La Bande à Bonnot, les célèbres hors-la-loi

La bande à Bonnot était un groupe français qui opéra en France et en Belgique à la fin de la Belle Époque, de 1911 à 1912.
Initialement appelé par la presse simplement « Les Auto Bandits », elle est ensuite appelée la « Bande à Bonnot » après que Jules Bonnot eut accordé un entretien au Petit Parisien. La notoriété perçue de Jules Bonnot au sein du groupe a ensuite été renforcée par sa mort très médiatisée lors d’un échange avec la police française à Choisy-le-Roi.

Prefecture Museum of Paris police. In these windows, the collection of the most incredible objects, Of the history of crime in France. The peephole in which Doctor Petiot watched his victims die, the cord that was used to strangle the bailiff Gouffé, the Landru boiler. Knives, revolvers, batons, all these weapons were used,

To commit crimes the most abominable. From the 19th century, the police call on science, to resolve their investigations. Anthropometry, the study of the human iris, graphology and morphopsychology are used. In the museum archives, investigation reports, interrogation scripts, crime scene sketches, will take us on the bloody trail,

Of the biggest murderers Of the history. July 1911, a strong tension stirs European states. Morocco is one of the last major issues, from the beginning of the 20th century. It is one of the last countries uncolonized areas of Africa. This is the subject of a serious crisis between France and Germany,

Who will send a gunboat, in front of the Agadir fortress. Both nations are on the brink of armed conflict. The United Kingdom falls into line on the French side. An agreement is reached. Germany renounces its claims, avoiding war. On August 22, 1911, The Mona Lisa is stolen from the Louvre.

We suspect Guillaume Apollinaire, poet who once cried: “We must burn the Louvre!” He will be incarcerated for a few days, then suspicions will arise on Pablo Picasso, but without follow-up. The prefect Louis Lépine, instructs the head of Security, to resolve this matter. 60 inspectors will search in vain,

The famous painting which will never be found only two years later, In December 1911, that’s another matter who will hit the headlines and occupy the services of the judicial police. The first car hold-up. Very quickly, we will direct the research in the anarchist movement, which is becoming more and more important,

In a degraded social climate. Rejecting bourgeois norms, anarchists want to invent a new way of living. But some claim reappropriation, goods stolen by capital by all means. This is the movement of illegalism. The tragic bandits, as the press calls them, will for six months do the headlines of the newspapers,

Until the dramatic end, of the one we considered as their leader, Jules Bonnot. The Bonnot gang remained in the collective memory, like the bloody epic bandits in cars. In fact, she is the extremist reflection, of a real rejection of society. Boris Vian is going to write a song, Bonnot’s lament.

Later, Joe Dassin will sing the Bonnot gang. And in 1968, the actor Bruno Cremer, will embody an idealized Jules Bonnot, alongside Jacques Brel and Annie Girardot in the film, The Bonnot Band, directed by Philippe Fourastié. But what about the real story? On December 21, 1911, Ernest Caby, pay boy of Société Générale,

Goes to the bank branch, Ordener Street, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. He carries two bags with him, containing the mail and registered titles. In his right hand, he is holding a canvas bag, containing 5,266 francs in silver coins and hidden in the pocket inside of his jacket, 20,000 francs in banknotes

And 5,000 gold francs. He has no weapons, but he is escorted by an agent of Société Générale. Suddenly, a passerby jostles him, takes a gun out of his pocket and fired two shots at him. The bank agent who accompanied him flees screaming. The mysterious attacker and an accomplice,

Tear off the bags and the bag of change, then, they quietly join a superb limousine. The car starts and leaves the place, leaving poor Ernest Caby, lying on the ground. This first robbery will highlight, a total imbalance between the means used and those of the police of the time.

At the time, the police had no automobile. The automobile was emerging and the police had no cars, nor weapons. The police had no guns. The peacekeepers, who were called town sergeants, were armed with a saber, a saber bayonet like this. Which comes from Chassepots rifles, from the war of 70,

A little bit before even. And so here is the armament, of the town sergeant of the time. The next day, the robbery takes place the front page of all the newspapers. But this is not the amount of the theft which is in bold on the pages. No, the loot is relatively small.

