Martin Bernard

Martin Bernard , born the September 17th 1808 with Montbrison (the Loire), dead the October 22nd 1883 with Paris, is a French workman typographer and politician.

Wire junior by a printer of Montbrison, Bernard follows studies to the imperial college of Montbrison then to the small seminar of Verrières (the Loire). In 1826, he is apprentice printer in Montbrison, where his/her older brother will take the succession of the father, and leaves to Paris to improve. Affiliated with the Company of the Human rights in 1830, it fights on the barricades at the time of the Three Glorious. In 1831, he discovers the ideas of Saint-Simon (1760-1825) then of Pierre Leroux (1797-1871), to which he adheres. In 1833, it takes part in a strike of the Parisian printers. In 1834, it publishes an article in the republican Revue entitled: “On the means of reducing the Republic in the workshop”.

One of the defenders of shown April 1835, it is stopped at the time of the “plot of the powders”, aiming at seizing ammunition for the future insurrections, but is discharged. It founds with Barbès and Blanqui secret republican the organizations known as Société of the families and of the seasons (1837). The 12 and the May 13rd 1839, it takes share with the insurrection known as of the Seasons, which makes around fifty of killed and four times more casualties. The leaders (Blanqui, Barbs and Bernard) are stopped. Judged in front of the Room of the pars, he refuses to defend himself, affirming: “You are my enemies, you are not my judges.” Condemned to the deportation, it is interned with the Mount-Saint-Michel, then in the citadel of Doullens (1844).

Released by the Revolution of February 1848, it is named general Commissaire of the provisional government in the departments of the Ardèche, Haute-Loire, the Loire and the Rhone.

Elected official the April 28th 1848 representing of the people in the Loire, 6th on 11, by 47.066 votes, it sits at the Montagne. The same year, he becomes president of the republican Solidarité, company political made up to promote the candidature of Ledru-Rollin for the presidential election of December.

Re-elected in Légilsative in the Loire, 4th on 9, by 36.014 votes out of 75.232 voters and 118.427 registered voters, it belongs to the 120 deputies inviting to take the weapons to defend the Republic, with Ledru-Rollin, Pyat, Gambon, Deville or Boichot, the June 13rd 1849. After the failure of this insurrectionary attempt, he is condemned to the deportation, but manages to escape and takes refuge in Belgium, then in England, where he takes again his trade of workman printer, and made various stays in Suisse and with the Netherlands, until the amnesty of 1859. Returned to France, it finds a place of gasman in Paris in 1860. In 1861, it publishes a testimony of its imprisonment and its fights: Ten years of prison in the Mount-Saint-Michel and the citadel of Doullens .

With the elections of 1869, he refuses to present his candidature in the 1st district of the Loire, in order to not have not to lend oath to the Empire. Resident in Paris at the time of the seat of 1870, it presents to legislative February 8th 1871. Beaten in the Loire with 38.520 votes, he is elected the Seine, the 22e on 43, by 102.366 votes out of 328.970 voters and 547.858 registered voters. Sitting at the Parliament with the radicals of White Louis (1811-1882), it takes part in the vain attempts at mediation between Versailles and the Commune.

It is not represented in 1876 and takes its retirement at the private hospital Dubois, in Paris, in 1880. He dies in Paris in October 1883.

The posterity somewhat neglected it with the profit of more charismatic contemporaries: Auguste Blanqui or Armand Barbès for example. However, in this century of deep economic upheavals, political and social, this workman printer episodically become appointed, did not cease fighting for his/her proletarian brothers and a true republic. : what was worth ten years of prison then as much exile to him.

Sources

Claude Latta: A republican ignored Martin Bernard (Center of Studies Foréziennes, Saint-Etienne, 1980
Dictionary of the deputies of 1789 to 1889

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