Ernest Alfred Vizetelly. The Anarchists: Their Faith and Their Record. Turnbull and Spears Printers, Edingurgh, 1911.

THE ANARCHISTS

THEIR FAITH AND THEIR RECORD

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Bakunin, The Father of Modern Anarchism

Chapter 3: Propaganda By Deed Begins

Chapter 4: The Advent of Dynamite -- 1878-84

Chapter 5: Anarchism On The March

Chapter 6: The French Terror: Ravachol

Chapter 7: The French and Spanish Terrors

Chapter 8: The French Terror. The Assassination of Carnot

Chapter 9: Barcelona Outrages -- The EMpress Elizabeth and Luccheni

Chapter 10: King Humbert -- Bresci -- President McKinley -- Czolgosz

Chapter 11: France -- Spain -- Portuga L -- Japan -- Great Britain and Other Countries

Ernest Alfred Vizetelly. The Anarchists: Their Faith and Their Record. Turnbull and Spears Printers, Edingurgh,

1911.

THE ANARCHISTS

THEIR FAITH AND THEIR RECORD

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

PRECURSORS AND THEORIES OF MODERN ANARCHISM

      Traces of Anarchist Theories in Ancient Times--Zeno, the Gnostics, Joachim and Amaury of Chartres--Wat Tyler's Rebellion--John Ball and his Anarchist Principles--All Law to be Rejected and all Lawyers killed--The Adamites and the Anabaptists--Jean Meslier the Priest of the Ardennes--Anacharsis Clootz--Diderot and his famous Distich--Jean Jacques Rousseau, Hebert and Babeuf-- Claude Pelletier--The Seven Sages of Anarchism: Godwin, Proudhon, Stirner, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Tucker, Tolstoi--The Views of Jean Grave and Charles Malato--The Propaganda by Deed--Differentiation of Nihilism from Anarchism.

      BROADLY speaking, the Anarchist is a man who claims to be a law unto himself, and doubtless there have been Anarchists ever since the world began. Those who accept the Mosaic account of the Creation may, perhaps, regard Adam as the first Anarchist, whilst scientists may be inclined to seek the latter, not in any Garden of Eden, but among the cave or lake dwellers of the prehistoric ages Coming, however, to historical antiquity, it is claimed that most of the ideas of the modern Anarchist schools figured among the theories expounded by one or another Greek philosopher, such for instance as Zeno of Cittium, the founder of the Stoic school. Again, among the ninety different sects into which, as St Augustine tells us, Christianity was divided already in the third century of our era, there were some holding views very similar to those which have been enunciated in our time by partisans of Anarchism. ID this connection, the Gnostics may be particularly mentioned. Much later, that is in the twelfth and the early part of the thirteenth century, one comes across a few scattered spiritualistic Anarchists, such as Joachim, the prophesying Abbot of Fiore in Calabria, and Amaury of Chartres, whose bones (after his death) were burnt together with his books, which had been adjudged heretical; whilst his more prominent disciples, nearly all of whom were priests, were committed alive to the flames.

      In English history the first occasion, to our knowledge, on which Anarchist theories came prominently to the front was that of the great rising of 1381, commonly called Wat Tyler's Rebellion. It will be remembered that the more immediate cause of that insurrection was the levying of a poll-tax, but behind that impost there was the tyrannical Statute of Labourers, which had proceeded from the great ravages caused by the Black Death some years previously. Those ravages had created a shortage in the labour market, of which shortage the workers naturally desired to avail themselves in order to obtain better remuneration. But it had been enacted by the aforesaid statute that wages should remain precisely the same as they had been before the Black Death. Thus, it is not surprising that a popular outbreak should have ensued. Although the part played by Kent in the insurrection, under the leadership of Wat Tyler, is the best remembered (as is only natural, for it was the Kentish rebels who penetrated into London), the rising was also of a very threatening character in other counties, notably those of East Anglia. It spread not only through Norfolk and Suffolk, but through Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire as well, and the south-east of Yorkshire was also affected. Two priests figured conspicuously in the rebellion. In East Anglia there was John Wraw of Ringsfield, near Beccles' and in Kent there was the famous John Ball who on account of his connection with that county has been sometimes called the "Mad Priest of Kent." It is not known, however, with any degree of certainty in what part of England he was born. He may have been a Yorkshireman, as the first mention of his name is in connection with the abbey of St Mary's at York, whence he removed into Essex. In Church doctrines he largely followed Wycliffe, to whose views, however, he added some of his own, which were often antagonistic to the secular as well as to the ecclesiastical authority. More than once Ball came into conflict with his bishops, and at the time of Wat Tyler's rising in 1381 he was a prisoner in Maidstone goal. The insurgents having released him, he became one of their leaders, and, as we know, his exhortations exercised a powerful influence on their minds.

      In several respects Ball's teaching was distinctly of an Anarchist character. Preaching the establishment of a new order of things founded on social equality, he denounced and rejected all laws, and declared every person who upheld them to be a public enemy. In his opinion it was not sufficient for the rebels to kill the Lords of the kingdom, they must also kill all the lawyers --advice which the insurgents were quite willing to follow--and although the men of the law often managed to save themselves by flight, it is said that every time the rebels were able to identify a lawyer's house on their way towards London, they destroyed it.

      With the connivance of Sibley, the alderman of the ward of Billingsgate, who opened to them the gate of London bridge, they entered the city, and before long hastened westward, where, whilst some were burning the Savoy palace, then the residence of John of Gaunt, whom they particularly hated, others invaded and fired the Temple, whence (Knighton, the chronicler, tells us) the terrified lawyers had scuttled away " with the agility of rats or evil spirits." One can understand their precipitation, for the insurgent leaders had issued express orders to kill them as well as all persons in any way connected with the Exchequer.

      Wat Tyler's animosity against the men of the law was apparently as great as John Ball's, but at the famous; interview with Richard II, which ended so tragically for himself, Wat's demands were not quite so sweeping as some of the priest's. He did not insist on the abolition of all law, but only on that of all "vexatious" laws. In addition to that, however, signori and villenage were to be abolished, and, when some provision had been made for the clergy and the monks, all the property of the Church was to be distributed among the parishioners of the different localities.

      There are many people, nowadays, who would be inclined to support Wat Tyler's chief demands--people who are in no degree Anarchists; but the views of John Ball went far beyond those of the principal insurgent leader, and as M. Andre Reville pointed out in his valuable study of this great English rebellion, there can be no doubt that Ball was a prototype of the modern Communist-Anarchist. Moreover, much the same views as Ball's appear to have been expounded by his fellow priest John Wraw in East Anglia, where Geoffroy Litster, a dyer, occupied virtually the same position as that held by Wat Tyler in regard to the Kentish part of the insurrection. This, as we know, was eventually suppressed, but it resulted says Professor Oman, in the "Political History of England," that the Lords were taught caution with respect to their manor rights, and that the bonds of villenage were in a measure relaxed.