The criminals did not discover, hidden money in the conveyor jacket. What the newspapers insist on, it’s about this mysterious strip in automobile. Never a robbery, had not been accompanied of a car escape. At 36, quai des Orfèvres, people are bustling. Divisional Commissioner Amar, instructs his deputy, Louis-François Jouin,

To clarify as quickly as possible this affair of a new kind. Use of an automobile for a robbery, is not trivial, it’s even unheard of. Auto thefts are very rare at this time. But recently, a certain Raimbaud, classified as an anarchist, had been involved in car thefts. He lived in Pavillons-sous-Bois

And had disappeared from his home, the day before the attack, before reappearing two days later. He organized meetings with other anarchists, of the Illegalist movement, advocating theft to reallocate oneself, confiscated property by capital, he said. And among those who attended regularly at these meetings, included Octave Garnier, suspected of several burglaries

And well capable of having participated, at the Ordener Street helping hand. The police at the time did not maybe no vehicle, but she has processes already well tested. It is terribly effective. And you have a service at the Quai des Orfèvres, at the famous 36, you have a third brigade,

Who does not devote himself that on the hunt for anarchists, which pose a threat to France for a very long time now. These are the children of Ravachol, If you want. Ravachol, real name Kœnigstein, is an anarchist, famous for his violent action against society. A follower of propaganda in fact,

He imagined for the first times terrorism as a revolutionary act. Using widely homemade bombs, to decimate the magistrates who presided over the trial, against anarchists from Clichy in 1892. Arrested, he will defend proudly his convictions, before the assize court and sentenced to death, it’s singing that he will mount the scaffold,

Making him a legend of the anarchist movement. Anarchism must not be heard like today, we feel small anars groups. Anarchism is a kind of social movement. Lots of young people belong to this movement, but they are not inserted. They are most often workers, or guys who stopped working,

Because they believe that society is painful that a bad fate is given to them, they want revenge. These are partly what we called the angry people of the good old days. They just look like thugs. The anarchist trail looks convincing and the police carry out several summary arrests. The Belgian authorities,

Where the young anarchists have gotten into the habit of hiding, to escape the service compulsory military, provide a list of French refugees in Belgium. Among them, Édouard Carouy, Jean de Boë, Raymond Callemin and Victor Kibaltchitch, who cross regularly the border and who, when they are in France,

Are hiding in the premises from the newspaper L’anarchie. Anarchism, like communism, Marxist communism inspired by Marxism, sets itself the goal of advent, of a classless and stateless society. Anarchism at that time is divided into 3 streams. An insurrectionist current Who thinks, that the solution goes through revolution, insurrection. A revolutionary syndicalist current,

Who we will call later anarcho syndicalist, who thinks that everything requires a strike general and an individualist current, then the individualist current, what is interesting is that it thinks that social transformation, must first go through the transformation of individuals, individual transformation. We will not do, they say, a better society,

With human elements as they are, as they were produced, by this bad society. And you already have to reform yourself and organize life for yourself. And they all say it “The enemy is already within you.” They have a whole set of ethics, in relation to love, to food, at work…

They reduce their needs, but that’s not enough. Hence the resort to illegality. You have a somewhat soft illegalism, Fake cash. And then there are small thefts, shoplifting… Small burglaries too, there are more and more of them elsewhere during the year 1911. And then at one point, a group will pass in high gear

And commit armed robbery. A hold-up at Société Générale. On December 28, 1911, Commissioner Jouin, learns that an automobile similar to the one used, for the Ordener Street robbery, was stored in a garage in Bobigny. He decides to hide out front. But for the mousetrap to work,

It shall really not let the press know. The press, it must be remembered, the Morning, the Petit Quotidien, are newspapers which shoot at practically, 800,000, 1 million copies. When they hold a soap opera whose they think it will excite the reader, the guys don’t give up.

