Declaration of Emile Henry during his trial
"Gentlemen of the jury,
You know the facts I am accused: the explosion in the Rue des Bons Enfants that killed five people and determined the death of a sixth, the explosion of coffee Terminus, killing one person, determined the death of a second and injured a number others, finally six revolver shots fired by me on those who pursued me after this last attack.
Discussions have shown you that I agree the author responsible for these acts.
This is not a defense that I want to present. I am not trying in any way to hide myself from the retaliation of the company I attacked. Besides I do is only one Court, myself, and the verdict of any other matters to me. I just want to give you an explanation for my actions and tell you how I was brought to accomplish them.
I am an anarchist for a short time. It is only mid-year 1891 that I started in the revolutionary movement. Previously, I lived in environments totally imbued with the current moral. I had been accustomed to respect and to love the principles of patriotism, family, authority and ownership. But the current generation of educators too often forget one thing, that life with its struggles and disappointments, with its injustices and inequities, handles well, indiscreet, to open the eyes ignorant and open to reality. That's what happened to me, as it happens at all. They told me that life was easy and widely open to intelligent and energetic, and experience showed me that only cynics and crawling can get a place at the banquet. I was told that social institutions were based on justice and equality, and I see around me that lies and deceit. Every day robbed me of an illusion. Everywhere I went, I witnessed the same pain in some, the same pleasures in others. I soon understood that the major words that I had been taught to venerate: honor, dedication, duty, were that a mask concealing the most shameful depravity. The factory owner who built a huge fortune on the labor of his workers, who themselves, lacked any, was an honest gentleman. The MP, the minister whose hands were always open to bribes, kickbacks, were dedicated to the public good. The officer who was experimenting the new model rifle on children of seven years had done his duty and in full Parliament, the President of the Council was administering his congratulations! All I saw disgusted me, and my mind clung to the review of social organization. This criticism was often made for me to start again. Suffice it to say that I became the enemy of a company that I considered criminal.
A moment attracted by socialism, I was not slow to get away from that party. I had too much love for freedom, too much respect for individual initiative, too reluctant to take to incorporate a number in the army of the fourth matriculée State.
Moreover I saw that at bottom Socialism does not change the existing order. It maintains the principle of authority, and this principle, despite that 'can say in so-called free thinkers, that is an old remnant of faith in a higher power. Scientific studies gradually introduced me to the play of natural forces. Now I was a materialist and atheist, I understood that God hypothesis was rejected by modern science, which no longer needed. The moral and religious authoritarian, based on the false, had to disappear . What was then the new morality in harmony with laws of nature that was to regenerate the old world and give birth to a happy humanity?
That's when I was put in touch with some fellow anarchists, that ' TODAY ' Today I still consider it the best I've seen. The character of these men seduced me at first. I liked them in great sincerity, absolute frankness, a profound contempt for all the prejudices, and I wanted to know the idea was that men so different from any I had seen before. This idea found a plot in my mind all prepared by the comments and personal reflections, to receive it. She did specify that this that it was still with me to wave and float. I became my turn anarchist. I'm not here to develop the theory of anarchy. I do not want to remember that the revolutionary, destructive and negative side for which I appear before you. At this time of struggle acute between the bourgeoisie and its enemies, I am almost tempted to say with Souvarine Germinal "All the arguments about the future are criminals, because that , they prevent the destruction straightforward and hamper the progress of the revolution. "
From that an idea is ripe, that it has found its formula must be found without further delay its implementation. I was convinced that the present was bad, I wanted to fight against it, in order to hasten its demise. I brought in the fight a deep hatred every day brightened by the revolting spectacle of this society, where everything is low, everything is suspicious, everything is ugly, where everything is an obstacle to the effusion of human passions, trends generous heart, the full scope of thought. I wanted to hit as hard and as fair as I could. Let's try the first attack that I have committed to an explosion in the Rue des Bons Enfants .