      The next historical outbreak in which one finds Anarchist theories conspicuous, was that of the Adamites, who appeared in Bohemia and Moravia late in the fifteenth century' and whom Ziska eventually attacked and almost annihilated. A more notable sect, however, was that of the German Anabaptists, who arose early in the sixteenth century. Apart from all religious questions such as that of re-baptism, various political and social matters were prominent features of the programme of the Anabaptist sect. When the peasantry of Franconia and Swabia rose in 1525, Munzer, Carlstadt, and in particular Nicholas Storck, a disciple of Luther's, preached not only the doctrine of absolute equality, but independence of all civil authority as well. Like John Ball, moreover they denounced all laws and all lawyers, whilst with respect to property their doctrine was simply Communism. At Munster, under Bockhold the Dutchman, better known as John of Leyden, they ultimately practiced polygamy and free-love. Virtually the only difference between the modern Anarchist and the German Anabaptist of those times, is that the former (unless he be of the Tolstoyan school) entirely rejects religion.

      We now come to the eighteenth century when we again find a minister of worship, this time a French one, expounding Anarchist theories. This was Abbe Jean Meslier, whom some folk once imagined to be a mythical personage invented by Voltaire, but who, it appears, was the son of a serge-weaver, and was born in 1678, afterwards becoming parish priest of Etrepigny in the Ardennes Whilst leading a life of great personal austerity, Meslier showed himself extremely generous and kind-hearted, and was greatly beloved by his parishioners, who never imagined that Monsieur le Cur was in reality an infidel, one who discharged his dutie; in a mere mechanical fashion, and who after long reveries and repeated perusals of Bayle and Montaigne had ended by rejecting all the dogmas of Christianity. At Meslier's death, however, the discovery was made of three copies of a manuscript covering nearly four hundred sheets of paper, which the deceased entitled his will and testament. A copy of the document was shown to Voltaire, who, at the time, paid little attention to it; but thirty years later, at the height of his battle with the Roman Catholic Church, he bethought him of Mesler's testament and gave it to the world in an abridged form. "L'Extrait du Testament de Jean Meslier," which was divided into two parts--the first being an attack on all revealed religion and the second embracing codes of atheism and materialism--speedily leapt into fame, and circulated widely for several years, though the Paris Parliament ultimately ordered it to be burnt, and Rome included it in the "Index expurgatorius." Meantime, Baron d'Holbach, by his "Bon Sens du Cure Meslier," had also contributed to popularise many of the ideas of the renegade priest.

      Apart from religious questions the "Testament" has been described as the greatest attack made on the social system since the time of the Anabaptists. During the French Revolution the utopian Baron von Clootz, who assumed the forename of Anacharsis (which was not an inappropriate one for a man whose ideas often bordered on Anarchism), endeavored to propagate Meslier's print cripples, and on one occasion asked the Convention to raise a statue to him, with the inscription: "To the first priest who had the courage and sense to abandon religious error."

      In a good deal of the French philosophy of the eighteenth century one will find theories suggesting the Anarchist doctrines of to-day. Their essence is given in Diderot's often-quoted distich:

      "La nature n'a fait ni serviteurs ni maitres, Je ne veux ni donner ni recevoir des lots."

      Jean Jacques Rousseau also undoubtedly expounded certain Anarchist views whilst pleading for a return to an ideal state of nature. A little later, during the great Revolution, there was Anacharsis Clootz, whom we have already mentioned, and who after championing Mahommedanism in his earlier years, began to preach materialism with a quite apostolic zeal. He perished on the scaffold at the same time as his friend the Communist- Anarchist Jacques Rene Hebert, who, after beginning life as a thief (he robbed two employers in succession), became editor of that notorious journal " Le Pere Duchesne," and deputy-procuror of the Commune of Paris. As will be remembered, Danton and Robespierre combined to destroy him and his principal partisans, who were all sent to the guillotine.

      At the same time there had arisen a certain Francois Noel Babeuf, who nicknamed himself "Gracchus " and who had begun life by committing forgery. Establishing a journal entitled "Le Tribim du Peuple," Babeuf alternately attacked and supported the Jacobins in its pages, his vagaries frequently leading to his arrest. Indeed, he sometimes found himself in great peril, yet contrived to keep his head throughout the Terror, only to lose it, however, under the ensuing regime of the Directory Babeuf, like Hebert, may be described as a Communist- Anarchist, though their views differed in several respects Here let us add that during the Revolutionary period in France a propounder of Anarchist theories raised his voice in England, this being William Godwin, the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, that precursor of the twentieth century suffragette. Of Godwin's principal views we shall presently give some particulars.

      Reverting to France, we know of no writer there of any note who expounded Anarchist theories under Napoleon or during the reactionary rule of Louis XVIII. and Charles X.; but in the last of those reigns the Saint Simonian Socialist school enunciated theories of which a few are included in the modern Anarchist creeds. Then in Louis Philippe's time, Anarchist ideas were broached by Claude Pelletier, who became a member of the Legislature under the Second Republic, but was expelled from France at Louis Napoleon's Coup d'Etat, and ended by dying in obscurity at New York. His views were somewhat similar to those of his friend Pierre Joseph Proudhon, of whom we shall soon have to speak.

      A few years ago a German writer, Herr Paul Eltzbacher, produced an elaborate textbook. in which he reviewed and compared the principles laid down by seven prominent exponents of Anarchist theories.] We cannot be quite positive as to how it happened that he dealt with exactly seven writers, but we think he must have done so intentionally, having bethought him, not of the seven mortal sins or the seven sleepers, but of either the seven virtues or the seven wise men of Greece, and that the seven individuals figuring in his book are therefore to be regarded as the Seven Sages of Anarchism. Here are their names in the order in which they are given by Herr Eltzbacher: William Godwin, Pierre Joseph Proudhon, "Max Stirner," Michael Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin Benjamin R. Tucker, Lyof Tolstoi; that is: one Englishman, one Frenchman, one German, one American and three Russians.

      The reader desirous of becoming fully acquainted with their views should consult Herr Eltzbacher's painstaking work. Here we will merely glance at a few essential points. In the first place, let us say that according to the systems of Bakunin, Kropotkin and Stirner the triumph of Anarchism will be brought about by insurrectionary means. Reformatory means, however, are advocated by Godwin and Proudhon; whilst Tucker and Tolstoi preach passive resistance to the existing order of society

      Godwin's theories are set out in his " Enquiry concerning Political Justice," which was first issued in 1793, and in which he wrote that Anarchy " is unquestionably a dreadful remedy . . . but a sure one," afterwards describing law as "an institution of the most pernicious kind." Plato had declared that without law we should live like beasts, and Epicurus that men would devour one another. Nevertheless Godwin rejected it absolutely as well as both those institutions, the State and property He favored Communalism,1 but, apart from that, he desired the absolute dissolution of all government. Unfortunately, the profession of those principles did no prevent Godwin from sponging at all times and season on his son- in- law Shelley, and from living, in his last years, on an Exchequer sinecure.