And at the police headquarters, we receive the journalists, we give them information at the same time as the journalists, conduct investigations with the same capabilities, or even more, because they have more money. The Excelsior, the first illustrated newspaper, with photo reports. The guys are on site that an event will happen,

Sometimes before the police and the founder of Excelsior, it is the publisher Laffitte, who is the publisher of Arsène Lupin. So the public is passionate about it. The press knows that blood crime sells and major investigations police officers sell. The press works, alongside the police.

And so there are all kinds information also coming out. The day after, on the front page of Le Petit Parisien, we could read than Delaunay-Belleville, having been used in the hold-up from Ordener Street, had been seen in a garage in Bobigny, belonging to a certain Dettwiller, an anarchist,

Mr. Amar, the head of the Security, is dismayed, but he immediately sends his men, search the warehouse and question Dettwiller. The latter confirmed that the car had been stored at his home, but he didn’t know the people who had brought him. The excavation allowed to discover an annuity title,

Stolen a few months ago and Dettwiller was embarked with women and children, at the Quai des Orfèvres. The same day, around 6 p.m., a young woman pushes the gate of the Bobigny pavilion. Luckily for the police who did not relax his surveillance, she didn’t read the press. Arrested, she was quickly identified,

As being Jeanne Giogis, Carouy’s mistress, one of the designated anarchists, on the list given by Belgium. The police were doing it the main suspect, in the Ordener Street case. The anarchist trail was confirmed. Especially since the head of security, receives at the same time a letter from Lyon,

Transmitting to him the anthropometric sheet, of a man named Jules Bonnot, perpetrator of car theft and the murder of the anarchist Giuseppe Platano. His profile matched perfectly, to that of the attackers from the recipe boy. So the investigation will be directed, to characters which we know perfectly.

And if there is one that we do not wait, it’s the famous Bonnot, since Bonnot does not belong, to this Parisian anarchist movement, linked to the newspaper L’anarchie. Bonnot is much older since he is 35 years old, although they are young people aged 22-24. Then Bonnot is a Lyonnais

And he is well known of the Lyon Police Department, but not from the Parisian Police. Let us also remember that there is no a national police force in France, but there are fonts. Each municipality must ensure its own police and that there are prefectures in Paris, Marseille and Lyon.

And Bonnot is well known Lyon police services. And as luck would have it, a few days before the event of December 21, the famous motorized heist, Bonnot has disappeared from Lyon. On November 30, 1911, the investigating judge of Melun had issued an arrest warrant, against Jules Bonnot,

Charged with murder of anarchist Italian Platano. Bonnot and Platano traveled together, towards Paris in a stolen car. Near Lieusaint, Bonnot shoots Platano. For what ? It remains a mystery. He then abandons the car and quietly takes the train to the capital, where we lose track. For the police, his knowledge mechanics

And driving cars, made him a suspect not to neglect, like Carouy and Garnier, that we were always looking for, but all had disappeared. It’s an anarchist environment which is already very structured, which already exists before the arrival of Bonnot. So obviously he introduced modern methods, the automobile than the others did not use…

Weapons, modern weapons, weaponry is the same, they had to get weapons, they already had them, which came from several burglaries. By making the safes, they found some, a revolver here… The Paris Council has unblocked funds to buy weapons. They had ordered weapons, Brownings in particular. And these weapons were for the police.

The importer was waiting the payment to deliver them and it didn’t happen passed like this. Bonnot and his gang having learned that because the press, talk about it as usual, having learned this, they went to rob the importer, they stole weapons for the police, therefore, they were equipped ultra-modern weapons.

And the police had to wait six months before he got his guns. The police did not stay obviously not inactive. But where to look? Ernest Caby, the payboy from Ordener Street, recovers miraculously of his injuries. At Bichat hospital, where he is being treated,

The investigating judge shows him the photographs of the main suspects. Without hesitation, he designates Octave Garnier, like his attacker. On January 24, 1912, The morning title: My assassin. That’s good, said Caby in front Garnier’s photography. The arrest of the rascal who was guilty, of the bloody attack on Rue Ordener,

Is no longer now only a matter of hours. More than a month after the attack from Ordener Street, the police still can’t find the main culprits. She has no shortage of clues, but the anarchist movement seems so confused and their solidarity is such, that the caches are numerous.

