Louis Auguste Blanqui

Louis Auguste Blanqui known as Locked up the , born the February 8th 1805 with Puget-Théniers (the Alpes-Maritimes) and deceased on January 1st 1881 with Paris, was a republican revolutionist Socialiste French, often associated wrongly with the utopian Socialistes. He fought for new ideas at his time in particular for the Vote for all (a man, a voice), for the equality man/woman, the suppression of the child work etc He owes his nickname Locked up the with the fact that he passed most of his existence (nearly 37 years! …) in prison. He is at the origin of the Blanquisme. Ironically, Louis Auguste Blanqui, communist, has a brother, Adolphe Blanqui, theorist and liberal economist , favorable to the Libre-échange and the disengagement of the State of the economy.

Biography: the permanent insurrectionist

“ Yes, Sirs, it is the war between the rich person and the poor: the rich person wanted it thus; they are indeed the attackers. Only they regard as a harmful action the fact that the poor oppose a resistance. They would say readily, while speaking about the people: this animal is so wild that it is defended when it is attacked. ”

Extracts from the defense of Auguste Blanqui in Court of Assizes, 1832.

Auguste Blanqui was born with Puget-Théniers (the Alpes-Maritimes) the February 8th 1805. Of Italian origin, its family had been francized by the annexation of the county of Nice in 1792. His/her father Jean Dominique Blanqui, elected conventional which for this reason voted the death of Louis XVI, had undergone itself the prison in 1793 (experiment reported in its work “the ten months anguish” ), before seeing himself appointing sub-prefect under the First Empire. At the thirteen years age, Auguste goes up to Paris. Boarder at the Massin institution where taught his/her brother Adolphe (future liberal economist) seven years his elder, it follows the courses of the Charlemagne college. He will study then the right and medicine. But it will launch out very early in the policy, being made the champion of the revolutionary republicanism under the reign of Charles X, of Louis-Philippe I {{er}} then of Napoleon III. Just seventeen years old, it militates actively against the lawsuit of the four sergeants of the La Rochelle, condemned to died to have adhered to the secret society Charbonnerie and to have fomented disorders in their regiment.

Against Charles X and Louis-Philippe

Carbonaro since 1824, within this secret organization in fight against the monarchical restoration, Auguste Blanqui is mingled with all the republican conspiracies with its time. Consequently followed one another for him plots, missed takeovers by force and imprisonments.

In 1827, it is wounded by three times at the time of the demonstrations of students to the Latin Quarter, of which a wound with the neck.

In 1828, it projects a forwarding in Morée to go to help the insurgent Greece. It leaves with his friend and fellow student Alexandre Plocque. The voyage is completed in Puget-Théniers, for lack of passport.

It enters to the newspaper of liberal opposition of Pierre Leroux, “the Earth”, at the end of 1829. In 1830, one counts it in the rows of the most seditious, known republican association under the name of Conspiration Fayette, at the sides of which it takes part in the Révolution of 1830. After the revolution, it adheres to republican the company known as “Amis of the people”, it binds with other opponents to the mode orleanist: Buonarrotti (1761-1837), Raspail (1794-1878) and Barbs (1809-1870) inter alia.

In January 1831, in the name of the “Committee of the Schools”, it writes a threatening proclamation. Following demonstrations, he is imprisoned with the Force, during three weeks. But, recidivist and always preaching violence, it again is stopped and accused of plot against the state security.

After a new stay in prison, unrepentant, it takes again its revolutionary activities at the “Company of the Families”, which in 1837 the “Company of the Seasons will continue”.

March 6th, 1836, it is stopped, makes eight month of prison, then is placed in release on probation in Pontoise.

May 12th, 1839, of return to Paris, with Armand Barbès and Martin Bernard, it takes part in the insurrection which seizes the Law courts, fails to take the Police headquarter, and occupies one moment the Town hall. One will count 50 killed and 190 wounded. After the failure of the riot, there remains hidden five months, but he is stopped on October 14th.

January 14th, 1840, he is condemned to death. Its sorrow being commuted to perpetual prison, it is locked up with the Mount-Saint-Michel. In 1844, its health condition is worth to him to be transferred to the prison-hospital from Tours, where there will remain until April 1847.