      Proudhon, who for his part frankly proclaimed himself an Anarchist-- in fact it was he who first familiarize French people with the term--declared justice to the supreme law, and rejected all State laws and legal rules excepting the one that " contracts must be lived up to." He also rejected the State, and simply advocated a " social human life," based on the aforementioned rule respecting contracts. The life in question would be Anarchy, which might, perhaps, be federated. With respect to property, Proudhon's views were summed up in his famous but scarcely original aphorism that it is theft 1 Therefore he entirely rejected the idea of it. As for the realization of his system he instructed those who recognized the truth to convince others how necessary the change was for the sake of justice. Then, when the idea had been sufficiently popularized by those who believed in it, the law was to transform itself spontaneously, the State and property were in like manner to drop away and the new condition would appear. Proudhon held no brief for physical force; his dictum was that the Social Revolution could come by enlightenment.

      Nevertheless, he was regarded in his day as a terrible bugtear. Very different from his pacific programme was that of the Bavarian Anarchist, who wrote under the name of Max Stirner. For him "self-welfare" was the one supreme law, and he rejected all others without limitation. Such being the case, he naturally repudiated the State, for no State is possible without law. Social life--in his system--was to be an "union of egoists." Property was to be abolished and replaced by a distribution of commodities based on the principle of self-welfare. As soon as a sufficient number of men had recognized that their own welfare was the highest law, they were to bring about by force the abrogation of all other law, the State and property, and to introduce the never

      Bakunin comes next in Herr Eltzbacher's list of sages. He is known to have enunciated more than one contradictory proposition, and in this respect it is urged that at certain times he propounded not his own views but those of others, such as Nechayoff, by whom he was temporarily influenced. We deal with him in detail in the second chapter of this work, and will only say here that, according to Herr Eltzbacher, Bakunin's chief theories were as follows: In the gradual progress of mankind from a bestial to a human existence, enacted law would disappear, so would the State, and so would property m its present form, particularly unlimited private property. Private property would be allowed in objects of consumption, but not in land, in instruments of labour, or any other forms of capital. These would be social property only. At the same time, there was to be no central authority, but a communal system, and the change was to be brought about by insurrectionary means.

      Prince Kropotkin's principal views were that the supreme essential law resided in the evolutionary one of mankind's progress from a less happy existence to one as happy as possible, from which basis sprang the commandments of justice and energy. During the aforesaid progress of mankind, enacted law (not law itself) would disappear. Enacted law, according to Kropotkin, in a hindrance to mankind; and unwritten customs customary law the common law of England would suffice to maintain a good understanding. The State would disappear, and its place would be taken by a social human life based (as in Proudhon's theory) on the rule that " contracts must be lived up to." Private property in its present form would also disappear, and only social property exist. Future society would be communistic (as in Bakunin's system) and the change from the present to the new order of things would be effected by a Social Revolution--that is, by "a violent subversion of the old order, which will come to pass of itself, but for which it is the function of those who foresee the course of evolution to prepare men's minds." Destruction, we are told, will be the first act. There will not be a reign of terror, but there will be victims. Government having first been overthrown, property will be abolished by "forcible expropriation of the broadest kind." Afterwards will come "reshaping".

      There is a great difference between many of the views held by Bakunin and Kropotkin, and those expressed by their compatriot, the late Count Tolstoi.2 For him the supreme law was love. He rejected legal enactments not unconditionally but as institutions for the more highly developed peoples of our time. He was opposed on principle to every rule based on human will and upheld by force. Love was to be the one law of man. The State was rejected, as State rule is based on physical force; and property was also condemned, as it s an institution upheld by the policeman and the soldier. A new condition, in which law, property and the State would be abolished, was to be brought about not by violence but by refusing obedience to the existing order of things, and by conforming one s life to one's increase of knowledge.

      Tucker's Anarchist doctrine is based on the law of self interest, whence he derives a law of equal liberty. The Anarchist, says he, is at once both a utilitarian and an egoist in the fullest sense.

      Under certain conditions, which he defines, Tucker has no objection to law; and he upholds the rule that contracts must be lived up to. Further, provided that everybody is guaranteed the product of his labour, he has no objection to property, but he absolutely rejects the State. One curious point of his system is that he advocates the issue of free money, that is of any money that is not fraudulent. This, says he, should be as free as the making of shoes. He follows Tolstoi n proposing that the new social condition should be brought about by passive resistance, holding that Force should only be used as a last resort. He formerly held that the days of armed Revolutions had altogether gone by 1 Terrorism and assassination might be necessary but would have to consist of "a series of acts of individual dynamiters"; and, in any case, the Social Revolution would be chiefly brought about by refusing obedience in to the existing order of things. Tucker particularly called attention to the wonderful success of the Irish Land League's "No rent" policy, and advised its general adoption. In his latest pronouncement one observes some mod) fiction of some of his earlier views.2 For instance, he now holds that monopoly has increased to such a degree that only political or revolutionary forces can contend with it, and that there must be a great leveling before the Anarchist economic solutions can be applied. Meantime, they should be taught to the smug generations; but, says Tucker, "education is a slow process, and for this reason we must hope that the day of readjustment may not come too quickly. Anarchists who endeavor to hasten it by joining in the propaganda of State Socialism or Revolution make a sad mistake indeed." Briefly, Tucker feels that if there is any undue haste the past will simply be repeated in the future, as people will not have had time to understand and appreciate the advantages of Anarchism.

      We have now passed in review the chief principles of Herr Eltzbacher's "Seven Sages" and at the risk of a little repetition we will finish by summarizing the theories propounded by two other Anarchist leaders, who might well have figured in the Eltzbacher gallery that is Jean Grave and Charles Malato. Grave's principal work, "La Societe mourante et l'Anarchie," and Malato's "Philosophie de l'Anarchie" have, indeed, exercised great influence during recent years in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. It is laid down in these treatises that each individual born into the world should be able to develop in accordance with his natural rights, and that all government and authority should be eliminated from the social system. Every human being, it is argued, has a right to the greatest possible sum of happiness, which right, however, cannot be exercised in the existing social system. Central or superior authority, religion, family ties, property-rights, militarism, patriotism, and other matters, have built up a regime which cannot be justified in logic, and which, in practice, is evil and criminal. This regime must be cast down, say Grave and Malato, and replaced by one of true liberty and fraternity, that is by a commonalty in which each will work according to his strength and receive according to his needs. An individual is held to be the best judge of his own capacity. Personal interest, rightly understood, tends to the increase of the general well-being. The individual has every reason to desire that there may be equity in all economic intercourse. Under the Anarchist dispensation all beings would be equal, and all unions1 would be free. It is urged that even if man is not naturally good and kindly he is at least capable of becoming so, and of realizing that his own interests are inseparable from those of mankind in general. It would be possible and right, we are told, to replace the present system of unjust and oppressive laws by a state of common brotherly customs which would be universally accepted and observed.