In the name of returning money stolen by capital, individual abuses led by the Illegalists, multiply. The brutal evolution with violent actions, going as far as crime, could come from the arrival in this Parisian environment, of the man who came from Lyon, Jules Bonnot. Bonnot, he was born on October 14, 1876,

In Pont-de-Roide, in Doubs. His father is a founder. He’s a young boy, who doesn’t like school. His father is illiterate, so he doesn’t really have a culture, of intellectual ties and so it becomes very quickly apprentice mechanic. But he doesn’t like it very much. The work is hard, he has some problems,

With his different bosses and that’s where it starts to commit some petty theft. He’s not very comfortable in his own skin. since he has just lost his mother. Bonnot’s first theft, is a fishing problem, he is questioned by a local guard for a fishing trip, with a prohibited device, probably traps.

Then, therefore, he continues anyway a little bit of his mechanical workshop. And then it’s time military service. Where he has good contacts, with his adjutants, with the officers. Jules Bonnot married in 1901, after his military service with Sophie Burdet. And the couple leaves to settle down in Geneva, Switzerland.

Jules will campaign intensively for the anarchist movement, who advocates order without power. Following this commitment political and union, he will be fired from his job. No one wants to hire him anymore. With its already heavy reputation, we then add that anarchist agitator. The consequences are there,

He is expelled from Switzerland with his wife. We are now in 1903. In February 1904, Sophie gives birth to a boy, Louis Justin. They settled in Lyon. Bonnot continues to lead strikes and to denounce injustices, attracting the wrath of employers. He moves again and goes in Saint-Etienne where there,

His wife falls in love of another man. His name is Besson and is union secretary, of Bonnot’s party. Sophie returns to Switzerland with her son and her lover, definitively abandoning her husband. In 1906, Jules, whose brother committed suicide, a few years earlier for a heartbreak, is now completely alone. Unemployed,

He lives for a while in poverty, before you start a career as a burglar. He has the engine, cars in blood, but it also has an innovation side. Progress for him, that’s what interests him the most. He is the first to open the safes with an oxyhydric torch.

It was the first in France to do so. In the company of an anarchist Italian, Platano, with whom he becomes friends. He commits several heists. He’s an opening ace safes. With the money from his thefts, he buys a workshop mechanics in Lyon. He will also use vehicles that he must repair,

For his robberies. Mechanic by day, burglar at night. Jules Bonnot seems having found his way. Remarkable driver, Bonnot has no difficulty, to lose the police officers who are still there, by bicycle or on horseback. He gets talked about too much. So he decides to flee to Paris with Platano.

On the way, Platano dies. By accident or not, the two theories oppose each other. In the capital, Bonnot quickly finds its marks. He goes to headquarters from the newspaper L’anarchie, directed by Victor Serge. This is where he will meet for the first time, those who will become his accomplices,

Octave Garnier and Raymond la Science. It is the end of November 1911, less than a month before the terrible robbery, which will make them famous. So everything happened very quickly. The arrival of Jules Bonnot woke up at home, a desire to take the next step, to take action.

The three men were, without really knowing it, animated by the same ideal, a rebel soul cemented by the working conditions of the time, the will to rebel against social inequalities, the same membership to an illegalist movement, going beyond anarchism. During the night of January 2 to 3, 1912 in Thiers,

Burglary will end tragically. Hippolyte Moreau, aged 91, and his servant, Mrs. Arfeux, 72 years old, are found dead after being tied up and brutally tortured. In the house where reigns an indescribable mess, Mr. Bertillon himself, the father of criminal identification, will take the prints. One more time, the Bertillon service,

Prove your skills and designates Edouard Carouy, an anarchist already on file with the police. It’s time for Commissioner Jouin, to take stock on the different tracks and the elements that provide it the many snitches, who infiltrated the anarchist milieu. All individualists, who had, at one time or another,

