Charles Delescluze

Louis Charles Delescluze (October 2nd, 1809, Dreux - May 25th, 1871, Paris), French journalist, important member of the Common of Paris.

Biography

After having studied the Right to Paris, he becomes clerk of solicitor then journalist, but proclamation very early a leaning fort for the democratic ideas, and played an eminent role in the Révolution of July in 1830. Member of several republican, discrete if not secret companies, Delescluze is continued for plot republican and forced, in 1836, to take refuge in Belgium, where it helps its fellow-members, republican journalists.

Of return in France in 1840, it establishes with Valencian, where he directs the Impartial one of the North , whose articles very democratic are worth a lawsuit to him, 2.500 francs of fine and a month of prison.

After the Revolution of February 1848, he proclaims the Republic with Valencians: in return, the provisional government appoints it police chief of the Republic for the department of the Northern . It is beaten with the elections with the Constituante in April 1848, it settles in Paris, where it launches the newspaper the democratic and social Revolution and association republican Solidarité , which gathers radical and socialist (with Ledru-Rollin and Mathieu of Drome). In March 1849, he is condemned to 3.000 francs of fine and an year of prison for the articles which denounce the general Cavaignac, person in charge of the massacres of June 1848. In April 1850, he is condemned to 11.000 francs of fine and three years of prison and flees in England, where he continues his work of journalist. Returned clandestinely in Paris in 1853, it is stopped, condemned to four years of prison and ten years of prohibition of stay. He will be imprisoned successively with Holy-Pelagie, Belle-Île, Corte, then Cayenne.

It arrives in Guyana on October 16th, 1858. There, it is directed on the Devil's Island, stay of the political prisoners. Nov. 14, 1858, it binds friendship with Alexandre Franconie and became the tutor of his son Gustave Franconie. It will remain in Guyana until date, Nov. 1860 on which it learns the news from “the general amnesty and without conditions from the political deportees”, signed the August 16th 1859.

Returned to France very weakened physically but always also combattif, it is harnessed at once with a new company: publication of a radical newspaper, the Alarm clock , which affirms the principles of the International association of the workers more known under the name of Internationale . the Alarm clock , one of the principal newspapers of opposition to the Second Empire is suspended in August 1870, after multiple continuations, but reappears on September 7th. This newspaper, will be worth three judgments to him, and once again, at the beginning of the Franco-German war of 1870 qu ' it denounced, it must take refuge in Belgium. Income in France as of on September 8th, 1870, after the proclamation of the Republic, it starts again its newspaper.

November 5th, 1870, elected official mayor of the XIXe district, it will resign on January 6th, 1871, calling with “the armed struggle against the capitulards” (i.e. the Gouvernement of National defense). Its newspaper is suspended in January after the failure of the insurrection against the government. February 8th, 1871, he is elected by a massive vote with the National Assembly, where he asks the committal for trial of the members of the government of National defense. March 26th, elected official member of the the Council of the Commune by XIe and the XIXe districts, it gives its resignation of deputy. He is Member of the Commission of the Foreign relations, the Executive commission (April 4th), and with that of the War. He is member of the Comité of public Hello (May 9th) and deputy civilian with the War (May 11th). At the time of the entry of Of Versailles in Paris, it calls of it on May 24th with a war of the districts: “Place with the people, the combatants with the naked arms! ”. The following day, May 25th, despaired, it will not do anything to avoid death on a barricade with Castle-in Eau, not wanting to in no case “to be used of victim or toy with the victorious reaction”. Although died, he will be condemned to death in absentia in 1874!

External bonds

Portrait of Charles Delescluze

Notes and anecdotes

It described its imprisonment in Guyana, in “Paris with Cayenne, newspaper of a transport” (Paris, 1869).
Its ceaseless fights for the Republic, its courage, its savage will, in spite of its multiple imprisonments and its tests, will be worth to him the nickname of Iron bar .
a supreme homage will be returned to him by its enemies: although the great council of war recognized that “its death is of public notoriety”, he will condemn it to death in absentia in 1874. On this occasion, Gambetta will exclaim: “Here is thus a man who even dead still makes fear! ”
But Gambetta had already judged the man since 1870: “If Delescluze is the incarnation of all the virtues jacobines: intransigence, honesty, spirit of authority, social republicanism; it knew to open, even, with the ideas of Proudhon, this old adversary. And this centralizing spirit was not more opposed to the development of communal freedoms”.

Sources

This article incorporates the text of Encyclopædia Britannica of 1911 (public domain).
Charles Delescluze, Newspaper of one transported , Paris 1869.
Charles Prolès, men and the Revolution of 1871, Delescluze , Paris 1898.
Bernard Christmas, Dictionary of the commune, Flammarion, collection Fields, 1978

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