      In this wise, then, does the Utopian dream run on, including within its scope at times certain features of the Socialist systems, such for instance as the collectivity of the means of production, but at other moments (as will have been already noticed) differing widely from Socialist doctrines, which embrace in various degrees the principles of authority and compulsion. Further, while both Socialists and Anarchists desire the overthrow of society as it is now constituted, the former (except in some extreme cases) seek to effect this object by exclusively lawful means--argument, persuasion, the power of the vote, and so forth. As we have seen, there are certain Anarchists such as the followers of Proudhon and Tolstoi, who also favour only pacific means; but these are distinctly in a minority. Most Anarchists, indeed, not only declare that laws are altogether wrong, and should not be obeyed but hold that the social change must be effected by revolutionary courses. In that respect the Anarchist is at least logical, for the employment of lawful means would be an acknowledgment of the authority of laws, an authority which almost every subdivision of the sect expressly denies.

      If one accept the proposition that all laws and authority are wrong, one has to accept others. It becomes right to rise against laws and against all who are in authority, and to throw down the whole social fabric which law and authority have reared. In spite of the views of Tolstoi and Proudhon is there really the faintest chance of effecting such an overthrow by argument, persuasion or the power of the vote? No, reply eight out of every ten Anarchists. It follows then that violence is legitimate. It may, perhaps, seem foolish for anybody to suppose that violence could succeed unless there were wide- spread, concerted action, but in spite of such warnings as those which we have quoted from Tucker, many a militant Anarchist has reasoned: "There must be a beginning somewhere, and somehow. A signal must be given, an example must be set, which others will follow. Deeds are required for the propagation of our principles, and if we cannot as yet destroy society, at least we may shake it, pending the time when, having recruited adherents far and wide, there will be a general victorious assault on all that now exists, when our triumph Will enable us to establish the Millennium throughout the world."

      We know only too well what has often ensued when a militant Anarchist's thoughts have taken that turn -- the knife has flashed, the bullet has sped, the bomb has exploded. Here and there a king, a president, or an empress has been killed. Many a lowly one, as well as Some of the highest, have been struck down in one or another country. What has that mattered to the Anarchist? He has been carrying into effect the Propaganda by Deed, spreading his principles, sending a message to inspirit every timid comrade and administering a shaming to society pending the time of the Great Assault of which he dreams.

      One word more, Nihilism and Anarchism are often confounded. It is of course quite true that men like Bakunin influenced both movements, but there is a real difference between them. Briefly put, the Nihilist's object (in theory) is the complete destruction of existing social conditions without any thought of what should replace them. You destroy, regardless of what may happen afterwards, leaving the future, indeed, to take care of itself. The Anarchist, however, says: "Destroy, and let the future be exactly such as I define." On the other hand, in practice, Nihilism has mainly been a long Revolutionary movement against an extremely despotic Government, for which reason it has found many sympathizers. Now and again, in our pages we shall have to allude to the Nihilists and some of their doings, but Nihilism generally is outside the scope of this book, being, as already stated, distinct from Anarchism. Let us now see how the latter first intruded into the practical politics of our times. That will best be ascertained by following the career of one, who, although he may have been anticipated in theory by such men as Godwin, Proudhon and even Tucker's master, Warren, was practically the father of modern Anarchism.

CHAPTER 2: BAKUNIN, THE FATHER OF MODERN ANARCHISM

     Birth, Parentage and Early Life of Michael Bakunin. His personal Appearance His early Residence at Berlin and Paris--He takes to Revolutionary Courses.--His Exploits in Austria, Prussia, and Saxony (1848- 9)--He is sentenced to Death three Times, but reprieved--His Relations, the Muravieffs--Exiled to Siberia, he escapes to California- State of Europe early in 1859--Bakunin develops Anarchist Ideas--His Stay in London--Origin and Establishment of the International Working Men's Association-- Karl Marx, its Dictator--Bakunin's mysterious Movements--He joins the International--His Rivalry with Marx--His Speech at a Congress--He foments with Cluseret a Rising of the Reds at Lyons (1870)--His final Split with Marx He founds the Federation Jurassienne--His Force of Anarchist Spies and Missionaries --His wealthy Partisans--His Death and his Writings.

     IN Zola's novel, "Germinal," there are occasional hints of a mysterious personage, who never actually appears in the story, but who is said to hold modern civilization in the hollow of his hand, and to be the master of Souvarine that mild- mannered Nihilist who beguiles his spare time in playing with a pet rabbit, but who ends by almost destroying the Voreux pit after the miners' great strike. The man whom Zola had in his mind when referring to that mysterious personage was Michael Alexandrovitch Bakunin, grand master of that secret "Order of International Brotherhood," whose members flitted here and there through Europe on missions which only too often signified death and destruction.

     Bakunin's native spot was Pryamukhino in the Torshok district of the Government of Twer, belonging to what is known as greater Russia; and he came into the world in that year of stress and storm, 1814, a short time after Napoleon's first overthrow, and while the Russian Emperor was fording it in Paris, with his Cossacks encamped in the Champs Elysees. The Bakunin family were extensive landowners, and belonged to the aristocracy; and one might have thought it unlikely that any scion of theirs would become one of the nineteenth century's foremost Revolutionaries. Yet history tells us that members of the nobility have helped on many Revolutions. There were peers who sided with the Parliament against Charles I. There were a hundred scions of the old noblesse prominent among those who overthrew the Monarchy of the Bourbons. Even Robespierre belonged to the nobility of the gown. There were nobles also among those who compassed the death of Gustavus III. of Sweden. There were nobles again among the men who, when Napoleon was First Consul, attempted to destroy him by means of the infernal machine of the Rue Nicaise. Further, Orsini, who attempted to blow up the third Napoleon, was descended from one of the greatest aristocratic houses of Italy. In Russia, as the history of Nihilism proves, the number of nobles who have figured on the Revolutionary side is beyond computation, and Michael Bakunin, from whom the Nihilist movement took a part of its creed, was not the first among them.