Participated in the newspaper L’anarchie, the anarchist was their organ, anarchy with a small a since they were for spelling reform, they had thought about that too. And all the people who have been in this movement, in the Libertad movement, a tall and beautiful face, of individualist anarchism, will be searched, questioned…

And that’s how, from one thing to another, we will also identify the main actors and stop them. On February 16, 1912, Commissioner Jouin concludes his report, to Judge Gilbert, specifying that the members of the band, who carried out the attack of Ordener Street are: Garnier, Dieudonné, Bonnot, by Boë

And Raymond Callemin, says Raymond Science. The gang is hunted, photos of the main suspects, appear in the logs. On February 27, Bonnot and Garnier had the idea, to go to Alès, in the Gard, to commit a huge heist. So they’re going to steal a car, in Saint-Mande and returning from Saint-Mandé,

At the height of Montauroux, Bonnot who drives very well but still a little quickly, hits a curb, wheel problem, they are obliged to change urgently and they say to themselves: “We’re not going down with a car, a little damaged in the Gard. They decide to return to Paris. They return to Paris.

Bonnot still drives so fast, gets whistled by an agent. He flees and there, it hits lightly, the back of a bus. So he stops. The agent who whistled at him, climbs onto the footboard of the vehicle. Bonnot, very calmly, comes down, takes his crank, restart your car,

Goes back into the passenger compartment and starts to start, always with the police officer, on the step. At this moment, two shots ring out. Octave Garnier, in the car, just shot down his namesake, the civil servant Garnier, who collapses on the tarmac. So this is one of the first recorded murders,

Against a civil servant police in France. It’s Bonnot’s gang which is designated as such. There, obviously, all the police is on the teeth, we are trying to find them. But it’s a small advantage little from this anarchist environment, is that they all have hideouts and indeed, they are not found.

Eugène Dieudonné, anarchist and sympathizer of the Bonnot gang, is the first to fall. He is arrested by the police. In response to this arrest, Octave Garnier sends a letter to the head of Security. Since through you, the press put my modest featured person,

To the great joy of all the concierges of the capital, you announce my capture as imminent. But believe me, all this noise don’t stop me from tasting in peace, the joys of existence. He admits guilty of all crimes and exonerates Dieudonné. I declare to you that Dieudonné is innocent of the crime,

Which you know well that I committed. He finally specifies that he and his gang, will go to the end without an ounce of hesitation. I know this will end in the struggle that has begun, between the formidable arsenal of which disposes society and me, I know I will be defeated.

I am the weakest, but I hope to do well pay dearly for your victory. He signs his letter by affixing his fingerprints, with a new snub to Bertillon. Bertillon ball, put on your glasses, Gaffe! The provocation is at its height. Such an act pushes many thugs like Elie Monier,

Edouard Carouy or André Soudy, to definitely join the gang. And to show their determination, Octave Garnier and his associates, accompany the gesture with the word, in a new robbery even more spectacular. Few weeks later, March 25, 1912, the Bonnot gang steals a car on the road to Montgeron.

Three men are arrested with their vehicle, on the side of the road, when a dion-button arrives. There, the two people, the driver and his passenger think they are workers who work, stop since the road is blocked. And in fact, these are Bonnot, Garnier and Callemin, who want to steal from them their vehicle.

They tell them to get out of the car. Unfortunately, the driver makes a gesture, he puts his hand in his pocket. So immediately, he is shot. The other flees. He is also shot at. He is injured in the arm. He plays dead, therefore, He’s going to get through it. And so they flew,

By handguns one of the dion-buttons. They then go to Chantilly and there also, there are five of them, in front of the Société Générale headquarters. Garnier, Raymond the Science and a certain Valet, enter, revolver in hand. They shoot without warning and shot dead two employees. Soudy keeps watch.

