November 2010

Alexandre Marius Jacob, an anarchist of the Belle Epoque, Alain Sergeant, 2005

Alexandre Marius Jacob was born September 27, 1879 in Marseille. At age 11 he embarked as a cabin boy and sailed all the seas of the world. At 13, during a stopover in Sydney, he deserted. Then he embarks unwittingly, on a pirate ship. At 16 he became an apprentice typographer, he meets the anarchists. An undercover officer had found him with explosives and it condemned was sentenced to six months in prison. He is 17 and his release, police systematically preventing his employers, he can not keep a job.

to survive so he decided to make "personal recovery" and he became the Chief " Workers of the night, a band of robbers a little special since it robbing the "social parasites" and pays 10% of his winnings to the "cause".

adventure lasting several years. Jacob at his trial claimed loudly and clearly LAW FOR THE POOR OF STEALING THE RICH.

Although he never killed anyone (for this and the rest will serve as a model for Maurice Leblanc's Arsene Lupin and) it will be condemned to hard labor for life, any direction Guyana and hell. There will be 25 years and 3 months (8 years and eleven months in irons). Standing. Never give in on anything. Constantly denouncing the prison.

Back in France in 1928 he settled as a peddler. During the English revolution was suspected to have smuggled weapons to the libertarians. And August 28, 1954, not wanting to know the pangs of old age, he committed suicide leaving a note: "laundry washed, rinsed, dried but not ironed. I lug. Sorry. There are 2 liters of pink next to the scrip. Cheers! .

This book is the result of many meetings and discussions with Jacob, therefore, is one of the best books written on Alexandre Marius Jacob.

p.32:

The author recalled that a "major task will be to demolish all the buildings ... which are a symbol of oppression. No vestige of the past will be respected ... that all the monuments that could serve as a rallying point to any authority to be thrown down without pity or remorse ... sauté churches, convents, barracks, prisons, prefectures, town halls, etc. ... Burn all the administrative paperwork wherever they are. In Fire the title, annuities, stocks, bonds, ... mortgages, deeds, company documents, etc. ... to fire the general ledger of government debt, those loans to municipal and departmental ... books of banks, trading houses, promissory notes, checks, bills, etc ... to fire the papers of civil status, recruitment, stewardship military, direct and indirect contributions! Fire unhealthy these papers, titles of slavery of humanity, defended by thousands of soldiers, policemen, judges of all kinds! "

Obviously, this shakes your heart, for "Notre-Dame and its old Gothic cathedrals, where our ancestors .., have put their soul and their lives are a masterpiece ... but as an they remain standing, human consciousness can emerge from the prejudices which they are the representation lithovivifiée ... can not put them under glass in museums, the best is yet to destroy despite outcries against vandalism and curses revolutionary future archaeologists . "

p.62:

I thought of the Guard semaphore whose words still ringing in my ears: "I'll retire ... I am honest, I work. "

" Then I realized the power of moral prejudice. Be honest because we believe is a slave! Then I also understood the power of this brake against the revolt, the hope of a retreat. Come on, citizens! You still have good days to rule over the people! You have nothing to fear as your ignorant victims will be poisoned by the hope of a retreat and the imbecility honest to believe because they are starving. "

p.68:

" I do not kill for the pleasure of killing, "he wrote then in jail. This is good for honest people. The military for example. "

p.75:

" For people who take seriously the company said in Balzac's César Birotteau , the machinery of justice has an indescribable grand and serious. But who would take the company seriously unless an anarchist? For him, this unit is a grotesque comedy unique to impress fools, my majesty of the function does not exist, and everything is ridiculous pretext. With the eyes of a Daumier and a Courteline watching a judge, court, a jury. He sees only a bad cake by poor players, while the scenes set in the spectacle, that of a human comedy triumph when the appetites of the privileged. Jacob and reinforced this sentiment by a personal mindset that made him imagine his naked partner: "I saw him paunchy and thin legs, or chest hollow and arched back," he said. And I did not want that to laugh at the poor devil. "

p.78:

The first soldier who came to the bar, and the apostrophe:

" Of all the evils which men dominate, the war is the most fatal. Instead of fighting men, to satisfy their ambition, have replaced the doctrine of God by that of the motherland. I consider the military as murderers. "

[...]

" In the name of Christian charity as you accuse, no doubt? And he launched his diatribe: "I robbed enough priests. In all, I found safe, and sometimes several. They did not include herring, I beg you to believe. If they contained some HG wafers, they also contained large amounts ... And these are the charlatans who call me a thief! But I'm good prince. I do not blame them. I give them my blessing. Amen! "

[...]

" Judges, magistrates, he does not care! They all put their power at the disposal of the rich to the poor overwrite. In the words of Anatole France, they are machines to execute. However, there is no cure repressing. Judges, it can only exist in a corrupt society ! If he has a regret, is to have robbed too little.

p.80:

The president wants to know if he had any indicators? "I did not need anyone to guide me. Everywhere I see beautiful homes, I say to myself: that my clients. "About the Fire:" It is an accident of war. Turenne, Louvois burned the Palatinate, and glorify you. "

p.82:

" From top to bottom of the social scale, while only one part of knavery, and idiocy another. How do you, that penetrated these truths, I met such a situation?

A seller of alcohol, a brothel owner richer while a man of genius will die of misery on a hospital bed. The baker who kneads the bread shortage, the shoemaker who makes thousands of shoes shows her toes, the weaver who makes garments stocks did not cover themselves. The mason who built castles and palaces lack of air in a filthy slum. While those that produce nothing, and those who do not have any!

3A this state of affairs can only result in the antagonism between the working classes and the propertied classes, that is to say lazy. The struggle arises hatred and its blows.

"You call a man a thief and bandit, you apply it against the rigors of the law without asking if it could be something else. Was there ever a rentier be burglar? I confess I do not know. But I, who am neither annuitant or owner, who am a man with only his arms and his brain to ensure its preservation, he took me into another pipe. The Company not grant me that 3 Livelihood: work, begging, theft. Work away from me reluctant, I like the man can not even go to work, his muscles, his brain possess an amount of energy to burn. What disgusted me is to sweat blood to the charity of a salary is to create wealth which would have been frustrated.

"In a word, it disgusted me to indulge in prostitution work. Begging is the humiliation, denial of dignity. All man is entitled to the banquet of life. THE RIGHT TO LIVE Do not beg, IT GETS. "

p.85:

" To destroy an effect, it is necessary, first, destroy the cause. If theft occurs, it is only because everything belongs to the few. THE STRUGGLE only disappear when men will share their joys and sorrows? THEIR WORK AND THEIR RESOURCES? WHEN ALL IS FOR EVERYONE.

Revolutionary Anarchist, I made my revolution. Vienna Anarchy! "

p.108:

Anyone who has had some trouble with Justice know that human societies use for their dirty work, individuals that are indisputably in the hierarchy of beings below certain animals.

p.167:

"It was in prison I saw how dangerous it was to give full power to a man sworn whose word is sacred priori - the supervisor-on a man whose word is considered a priori to lie-the-condemned. It was there, under the eyes, constantly renewed proof that power corrupts inevitably the one who holds it. At such a school, while thoughtful observer, who can see and remember, can not, it is human, find salvation in the abolition of absolute power and their officers. "The doctor

Louis Rousseau (1930)