     Being intended by his family for the career of arms he was sent to the Cadet School at St. Petersburg, which he left in 1835 with the rank of ensign in the artillery of the Imperial Guard. Remembering what he was like when we saw him in Switzerland, in his last years, it is difficult for us to picture him as a soldier, erect and trim in some smart uniform, for at sixty years of age his bearing was ungainly, and his general appearance slovenly in the extreme. But he had evidently possessed great physical strength, and his voice had remained imperious, like that of a man accustomed to command. The general aspects of his massive figure recalled that of the late Lord Salisbury, the slight stoop being identical with the English statesman's. The flat yet fleshy nose, however, was intensely Russian--of that type of Russian, beneath which' as Napoleon said, one will find the Tartar. In the general shape of the head there was again something of Lord Salisbury, blended with something suggestive of Gambetta. But both the Englishman and the Frenchman were much better looking than Bakunin. His brow, lofty like theirs, was crowned, to the last days, by a tangle of wavy, frizzy hair, which fell to his shoulders. An expression of great power shone in the baggy eyes, shaded by heavy brows. Below the mustache appeared a thick and sensual underlip, and then came a full, unkempt, frizzy beard, blanched in parts, and much of the Salisbury pattern. On the whole, it was a strong and somewhat repulsive face, one which might have appealed to Donatello, when in one of his realistic moods, and even more so to Rodin.

     From what we have said it will be gathered that Bakunin scarcely suggested a man subjected in his youth to military training. In point of fact he remained in the army but a very short time. The military profession was distasteful to him. He was not yet a Revolutionary, but some little knowledge came to him of the Hegelian philosophy, which, springing from the doctrines of Kant, Schelling and Fichte, was bringing about an evolution of German thought; and obtaining leave of absence from his military duties Bakunin returned home for a time, and there studied such German works as had come into his hands. In 1840 he repaired to Berlin where he again became absorbed in philosophical studies; and then, attracted by the general unrest in France, where Louis Philippe was reigning, he repaired thither and made a number of friends among people of more or less unconventional or advanced views. They included George Sand the novelist, whom " Indiana" and "Consuelo" had already rendered famous, and to whom Bakunin was undoubtedly attracted by the outspokenness with which various social questions were handled in her writings. But he also met Pierre Joseph Proudhon, one of the Anarchist notabilities mentioned in our first chapter, and his intercourse with that leader of advanced thought greatly influenced his mind.

     Even in those days, however, the Russian Government had plenty of spies abroad. It heard that young Bakunin kept bad company in Paris, that he mixed also with Polish exiles, and even dabbled in Socialism with sundry Swiss reformers; and thus he suddenly received a peremptory order to return to his native country. As he refused to do so, all the property he had inherited from his parents was confiscated to the Czar. That was certainly not the right way to cure Bakunin of Revolutionary tendencies. It only confirmed him in them, and besides writing fiery articles for " La Reforme " (a journal edited by Flocon, who at the French Revolution of 1848 became secretary of the Provisional Government), he made speeches to the Polish refugees in Paris, urging an alliance between them and the Revolutionaries of Russia with the object of freeing their respective countries. That suggestion was answered by a peremptory order to quit French territory in twenty- four hours, the Russian ambassador having complained to the French government. Bakunin thereupon took refuge in Belgium where he made some very ardent disciples, notably at Liege and Verviers. In later years, when he had finally adopted Anarchist principles, quite a colony of people believing in his teaching was to be found in the valley of the Vesdre. But Louis Philippe, King of the French, was overthrown (February, 1848), and Bakunin thereupon returned to Paris, where several of his friends had suddenly risen to positions of authority or influence. Is it true that the Government of the new French Republic gave him a special secret mission to stir up revolutionary agitation across the Rhine ? That view has been held by men worthy of credit, still there is no actual proof that such was the case. Bakunin certainly did repair to Germany and Austria, but he may well have acted on his own initiative, carried away by the ardor of his temperament. The suspicious matter was that he suddenly had a considerable sum of money at his disposal and that its origin was a mystery. In any case he evinced remarkable activity and daring throughout that " Year of Revolutions," 1848. He helped to stir up the people of Prague against the Hapsburgs, he was with those of Berlin in their rising against the Hohenzollerns, and he became conspicuous among those of Dresden and Chemnitz who rebelled, for a moment victoriously, against the Saxon King. The latter fled in terror from his capital, but a Prussian army brought him back there; and soon afterwards Bakunin was taken prisoner at Chemnitz.

     Now came, in rapid succession, some of the most extraordinary episodes in any Revolutionary's career. Assuredly it is not often that a man is sentenced to death on three successive occasions by the judges of three different governments, and yet emerges from those sentences unscathed either by the firing- party's bullets, the hangman's rope or the headsman's ax. Yet such was Bakunin's experience. Arrested by the Prussian soldiery he was carried to that famous Saxon state prison, the fortress of Konigstein, which rises nine hundred feet above the Elbe in that region of green sandstone heights known as Saxon Switzerland. At Konigstein during the Seven Years War, had Augustus III. Of Saxony sought a refuge with his treasures and his archives; there, too, had Frederick Augustus II. found a safe asylum when driven from Dresden by Bakunin and the other Revolutionaries. Now it was Bakunin's turn to be pent within the walls of the fortress which Napoleon cannonaded in vain. Go there to- day, and they will still show you the cell in which the Founder of Anarchism was imprisoned.

     With Bakunin were Huebner, a member of the Saxon Provisional Government, and Heintze, another leader of the abortive Revolution. They were brought to trial, convicted and sentenced to death; but although, from the standpoint of the Saxon Crown, Bakunin was one of the guiltiest of those who had endeavored to overturn the monarchy, he was to his great astonishment, reprieved, his sentence being commuted to one of imprisonment for life. But at this juncture Austria claimed him, for had he not incited the Czechs of Prague against their Hapsburg ruler ? Saxony admitted that it was so, and Bakunin was therefore speedily surrendered to the Austrians. Tried at Prague, he was for the second time condemned to death; but, more fortunate than many Bohemian and Hungarian patriots of those days, he again escaped the supreme penalty.

     However, his troubles were by no means over, for the Russian Government now demanded the surrender of his person. Austria granted it, and Bakunin (who had probably ceased to be astonished at anything) was tried once more, sentenced to death, and again reprieved. By .| order of the Emperor Nicholas, this Russian noble who had become an international Revolutionist, was cast into one of the dungeons of the famous Petropawlowski prison where he remained for several years. It has been said that he spent part of the time in one of the sebaceous cells of Schlusselburg, the oubliettes of that terrible lake- fortress whence very few prisoners have emerged alive; but that is not certain. At all events Bakunin was able to endure his captivity, and in 1857 the Emperor Alexander II. commuted his detention into exile to Siberia.

     The governor of that province then happened to be a member of the well- known Muravieff family, to which Bakunin, through his mother, was closely related. These Muravieffs were men whose natures greatly varied. There was Muravieff- Apostol, an early champion of Russian freedom, who was hanged by order of Nicholas I. In 1826 there was Muravieff- Karsky so called because it was he who besieged Kars during the Crimean War, a man of high character, fully alive to the heroism of Fenwick Williams, and his starving forces, and desirous, as be himself put it, of " arranging a capitulation that would satisfy the demands of war, without outraging humanity." But there was also Michael Muravieff the Hangman, the terror of the Lithuanian Poles, the man who stamped out rebellion by giving the significant order to take no prisoners, who caused wounded insurgents to be dispatched on the battlefield, priests to be executed, women to be flogged.

