Drivers

Base “trade” of driver

Organized in a disorganized State, these hordes foamed the campaigns, and each member knew his task: “to make effraction with coulters, to climb the walls, to insert the doors with large pieces of wood, to bind, garrotter, to strike, cut the throat, to heat the feet, to fly, set fire to, poison, violate, everywhere they are the same means employed by the brigands”.

History

One starts to evoke these criminals during the French revolution, when the State is disorganized. The forests covering a very great proportion of the territory protected all kinds of individuals then.

18th century

At the time, especially the “Drivers of the North prevail” of which most famous were:
François-Marie Salembier (Isbergues 1764 - guillotine with Bruges in 1798),
the band of the Captain Moneuse (Marly 1768 - guillotine with Douai the June 18th 1798) in the Northern , the Pas-de-Calais and the Belgian Hainaut
like “the Drivers of the Beauce” (or “Drivers of Orgères”) etc…
These disasters characters, in general of peaceful workmen or tradesmen the day, mask or make up the face in black the night to go dévaliser of the poor people. In the event of refusal, or even sometimes not to leave witnesses of their passage, these gangsters assassinate their victims.

The stopped Drivers finish, in general, under the Guillotine.

November 6th 1798, about fifteen “Drivers of North” are guillotines with Bruges.
Always in 1798 of others are also guillotines with Douai.
October 3rd 1800, with Chartres, they are a score of the band of Orgères to be gone up on the scaffold.
November 21st 1803, with Mainz (today Germany), one carries out Johannes Bueckler, known as Schinderhannes, like 19 accomplices. Bueckler had been the chief of a band of Drivers who terrorized the Alsace and the area of Mainz for several years.

19th century

Sometimes even if, during the 19th century, it happens that such bands create for themselves that and there in France, it is with the Belle Time that one sees a real recrudescence of this race of shadies.
Thus, an Aquitanian band in , the “Bouchery band”, name of its chief, tenant of the refreshment bar of the station of Langon;
“Gangsters of Hazebrouck” in the Northern and the Pas-de-Calais;
gangsters of Abbeville the first gangsters in the car (before the band with Bonnot)
or the “Drivers of the Drome” regularly make speak about them in the press, at the heading of the made various between 1905 and 1910.

20th century

January 11th 1909, the leaders of the band of Hazebrouck, Vromant Silk worker, Theophilus Deroo, Auguste Pollet and his brother (and big boss) Abel Pollet, are guillotines in front of the prison of Béthune.
September 22nd, 1909, with Valence, “the Drivers of the Drome”, Octave David, Louis Berruyer and Urbain Liottard are also guillotines.

In the Years 1920, a new band, the “Cagoulards”, is born in the area of Lille. The chiefs will be stopped in 1924, and the chief, Henri Olivier says “the Tiger”, is in his turn guillotine in Lille on March 24th 1925.

The last bands of drivers will appear after the Second world war.
“The gang of Romanis” which prevails in Burgundy,
or “bandages It of Albret”, in Picardy, are the most typical examples.
The chiefs of each one of these bands will be carried out: Nicolas Stéphan, chief of Romanis, with Chalon-sur-Saône on February 14th 1952, and Raymond Perat, chief of the “band of Albret”, with Laon on July 4th, 1952.

External bonds

Moneuse a chief of gangsters under the directoire
the rabble of Beautiful Époque
Johannes Bückler on German Wikipédia

Random links: