform and in plain clothes. The dread of a fresh outrage attended the man being tried. The public packed the courtroom; the sheer array of security gave each spectator the impression of standing personally within the affair.
Vaillant recounted his past and his thwarted hopes. He had imagined he might find a better life in America. Having returned to France and settled in Choisy-le-Roi with his daughter Sidonie and his companion, he stated he could not manage to feed his household on his wages. This narrative formed his political justification for the act. To record it does not compel one to grant that it sanctioned the wounding of strangers; to expunge it would efface that which the accused demanded be judged alongside himself.
The presiding judge brought him back to the preparations. Had the man acted alone? Where had he obtained the money? Why that gallery, that trajectory, that precise moment? Vaillant maintained he had no accomplice. His replies concerning the funds distinguished a sum received for revolutionary action from mere relief intended for the household. Behind the bomb, the prosecution sought a broader conspiracy; he strove to seal the responsibility entirely upon his own person.
Then came the cardinal question. He claimed he had sought only to wound, not to kill. The magistrate confronted him with the lethal peril of the device and the spot where he had intended it to detonate. Did the absence of death stem from a limited design, or from an execution that had failed of its purpose? The distance between these two propositions measured the gulf separating his defence from the verdict sought by the prosecution.
Yet Vaillant adopted none of the tones of a penitent. He laid claim to the outrage, accused those who governed, and refused to let his explanations be taken for a mere ploy to save his head. This posture rendered Labori’s task exceedingly arduous. Counsel had to make the court perceive his client’s common humanity, while the prisoner was bent upon embodying an entire revolt.
A Voice Among the Wounded
Lemire’s letter introduced a different voice into the hall. The deputy affirmed his devotion to the national representation, yet distinguished that fidelity from vengeance. He wished to convey his personal forgiveness to Vaillant and to implore justice not to show itself inexorable. The plea came from a man whom the missiles had struck; it could not be dismissed as the facile indulgence of a mere bystander.
When the hearing resumed, Vaillant read a prepared statement. He likened the wounds inflicted by his bomb to the sufferings wrought, so he claimed, by wars, poverty, and exploitation. He cast his deed as a means of lending new force to a cry that no one would hear. The court had before it a specific crime; the accused sought to arraign the social order. Neither trial could easily be contained within the other.
Around half past five, the jurors withdrew. Their deliberation lasted approximately half an hour. They answered the questions in the affirmative and granted no extenuating circumstances. Vaillant was condemned to death. The reading of the penal code articles lent its solemn form to this resolve, before the guards led him away.
The report subsequently records a scene far less resounding than his public declarations. In the Conciergerie, while he took his meal, Labori’s secretary came to urge him to sign an appeal in cassation. He refused at first, despite the young advocate’s insistence. To his eyes, the formality would merely postpone the ordeal. In Choisy-le-Roi, his companion was learning of the sentence; Sidonie still slept. For the child, the blow had waited upon her waking.
Petitions for clemency followed, even from the ranks of the deputies. The campaign did not alter the ultimate decree. On February 5, 1894, Vaillant was guillotined in Paris. The outrage that had slain no one had at last claimed its dead.
Lemire’s letter endured. It had not availed to save the condemned man; it served at least to prevent all the wounded from being confounded in a single demand for blood. In an affair wherein so many claimed to speak in the name of a class, an institution, or society at large, one victim had asked that he be left the right to forgive.