     Fortunately for Bakunin, the Muravieff who governed Siberia at the time of his deportation thither, was not the ferocious Michael, who would have taken no account whatever of a prisoner's relationship to himself, but Muravieff- Amursky, who was a very different man. He derived his appellation of Amursky from the circumstance that it was he who had added to the Russian Empire those spacious territories watered by the Amur, whence, in recent times, the Muscovite forces descended into Manchuria to be driven back by the power of the Japanese.

     Muravieff- Amursky treated his kinsman Bakunin with humanity, leniency even. All sorts of regulations were relaxed in his favour, and in some degree he was even able to pursue his philosophical studies, but he found himself far removed from civilization, and was eager to return to it. In the prime of life, a man of powerful will and great physical vigor, he felt that he could dare and endure anything to regain his freedom, and he therefore resolved on an attempt at escape. We know not whether his flight was connived at, but, in any case, where so many had failed, he succeeded. After suffering countless hardships he reached the coast, was able to take ship, and landed in California, a free man once more. That was early in the year 1859.

     Here let us pause for a moment to consider what must have been the feelings of a man who, for ten years or so, had undergone such experiences as Bakunin's. He had certainly been a Revolutionary prior to 1848, but since then the iron had entered deeply into his soul, and he came forth from prison and exile embittered beyond all measure, given over to the most extreme ideas, hating authority in every form, inimical to the whole constitution of society, and now that he was free again, disposed to carry Revolutionary courses farther than he had ever done before.

     That mood of his will be still better understood on recalling the political and social conditions of the time. What was the position of the masses, here, in England, fifty- two years ago? What was their position abroad? How much or rather how little liberty prevailed in most of the countries of Europe? What political and social rights, if any, did the working- classes possess there? Despotism had revived after the popular explosion of '48. Russia continued in absolute bondage; Alexander II. had not yet freed the serfs. Poland was preparing for the final effort of despair. Austria ruled her subjects with an iron hand. Prussia was beginning to develop militarism The rest of Germany was given over to kinglets, princeliest and dukelets who, even when constitutions had been wrung from them by their subjects, had curtailed them or kept them confined within the narrowest limits

     France meanwhile was in the hands of Napoleon III. who had not yet relaxed the stringent personal power which he had exercised since the coup d'etat, and who was only just preparing to redeem, in part, his pledges to the House of Savoy. Much of northern Italy was Austrian territory; elsewhere granddukes were kept on their thrones by the power of Austrian bayonets. Bomba reigned at Naples. Garibaldi's greatest page was as yet unwritten. Greece was growing more and more restless under Otho of Bavaria. Spain, the land of pronunciamientos, had become, under the sovereignty of Isabella II., the prey now of one marshal and now of another. Even in the most liberally governed countries the sum of public liberties and rights was nothing compared with what it is to- day. In most directions it was the aristocracies and not the democracies that ruled.

     Thus one can form some idea of what must have been the feelings of a man like Bakunin when he emerged from ten years of captivity, swayed in part by personal grievances, and in part by the aspect of Europe as he beheld it. All that had to be changed, radically, completely Tinkering was of no use. No government could be trusted. There must be a clean sweep of everything No more authority, no more laws, no more control of any kind, but a return to the times when " there was no king in Israel," and when " every man did that which was right in his own eyes." Never again ought anyone to have cause to say: "Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law"; but one and all should be able to repeat:

     "I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

     That Bakunin's great desire on recovering his freedom was to see the existing social fabric overthrown, and replaced by an anarchical state--a universal system of laissez faire, as Herbert Spencer has put it, is certain, but some time was yet to elapse before he could give full play to his ideas. From America he made his way to London, where he arrived in 1860 or 1861, and where, among other Russian exiles, he found Alexander Hertzen and Ogareff, those early Nihilists who were then issuing a famous Revolutionary organ, the " Kolokol," otherwise " The Bell." For a while Bakunin assisted them with his pen, and although much of the " Kolokol's " philosophy was too deep to be grasped by average minds, his own articles were quite explicit, and distinctly anarchical in their tendency. When the great Polish Insurrection of 1863 broke out Bakunin became anxious to repair to Lithuania, but could get no farther than Malmo in Sweden, whence, fearing arrest, he made his way disguised and by devious routes to Switzerland, then the only continental asylum open to the political refugee.

     We must now turn aside for a moment. Already as far back as 1847, when the Chartist agitation was reaching a climax in England, Karl Marx, the famous German Socialist, who was four years younger than Bakunin, had drawn up, in conjunction with his friend Engels, a manifesto calling on the proletarians of every country to band themselves together for their rights and liberties.

     The principles on which an international society of workers might be established were defined in that manifest, but several years elapsed before such a society was founded At a Congress on works of benevolence held at Brussels in 1856, a Bavarian delegate suggested the formation of some such institution with the object of effecting an international agreement in regard to hours of labour, salaries and similar matters, in order to lessen economic competition, and improve the circumstances of the working classes generally. Nothing was done, however, until September 1864, when at a meeting in favour of the Poles, held at St. Martin's Hall in London, a speaker laid it down that the Poles were suffering undoubtedly, but that there was a great nation even more oppressed than they--the whole nation of the working classes; and he urged that a cry of deliverance should go forth from that meeting.

     This appeal led to a Congress at Brussels in the ensuing year, when a committee was selected to draft the constitution of an " International Working Men's Association." Karl Marx chiefly framed or inspired the statutes which were afterwards endorsed by a Congress held in September 1866 at Geneva, where some sixty delegates, nearly a third of whom were Frenchmen, assembled. In 1867 came a Congress at Lausanne, followed by one at Brussels in 1868, when the Socialist views of the delegates became extremely prominent, and began to inspire the Continental Governments with alarm.

     Bakunin meantime had been flitting from Switzerland to France, thence to Belgium, and thence to Switzerland again At this period of his life he was constantly disappearing, then suddenly turning up unexpectedly in some out of the way place. When Berezowski the Pole attempted to shoot Czar Alexander II. in the Bois de Boulogne in 1867, Bakunin was believed to be in Paris. But the French police did not find him there. For three months, indeed, he lay quite perdu, in some unknown spot. This was the time when the legend began of the mysterious leader of a secret force of Revolutionaries, who threatened every throne in Europe. Outwardly, however, Bakunin was merely a member of a certain League of Peace and Liberty established in Switzerland, and whose views seemed to him to be far too moderate. He attended this League's Congress at Berne late in 1868, and urged the adoption of a much more advanced policy, in which course he was supported by Elisee Reclus, the well- known French geographer, who had become one of his disciples, as well as by Jaclard, who afterwards figured in the Paris Commune. But out of IIO delegates only thirty voted on Bakunin's side; and on finding themselves beaten these thirty men seceded and formed a so- called Alliance of the Social Democracy, which, in the ensuing year, adhered in fractions to the International Working Men's Association, of which Karl Marx was, as we have indicated, the presiding genius.