Jules Bonnot is waiting in the car. The gang piles up the rolls of gold and banknotes, a loot estimated at 50,000 francs before fleeing, in the de Dion-button. The money from the heist will help the cause. It will be redistributed to anarchists in need. The police cannot accept to be ridiculed like this.

She gets busy and sifts everything, restaurants, hotels… Everywhere you can see the faces by Jules Bonnot, Octave Garnier and their accomplices on search notices. The pipes are coming more and more numerous and the arrests too. On March 30, 1912, Soudy was arrested. In his pockets, we find a gun and a cyanide capsule.

Upon his arrest, he said: “Luckily you were quick, otherwise the charger was for you and the poison was mine.” A few days later, on April 4, it’s Carouy’s turn to be arrested. An infiltrator pretends to be for a pseudo friend and asks him to accompany him at the station.

There, four disguised police officers will jump on him, knock him out and tie him up. What a catch and what gossip tomorrow in the ducks! He shouts to the police. Here again, revolvers and cyanide capsules, but no confession. Commissioner Jouin is in luck. Two arrests in less than a week

And his luck doesn’t end there. On April 7, Raymond Callemin, the famous Raymond science is stopped in turn. On him weapons and an important amount of money, which he cannot explain the source. Upset, Raymond science, will threaten the commissioner. “I am arrested, but others will continue.

You will never see the end of it!” The provocation seems to be the credo of the Bonnot gang. However, at the end, Commissioner Jouin, believes in it more and more. And despite the thoughts from each other, the thugs of the Bonnot gang drop like flies. On April 14, 1912,

The soap opera of the Bonnot gang, stops for a few days, to make room for an event, which will amaze the whole world, the sinking of the unsinkable Titanic. On April 24, the hunt for anarchists resumes. Elie Monier is arrested. Jouin can’t believe it.

He might just succeed in stopping the whole Bonnot gang, in less than a month. But the trap closes because he there is a lot of indiscretion… There are in the anarchist environment, at the time the flies, infiltrated people, who provide information in the anarchist environment, or who are stuck anarchists themselves,

Or undercover police officers. We don’t do real policing without indicators. We have to say it to ourselves. It can be said that the process is dirty, maybe good, but the police did not crystal ball and without indicator, there is no good police. So, they are informed, they know,

That they frequent the anarchist environment and mainly in Ivry, there is a sympathizer who has a warehouse, of clothes at the Hall and this man is a merchant in Ivry, would always host someone, who is wanted by the police and who could correspond according to the report to Bonnot.

So that’s information who arrives at safety and who visibly comes, from an anarchist sympathizer. Jouin decides to check this information. He goes to Ivry, asks the merchant and decides to search the apartment, which is above commerce. With Inspector Colmar, he goes up to the first floor and there, the unthinkable happens.

He pushes the door and he finds himself facing Bonnot, who is there and who is shooting on it openly, with an automatic pistol. And Jouin, what does he have for defend himself as his deputy, Inspector Colmar, a cane ironed at one end. So, we see on period engravings,

He still hits Bonnot with it. He hits him, but it’s not not enough against a gun, Jouin is killed, he collapses, Colmar is injured and Bonnot fled through the window. He goes from wasteland to land waves. He arrives at the Ivry gate, he manages to save himself, we don’t hear about it anymore.

Obviously, the death of Commissioner Jouin, is an unprecedented affair, because the policeman shot down by Bonnot, the deputy chief Security what’s more, It will stir up the crowds a little. So within the police, It hardens the will a little. We say to ourselves: “He killed Jouin”,

Because at the time there was the death penalty, the guillotine existed. But in general, when you kill a police officer, it was the assured death penalty, because he was not taken alive. At the time, they liked to say: “Chicken meat has a price.” Bonnot has a slight hand injury

And he’s on the run, but his escape is deliberate. He doesn’t hurry. He is looking for a new shelter. He goes to Choisy-le-Roi to seek treatment. Unfortunately for him, the pharmacist will do the link between this injury and the Ivry shooting. And he takes the initiative to call security.