I followed carefully the events Carmaux . The first news of the strike me overjoyed: minors seemed willing to give up peaceful strikes and unnecessary, as the worker waits patiently confident that its few triumphs of millions of francs companies. They seemed to have entered a path of violence resolutely asserted Aug. 15, 1892. The offices and buildings Mine were invaded by a crowd of weary pain without revenge justice would be done if the engineer hated by his workers, when interposed timid. What were these men? The same people who have abortions all revolutionary movements, because that 'they fear that once launched more people obeying their voice, those who drive thousands of men to endure hardship for months to beat the drum about their suffering and create a popularity that will allow them to get a warrant - I mean the socialist leaders-these men, indeed, took the lead striker. We suddenly saw hit the country a swarm of men talkers, who began the whole layout of the strike, staged subscriptions, made lectures, addressed appeals for funds from all sides. Minors deposited any initiative in their hands. What happened, you know. The strike dragged on, the miners made a more intimate acquaintance with hunger, their usual partner, and they ate the small reserve fund of their union and that of other corporations that saw them support, then after two months, ear low, they returned to their pit, that most miserable 'before. It would have been easier from the start, attacking the company as a single sensitive spot, the money stock to burn coal, mining machinery break, demolish the pumping stations. Certainly, the company had capitulated quickly. But the pundits do not admit of socialism these processes there are processes that anarchists. In this game there is to risk prison, and who knows, maybe one of those balls that did wonders to Fourmies . It wins no seats or municipal legislation. In short, the first order Confused now reigned again Carmaux . The company, more powerful than ever, continued its operations and gentlemen shareholders congratulated the successful conclusion of the strike. Let the dividends are still good to touch.
That's when I decided to mix at this concert accented voice pleased that the citizens had already heard, but that 'they thought died with Ravachol : that of dynamite. I wanted to show the bourgeoisie that now there would be more fun for her to complete her triumphs insolent be troubled, his golden calf would tremble violently on its pedestal until the final jolt that would lay down the strip and blood. At the same time I wanted to explain to children that it is that one class of men, the anarchists, who sincerely feel their suffering and are willing to avenge them. The men here do not sit in Parliament as Guesde gentlemen and others, but they walk to the guillotine. So I prepared a pot. One moment, the accusation that it had launched Ravachol came back to me in memory. And the innocent victims? But I quickly resolved the issue. The house stood where the offices of the company Carmaux was inhabited by the bourgeoisie. There would be no innocent victims. The bourgeoisie as a whole, saw the exploitation of the poor, she must atone for his crimes as a whole. So it is with absolute certainty of the legitimacy of my act that I placed the pot outside the door of the company's offices. I explained during the discussion, how I hoped, in case my device is discovered before it exploded, that it would break the police station, still reaching and my enemies. So the motives that made me commit the first attack that it blames me.
Turning to the second, coffee Terminus. I came to Paris in the case Vaillant. I witnessed the tremendous repression that followed the bombing of the Palais Bourbon . I witnessed drastic measures taken by the government against the anarchists. One side of all spying, we search, we stopped. Random raids, a crowd of people was snatched from their families and thrown into prison. What happened to the women and the children of these comrades during their incarceration? No one was in charge. The anarchist was no longer a man was a beast that stalked you everywhere and with all the bourgeois press, base slave force, asked in every possible extermination. At the same time, newspapers and pamphlets were seized libertarian, freedom of assembly was prohibited. Better than that: when wanted to completely rid a companion, a cookie deposited at night in his room a package containing tannin, he said, and the next day a search was taking place, according an order dated the day before. It was a box full of suspicious powders, comrade was on trial and harvested 3 years in prison. Just ask if this is not true indicator that crept in miserable companion MĂ©rigeault ? But all these methods were good. They struck an enemy had been afraid, and those who wanted to be brave trembled. As coronation in this crusade against heretics, n 'we heard not Mr. Raynal, Minister of the Interior, declared from the rostrum of the House that the measures taken by the government had a good result, that 'they had struck terror in the anarchist camp. It was not enough. There was sentenced to death a man who had killed anyone, he had to appear brave to the end, we hung a beautiful morning. But the bourgeois gentlemen, you had a