     There was not room for two such men as Marx and Bakunin in the same organizations. Each had a powerful will, and the domineering instinct was strong in both of them. Neither could brook a rival. Besides, there were important points of difference between their respective theories; and thus a struggle as to who should be the master, who should lay down the law to the rest of the Association, became inevitable. That Bakunin, with his Anarchist tendencies, should have sought to impose his will on others, may, at first sight, seem somewhat remarkable, but either he was unwilling as yet to preach the absolute negation of all authority, or else-- what is more likely--he limited that negation to all authority but his own.

     At this time the International was in a flourishing state, ever recruiting more and more adherents from among working- class organizations all the world over, to such a point indeed that " The Times " declared that one had to go back to the early days of Christianity to find a parallel for any such rapid adoption of principles and increase of numbers. On September 5, 1869, the Association's annual Congress opened at Basle, and Bakunin figured conspicuously in the proceedings. He and his followers represented the Communist system, whilst the Marxian majority was Collectivist. A bitter conflict soon began between Bakunin and Marx's representative, Outine. By fifty- four votes to four (sixteen delegates abstaining) the Congress declared itself in favour of abolishing all property rights in land, but not in buildings or in industrial capital. Further, a motion of Bakunin's party for the abolition of inheritances was defeated.

     Tossing his mane of hair and brandishing his fist, whilst he glowered at the Marxite majority, Bakunin angrily declared: " I do not want merely the soil to become general property, I want all wealth to be the same ! There must be a universal social liquidation-- we must have the abolition of the State both politically and juridically. Individual property is the appropriation by an individual of the fruits of the general toil. I demand the destruction of all existing national and territorial States, and on their ruins the raising of an international State formed of all the millions of the workers, a State which it is the International's duty to constitute by uniting the different communes in a general alliance This implies complete social reorganization from top to bottom." A manifesto of his party emphasized his views by proclaiming atheism, and calling for the complete abolition of all class distinctions, the political, economical, and social equality of both sexes, and the substitution of a world- wide union of free associations for all existing authoritarian governments.

     The Congress separated, leaving Marx's party still preponderant, but the Anarchist idea was steadily developing and spreading. By this time there had been an exchange of views between various governments respecting the tendencies of the international Working Class Association. Much of its propaganda was carried on from Paris where the authorities of the Second Empire endeavored to suppress it. There were several prosecutions in the earlier part of 1870, but the Franco- German War suddenly broke out, and all became confusion.

     Bakunin remained in Switzerland quietly watching the course of events until the fall of Napoleon III., when he resolved on action. Among his associates at this period was " General " Cluseret, a Parisian by birth and a soldier of fortune by inclination, who had originally belonged to the French army (fighting in the Crimea), but had afterwards served with Garibaldi, and with the Federals in the United States. Immediately after Sedan Cluseret and Bakunin began to stir up trouble in the south of France, notably at Marseilles and Lyons. The Government of National Defence, proclaimed in Paris, was far too moderate for advanced Republicans, and when Challemel- Lacour repaired to Lyons as its prefect he found his authority repudiated. A communalist administration had been set up in the form of a self- constituted Committee of Public Safety, and the red flag waved over the Hotel- de- Ville. A number of so- called reactionaries had been imprisoned, and Lyons (as personified by its Public Safety men) claimed to be a law unto herself, regardless of the rest of France. Challemel- Lacour had to parley with the Committee, but he eventually secured some degree of authority, and was able to release the political prisoners and proceed with the election of a municipal council. But the extremist party was not yet subdued. On September 28 (1870) it attempted a coup- de- main, under the joint direction of Cluseret and Bakunin. For a while Challemel- Lacour became their prisoner, but the national guards, who were loyal to the National Defence Government, released him, and the rising was suppressed.] Bakunin and Cluseret sought safety in flight, the former returning to Switzerland.

     Several members of the International figured in the Commune of Paris after the Franco- German war, among them being Amouroux, Avrial, Beslay, Dereure, Franckel, Benoit Malon, Pindy, Serailler, Theisz, Vaillant and Varlin, but their influence was by no means great. They were mainly Marxists, and were soon outstripped by their more revolutionary colleagues, some of whom, such as Delescluze, were simply Jacobins, whilst others inclined more to the views of Bakunin.

     Early in 1872 the latter promoted the foundation of a new branch of the International, calling itself the Federation Jurassienne; 3 and it was as its representative that he attended a Congress held at the Hague later in the year, when came the final great split between him and Marx. At this Congress Bakunin and his partisans demanded that the General Council of the International (which Council was simply Marx's instrument) should be invested with less power; but the demand was rejected, Marx was confirmed in his dictatorial authority and, in the end, the Bakunin party was expelled. There upon the Blanquists, otherwise the followers of Auguste Blanqui, the old French Revolutionist, noted for his aphorism " Neither any God nor any master," withdrew from the Association, being also opposed to Marx's ascendancy and largely in sympathy with his rival.

     Bakunin's organization, the Federation Jurassienne, whilst remaining nominally a branch of the International (it is still so described in its bulletins for the year 1875) became more particularly a vehicle for the diffusion of Anarchist principles. It recruited the majority of its adherents in Eastern France, Switzerland and Northern Italy, and was soon represented not only by its bulletin but also by a periodical, " L'Avant- Garde," published at Geneva and edited by Paul Brousse. Meantime the decline of the International and its influence had begun, being precipitated by the transfer of the central organization to New York, a step which was resolved upon in order to screen it both from the hostility of envious rivals and from that of European governments. Between the various sects war still continued, and it was in vain that the directorate proclaimed from New York that the principle of authority was far superior to that of anarchy. In 1873, Karl Marx being anxious to count his forces, the International's last notable Congress was held at Geneva. The dissidents retorted by setting up a rival Congress, and from that moment, though, as is well known, most of the International's principles have survived, it became virtually dead as an organization.