He said: “I don’t know if it may be useful to you, I treated an individual fell down a staircase, it could well match to the man you are looking for, Jules Bonnot, he is injured in his right arm, as if it were a defensive wound. It could correspond, I am not sure.”

He told the police: “I saw him enter the Fromentin housing estate. In Choisy-le-Roi, several anarchists regrouped, around Mr Fromentin, such a rich financier than libertarian. It is here that Bonnot was able to find shelter, in the garage of a certain Dubois. On the morning of April 28, 1912, the house is surrounded.

The police enter the garage to question Dubois. As soon as Dubois sees them, he starts to speak a little hard and it pulls. He injures one or two officials, which retreated at the same time, that the gunshots burst, upstairs, at the garage level, a man comes out

And through the door, through the window, from all sides, starts shooting. Bonnot is there, the house in which he takes refuge, the garage is now surrounded, by dozens and dozens of police officers and from then on begins the siege, from the Dubois garage. The police will soon add the journalists,

Who run to Choisy-le-Roi, word of mouth helps, the curious also arrive, some armed with rifles. Soon 30,000 people will jostle each other, to attend the hallali. To dislodge Bonnot, the police have the idea to blow up the garage. Thanks to a cart full of hay, protected by mattresses,

They will approach the building with several blocks of dynamite. They are moving forward as best they can. They arrive at the garage door. First problem, the cord goes out, They are obliged, under heavy fire, to come back to relight it. Finally, the cord ends by lighting up, the charge explodes.

We’re waiting for the garage to explode. Finally, first explosion, the garage is almost intact. The cart moves backwards, therefore returns to the positioning of officials and a few dozen minutes later, comes back with a load much more powerful. And there, indeed, the charge explodes and don’t leave the garage, only rubble.

Dubois died in the explosion and upstairs on the other hand, start to rise police officers, who, with a mattress from which they protect themselves, start investing the coin in which they had seen Bonnot, or who they thought they were. And there, Bonnot is still alive.

He wrote a few words, he wrote his will and there he protected himself against a wall, he too, by a mattress and he pulls, he wounds a civil servant, he shoots and after a while, obviously he is killed, pulled by the feet. And we still see the image, the photo,

Where we truly see him descend, died on these stairs. It’s a terrible ending for Jules Bonnot. The days following the end of Bonnot, a vast dragnet is organized in the anarchist environment, But for the head of security, we must at all costs find Octave Garnier and André Valet.

Guichard puts all his men in the breach and the indicators are requested. Especially since a proposed bonus by Société Générale, to denounce the bandits, strongly encourages denunciation. On May 14, 1912, information, arrives at the Quai des Orfèvres. Garnier and Valet are located in a villa on rue du Viaduc, in Nogent-sur-Marne.

The police immediately organize, a hideout around the pavilion and the next day, they see Marie the Belgian, Garnier’s mistress, leave the house to go shopping. No doubt, the fugitives are there. Night fell when the chief of the Security approaches the pavilion. In the garden the silhouettes are cut out,

Two men and a woman. Police ! he exclaims rushing into the garden, surrounded by police. The woman was immediately arrested. It is indeed Marie the Belgian. But the two men take refuge into the house and opened fire. And where Choisy-le-Roi had been a siege, in order, extraordinary, almost a military action,

Nogent, it’s going to be worse. It’s going to be what we called the battle of Nogent. The newspapers will have fun to your heart’s content. Garnier and Valet retreat in their villa, shoot the police who respond. Of course, we telegraph right away “Bring us reinforcements!” And there again, 50, 100…

But we want to be sure to catch them. So this is not 100, it will be 300 or 400, we bring in a regiment of Zouaves, we ask for machine guns heavy to the army. The Paris firefighters are obliged to come because it’s late,

It takes on such proportions that in the Bois de Vincennes, all lines, everything that allows you to go to Nogent, it’s completely clogged because all of Paris, rushes to Nogent to attend the show. Firefighters have a lot hard to happen. It’s May 14th, it’s very hot on the boulevards, taxis are very expensive.