little too reckoned without your host. You had arrested hundreds of people, you've violated many homes, but there was still out of your prisons you ignorant men, who, in the shadows, attending your hunt and anarchist who does waiting for the right time to, in turn, drive the hunters. The words of Mr. Raynal were a challenge thrown to the anarchists. The glove was found. The bomb coffee Terminus is the answer to all your freedom violations in your arrest, your searches, your press laws, your mass expulsions of foreigners, your guillotinades . But why, you ask go tackle consumer quiet, listen to music and, perhaps, are neither judges nor members or officials? Why? It's very simple. The bourgeoisie did that a bloc of anarchists. One man, Vaillant, had threw a bomb, nine tenths of the companions did not even know. That there was nothing. Was persecuted by mass. Everything that had any relationship anarchist was tracked. Well! Since you visit and any party responsible for the actions of one man, and you hit on your block, we too, we hit a block. Should we only tackle the members who make laws against us, judges who apply those laws, police stop us? I think not. All men are not acting as instruments in their own names, their duties were imposed by the bourgeoisie in his defense, they are no more guilty than others. The good citizens who, without being invested with any office, however, affect the coupons from their bonds, idlers who live in the benefits of labor workers, they too must have their share of retaliation. And not only them, but all those who are satisfied with the current order, who applaud the acts of the government and its accomplices are these employees to 300 and 500 francs per month who hate the people even more than the big bourgeois This silly and pretentious mass that fits always on the side of the strongest, ordinary customers Terminus and other great cafes. That's why I hit in the heap, without choosing my victims. Must understand that the middle class who have suffered are finally tired of their suffering, they show their teeth and knock all the more brutally that one was brutal with them. This is not the assassins who made the bloody week and Fourmies address other murderers. They spared neither women nor children bourgeois, because women and children of those that 'they love are not spared either. Are they not innocent victims than those children who, in the suburbs are dying slowly of anemia, because the bread is scarce at home, these women workshops in your pale and exhausted to earn forty sous a day, happy again when poverty does not force them into prostitution and these old men that you have the machines to produce all their lives, and that you take to the road and at the hospital when their forces are exhausted? At least have the courage of your crimes, honorable citizen, and agree that our retaliation is highly legitimate.
Admittedly, I have no illusions. I know that my actions are not yet well understood crowds insufficiently prepared. Even among the workers, for whom I fought a lot, lost in your newspapers, I believe their enemy. But I do not care. I do not care about the trial of anyone. I know that not 'there are people saying anarchists who rush to condemn any solidarity with the propaganda of the deed. They try to make a subtle distinction between the terrorists and the theorists. Too cowardly to risk their lives, they deny those who act. But the influence that 'they claim to have in the revolutionary movement is zero. TODAY 'hui, the field is in the action, without weakness and without retreat. Alexander Herzen, the Russian revolutionary, said: "One of two things will happen, or vigilante and walk forward or pardon and stumble half way. "We want neither pardon nor stumble, and we always walk forward until the revolution, the goal of our efforts finally come to crown our work by making the free world. In this merciless war that we declared the bourgeoisie, we ask for no pity. We give death, we will suffer it. So it is with indifference as I await your verdict. I know my head is not the last you will cut, while others fall yet, because dying of hunger begin to know the path of your great cafes and restaurants Terminus and your great Foyot . You will add more names to the list of our bloody deaths. You hung in Chicago , beheaded in Allemgane , withers in Jerez, shot in Barcelona , guillotined at Montbrison and Paris, but you can never destroy is anarchy . Its roots are too deep, she was born in a rotten society that falls apart, it is a backlash against the order established. It represents the aspirations come dispel the current authority, it is everywhere, which makes it elusive. It will eventually kill you.
That, gentlemen, what I say to you. You will now hear from my lawyer. Your laws that require all accused a lawyer, my family chose me Hornbostel. But that it will say in no way invalidates what I said. My statements are the exact reflection of my thoughts. I stand in full. "
Emile Henry April 27, 1894.
"There's no one innocent man upon reflection, the most guilty would be precisely the children of citizens, who represent the future of slavery and infamy cons that have to control children of proletarians and men revolted. "
Gabriel Randon.
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