Ravachol: Vengeance and Retribution
by From Rebels and Outlaws: More Prisoners of Eternity.
Ravachol, was an Anarchist who gave his life in the struggle against law without justice, and the fight for wealth without poverty.
Despite his repeated denials of murder and the lack of evidence against him, he was sentenced to death and guillotined on 11 July, 1892. Just prior to his sentencing Ravachol attempted to read a pre-prepared speech to the Court. Predictably enough he was prevented from doing so. The text, however, has survived. It has become known as Ravachol’s Forbidden Speech. Here are a few extracts:
“If I speak, it is not to defend myself against the acts of which I am accused, for it is society alone that is responsible, since by its organisation it sets men in a continual struggle one against the other”.
“. . . what can he who lacks the necessities when he is working do when he loses his job? He has only to let himself die of hunger. Then they’ll throw a few pious words on his corpse”.
“. . . I could have begged but it is degrading and cowardly and even punished by your laws which make poverty a crime”.
“. . . we will quickly understand that the Anarchists are right when they say that to have moral and physical peace, the causes that give birth to crime and criminals must be destroyed”.
“So that is why I committed the acts of which I am accused, and which are nothing but a logical consequence of the barbaric state of a society which but increase the rigours of the laws that go after the effects without ever touching upon the causes”.
“In the same way you members of the jury will doubtless sentence me to death, because you think it is necessary and that my death will be a source of satisfaction for you who hate to see human blood flow, but when you think it is useful to see that blood flow in order to ensure the security of your existence, you hesitate no more than I do.”
A series of tit-for-tat killings and bombings followed Ravachol’s execution as he soon became an anarchist martyr and cult hero. In the years that immediately followed his death The President of France, Sadi Carnot; the Prime Minister of Spain, Antonio Canovas; the Empress Elisabeth of Austria; King Umberto of Italy; and the President of the United States, William H McKinley, were all to fall victim to anarchist assassination, as propaganda by deed reached its pinnacle. They were to be just the first of many in the on-going fight against law without justice..
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