Second Republic

Once slackened, it joins all the Parisian demonstrations from March to May during the Révolution of 1848, which give rise to the Second Republic. The recourse to the violence of the central republican Company, which it founded to require a modification of the government, the met in conflict with the moderate republicans. Decree after May 26th, it is locked up with Vincennes. The lawsuit opens with Bourges before the High court of justice on March 7th, 1849. He is condemned to ten years of prison and is dispatched with Doullens. In October 1850, he is imprisoned with Beautiful-island-in-Sea; in December 1857, with Corte; then, in 1859, off-set with Mascara in Algeria until August 16th, 1859, date of its release.

Second Empire

Revolutionist always, as of his release it takes again his fight against the Empire. June 14th, 1861, it is stopped, condemned to four years of prison, and locked up with Holy-Pelagie. He escapes in August 1865, and continues his propaganda campaign against the government since his exile, until the general Amnistie of 1869 enables him to return to France. It is during these years that a party blanquist is born and organizes itself in sections. The leaning one of Blanqui for the violent action is illustrated in 1870 with two failed attempts at insurrection: the first the January 12th at the time of the funeral of Black Victor (journalist assassinated by the prince Pierre Bonaparte, this one is nothing less than the son of Lucien Bonaparte, therefore nephew of Napoleon i and cousin of Napoleon III)); the second the August 14th, when it tries to seize a deposit of weapons. Its action will continue until the fall of the Empire and beyond the proclamation of the Third Republic: September 4th 1870.

Blanqui then creates a club and a newspaper the fatherland in danger , which supports the resistance of Gambetta but cease to appear on December 8th for lack of appropriations.

The Common (March 18th - May 28th, 1871)

It belongs to the insurrectionary group which occupies the Town hall a few hours the October 31st 1870. March 9th, he is condemned to death in absentia. Adolphe Thiers, chief of the government, conscious of the influence of Blanqui on the Parisian social movement, the fact of stopping the March 17th 1871 whereas, patient, it rests in a friend doctor with Bretenoux (Lot). It is led to the hospital of Figeac, and with Cahors. Taken along to Morlaix, on May 24th he is imprisoned with the castle of Bull. The Thiers March 18th tries to seize the guns on the Montmartre hillock, but the population opposes it: these are the events which will lead to the proclamation of the Commune of Paris whose Blanqui will be elected as chief candidate in many districts whereas it remains held out of Paris. Conscious of the importance of this prisoner, Thiers will refuse to release it in exchange of 74 hostages of the Commune, of which archbishop Mgr Darboy. A majority of “ Communards ” recognized itself in Blanqui. Would this one have modified the course of the history if it had been in Paris? Karl Marx is convinced that Blanqui was the chief who was lacking with the Commune.

Brought back to Paris, he is judged on February 15th, 1872 and condemned with other communards to the deportation, pains commuted to perpetual detention have regard to its health condition. It is interned with Clairvaux. In 1877, it is transferred to the Château from Yew.

April 20th, 1879 he is elected appointed of Bordeaux but its election will be invalidated on June 1st. Profiting from a general amnesty, Blanqui is released 11 and pardoned.

He traverses France then and diffuses his ideas in his newspaper “Neither God nor main”. After having made a speech during a revolutionary meeting in Paris, fine 1880, it dies of a crisis of Apoplexie on January 1st, 1881. Its funerals are followed per a hundred and thousand people. It is buried in the 91e division of the Cimetière of the Father-Lachaise in Paris (lying realized by Aime-Jules Dalou).

Ideology

As a Socialist, Blanqui is favorable to a right distribution of the richnesses within the company. But the Blanquisme is made conspicuous in several connections of the other socialist currents of its time. On the one hand, contrary to Karl Marx, Blanqui does not believe in the Messianic genius of the working class, nor with the movements of the masses: he thinks, on the contrary, that the revolution must be the fact of a small number of people, establishing by the force a temporary dictatorship. This period of transitory tyranny must make it possible to provide the foundations of a new order, then to give the capacity to the people. In addition, Blanqui worries more about the revolution to become company after it: if its thought is based on precise socialist principles, it goes only seldom until imagining a company purely and really Socialist. It differs in that from the utopian ones. For the blanquists, the inversion of the middle-class order and the revolution are ends which are sufficed for themselves, at least initially.

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