Jean-Baptiste Clément (Boulogne, 1836 - Paris, February 26th 1903) is a chansonnier and a mainly known communard to have been the author of the song the Time of the cherries .

Born in an easy family, wire of a rich person miller, it leaves very young person the hearth. As of the 14 years age, he exerts the trade of copper garnissor, trade which he described itself like unimportant as all the trades. He still exerts several other trades and joined Paris where it côtoie of the journalists writing in socialist newspapers, particularly in “  the Cry of the people   ” of Jules Vallès. In 1867, it must take refuge in Belgium (where it publishes the famous the time of the cherries ). Returned in Paris he collaborates in various newspapers of opposition to the Second Empire like the Reform of Charles Delescluze and Auguste Vermorel At that time, freedom of press is quite different from what she is today and Jean-Baptiste Clément is condemned to have published a newspaper not guaranteed by the emperor.

He is then imprisoned with the prison of Holy-Pelagie until the republican rising of September 4th, 1870. Member of the National guard it takes part in the various days of dispute of the Gouvernement of National defense the October 31st, 1870 and the January 22nd, 1871. March 26th, 1871, he is elected with the Conseil of the Commune by the XVIIIe district. He is Member of the Commission of the Public services and the Subsistence. April 16th, it is named delegated to the manufacture of the ammunition then at the commission of Teaching (April 21st). In the Cri of the people of Jules Vallès he protests against the closing of certain newspapers of opposition to the Commune. Combatant on the barricades during the bloody Semaine it writes shortly after the song the Bloody Week which denounces forces it repression which takes place against the communards.

He goes to London, from where he could continue the combat. Condemned to death in absentia in 1874, it is amnestied in 1879. It returns to Paris after the amnesty of 1880.

In 1885, it founds the socialist circle of studies the spark of Charleville and the socialist Federation of the the Ardennes.

Initiate Freemason, in 1898, with the Cabin “  Renovating the   ” in Clichy, close to Paris.

When it was buried with the Cimetière of the Father-Lachaise the February 26th 1903, four to five thousand people attended the ceremony.

According to one of his/her friends: “ the memory of such a man will never be erased, the distance and time expensive return it still to those which could assess all the fundamentally good qualities of its heart of beautiful poet and proletarian revolted against all the social injustices… And yet, never propagandist was as much vilified only Jean-Baptiste Clément. But nothing stopped it: neither judgments, neither capitalist spites, nor working indifference. It was really a great figure of the pioneering days of socialism ”. Today streets perpetuate its memory as with Clamart (Hauts-de-Seine).

External bonds

Sources

• Bernard Christmas, Dictionary of the Commune, Flammarion, collection Fields, 1978