All Paris wants to attend at the show and the train passing on the viaduct which overlooks the villa, the guys hang on to the train because it is crowded. They demand from the driver that he stops to see the scene. The police are having a hard time to discipline all that.

And as in Choisy, failure to be able to obtain the surrender of the two accomplices, we decide again to use great means. Prefect Lépine arrives accompanied about a hundred police officers. We call a company to the rescue of Zouaves from Fort Rosny. This May 14, 1912, in Nogent sur Marne,

Sets up the most impressive police device, that we had never seen. More than 500 men in arms to stop, two criminals. They are being fired at with machine guns. We threw explosive bombs from the viaduct, on the roof of the house and so the siege lasts, until we decide to attack.

The house is dynamited again too. We place a charge, this time, a big load and still, it shook them. Garnier and Valet are a little shaken and the assault is given. And there they return and are welcomed, by bursts of pistols automatic, semi-automatic, a volley of bullets who arrive at the police,

This is where there is the Lépine episode, who arrives with his little 6.35, surrounded by his prefect scarf and he finds himself face to face with Valet. There is one who sees that the prefect going to get taken down he gives him a shoulder push, he almost drops him. He pushes Lépine.

Lépine finds himself destabilized and the bullet went through his hat. He had a soft hat, a bowler hat, and the Lépine melon is pierced by a bullet. He was hot because she didn’t go far. If we hadn’t pushed him, he had it right in his face. Afterwards, it’s the cure.

The soldiers enter the house, we shoot at them with war rifles. The police also are equipped with war rifles. The police now The security is also armed. Everyone uses, everyone pulls in all directions. Still, the seat will stop, lack of fighters, since they are slaughtered, they are literally riddled with bullets.

The bodies, when they arrive, there were big holes everywhere. After the death of Bonnot, Dubois, Garnier and Valet, it remained to be judged 20 band members, who were incarcerated. All the accomplices of this association of criminals, had to appear together in court. On February 3, 1913 the trial opened,

Before the Seine Assize Court. It ended on February 27. Rirette, Maîtrejean, Marie la Belge, Le Clech and Rodriguez were acquitted. Callemin, Soudy, Dieudonné and Monier, were sentenced to death. Metge and Carouy to forced labor, for the others, prison sentences. The Bonnot gang was permanently dismantled.

The son of Jules Bonnot, left with his mother in Switzerland, at the age of three, took the name of his father-in-law, Besson. He started a family and had children. Our investigation allowed us to discover Bono’s descendants. They live in Toulouse. We revealed to them who was their grandfather and indeed,

They found an old box with photos of their great-grandmother, Sophie, the wife of Jules Bonnot. The only remaining trace of their great-grandfather, is this name crossed out on the driving license. Literature in pen is certified by a stamp. And added to the feather behind, so there is the name,

Of the former lover and Sophie Bonnot’s new husband, Mr Besson, who gave his name to all our descendants, to our entire family. Because we never have was named Bonnot. And it actually comes from this change, which comes from a court decision, to protect Jules Bonnot’s son, Louis Justin, our grandfather.

My sister and me, we are great-granddaughters. And my daughter is Jules’ great-great-granddaughter. In the photos of Louis Justin, the grandfather of Florence and Christiane, we find the features of Jules Bonnot, a family resemblance that has persisted Through time, despite the name change. It is a name which should be hard to carry.

It must have been difficult at the time… It shouldn’t be proud to be obliged, to change your name. By court decision. I find that it’s still heavy to carry, for such a small child. Do you think you have left something by Jules Bonnot? In the spirit or… A little anarchist spirit! Revolted?

No. Not me. You, a little more! Don’t fall too far into line. Try to make up your own mind, to have retained his free will, to have a look a little sharp on things. Don’t follow the herd. This is what I’m trying to teach my children! The Bonnot gang left its mark forever,

The history of organized crime due to the violence of the attacks, the speed of thefts and blind determination of these men, facing society. There could not be a different ending, than that of the death of Jules Bonnot and his companions. Men whose lives was only rebellion,

Could not make it flow that much ink and a lot of blood.