     In a sense, Bakunin and his followers of the Federation Jurassienne triumphed. Anarchism was on the march, spreading slowly but surely through Europe. That was the work largely of the so-called order of " International Brothers" (one hundred in number), which had been established by Bakunin a few years previously, and which formed, first, a kind of secret police force to " spy out the land" in one or another country and watch the doings of hostile governments, and, secondly, a band of missionaries designed to spread the new doctrines far and wide. For a short time yet Bakunin, from his place of retirement at Lugano, where we once saw him, was able to watch over the doings of his emissaries. How he lived was a mystery to outsiders, for he had no visible means of subsistence. Strange as it may appear, however, some of the partisans of this man, who had set himself the task of demolishing Society, were well provided with the goods of this world. There were Russian exiles, who on leaving their country had contrived to bring considerable sums with them, and money was undoubtedly often handed to Bakunin for purposes of propaganda. One of his wealthiest adherents was the Italian Count Carlo Cafiero, of whom we shall have occasion to speak again, and who, so old- time members of the sect asserted, spent a fortune for the cause, besides becoming the first militant Anarchist in his own country. While directing the Anarchist propaganda Bakunin himself, in his last years, made more than one stealthy visit to France and Italy. The Revolutionary spirit was still strong within him, and he or his emissaries even as Zola indicated in " Germinal," influenced man>; a riotous strike. But a life of hardship, toil and effort had undermined his natural vigor, and he did not live to see the real fruits of his agents' endeavors--the application of force to his theories, the Propaganda by Deed which resolved itself into murder, robbery and the destruction of property. In the spring of 1876 he was at Berne, conferring with some of his partisans when his last illness fell upon him. It was of brief duration; on June 13 he died, being sixty- two years old. Among the disciples who attended his funeral were Elisee Reclus, Paul Brousse, Salvioni, J. Guillaume and Jankowsky.

     Bakunin wrote largely, and, as we mentioned in our first chapter, there are numerous contradictions among the views which he set forth at various times. The present- day Anarchist, according to his particular group, accepts some of Bakunin's principles and rejects others, often explaining that if he does so it is because Bakunin was at times under one or another " pernicious " influence, in such wise that his teaching cannot be taken in its entirety. There is no general agreement as to what should be adopted and what left aside. Nevertheless> Bakunin's teachings have to be reckoned with, and it is positive that he was the founder of the militant Anarchism of our times. Here in England his best- known tract is probably " God and the State," directed against the authority both of the Deity and of the Law. His " Revolutionary Catechism," his " Principles of Revolution," of both of which privately, perhaps one might say secretly, printed English versions exist, his " Knouto- Germanic Empire " and his essay on " Mazzini's Political Theology" may also be mentioned. He wrote several other pamphlets in Russian or French, and his correspondence with his more prominent adherents was often most voluminous, some letters being of such great length as to form real essays on one or another point of Anarchist "doctrine."

     Let us now see how the movement he had started progressed after his death.

CHAPTER 3: PROPAGANDA BY DEED BEGINS (1877- 1878)

The introduction of Anarchism into France, Spain and Italy--The Rising of Benevento--Anarchism reaches Belgium, Holland and Germany--The German Socialist Extremists--Prince Bismarck's Attempts to suppress Socialism--The Emperor William I.--Attempt on his life by Hoedel--Hoedel's Antecedents and Opinions-- Regicide and the Anarchists--Dr Nobiling, his Position and Principles--His Attempt on the Kaiser--Trial and Execution of Hoedel--Death of Nobiling--Threatening Letters to the Kaiser and Bismarck--Repressive Measures in Germany--A new Reichstag and an anti- Socialist Law--Mistaken Policy of Bismarck-- Alphonse XII., King of Spain--His Life attempted by Moncasi and Otero y Gonzalez--Humbert, King of Italy, and the Situation in his Kingdom--His Life attempted by Passanante- Cairoli and Giamettine save the King--Demonstrations and Bombs--Outcome of Passanante's Attempt--Queen Victoria and Madden--France and the International.

FROM Switzerland, Bakunin's habitat, Anarchism soon spread to other countries. Its theories having been adopted by several French exiles, partisans of the Paris Commune, it speedily made its way into France, either through their agency or that of the journal called " L'Avant Garde," to which we previously alluded. That organ having been killed by repeated prosecutions, was replaced in or about 1878 by another entitled " Le Revolte," which was produced by Prince Kropotkin, Herzig, Dumartheray and Elisee Reclus. Within a few years Anarchist groups were already to be found in several towns of Southern France, notably Lyons, Grenoble, Vienne, Roanne, Villefranche Saint Etienne, Beziers, Narbonne and Cette.

From the south of France one of Bakunin's former partisans named Fanelli carried the doctrines of Anarchism across the Pyrenees into Catalonia, where they speedily recruited adherents, notably at Barcelona and Tarragona. Meantime Count Carlo Cafiero, Enrico Malatesta and others introduced Anarchist theories into Italy where groups sprang up in several of the northern cities such as Milan, Bologna, Forli and Ravenna, and also at Rome and Naples. To Cafiero and Malatesta must be ascribed the first outburst of militant Anarchism. Already in October 1876, the year of Bakunin's death, they had laid down, at a Congress at Berne, the proposition that insurrection was the only efficacious mode of propaganda. In pursuance of that idea, and in conjunction with a friend named Ceccarelli, they indoctrinated a number of Neapolitan peasants, and in the course of 1877 stirred up an armed rising in the rural districts around Benevento. They seized several villages, notably Letino and San Gallo, and appropriated the municipal funds, which they distributed among their followers; but troops were sent against them and the insurrection was soon suppressed, several men being captured and consigned to prison. The real character of the movement was scarcely recognised at the time, but it undoubtedly sprang from Cafiero's propaganda of Anarchism. It was, however, but a sudden, brief, spasmodic outburst not imitated elsewhere.

In Belgium the Anarchist theories were first diffused by Gerambon, Piette, Huyskens and Chauviere, most of whom were seceders from the old International. The new ideas found little favour in Holland, where they were supported solely by a small group at Amsterdam. And, at first, they recruited only very few partisans in Germany, where the influence of Bakunin's antagonist, Karl Marx, remained so great. Nevertheless, Proudhon's Anarchist views had found disciples there in Karl Grun and Moses Hess, the latter of whom had produced works entitled " Philosophic der That " and " Sozialismus " as far back as 1843; and it was a German named Schwab who in or about 1877 first carried Anarchism across the Atlantic, forming a small group of the party at Saint Louis. Further, it was in Germany that occurred the very first Anarchist regicidal attempt--the inauguration of the so- called Propaganda by Deed in respect to rulers and their ministers.

It was perhaps only natural that Anarchism should spring up amidst the frequent disputes which arose between the different Socialist factions already existing in Germany, the followers of Marx, Lassalle, Liebknecht and Bebel, the so- called Federalists, Mediators, Katheder- Socialisten and others. The views of those sects often failed to satisfy the more revolutionary spirits, and thus already in 1878 Anarchist groups certainly existed in the cities of Leipzig and Berlin. Among the more extreme Socialists, moreover, there was a physical force party, whose leaders included three deputies to the Reichstag, Johann Most, a former journeyman bookbinder, Hasselmann, who was nicknamed the German Marat, and a certain Fritzsche, whose views were equally advanced.

Prince Bismarck, the Imperial Chancellor, who had coquetted with Socialism in former days, and even favoured its early development, thinking it might serve him as a weapon against Ultra- Conservative and Ultramontane tendencies, had become, by 1875, apprehensive with respect to the progress it was making, and had forthwith proposed to the Reichstag a variety of repressive measures which were not adopted. He afterwards endeavoured to introduce into a new penal code a clause punishing with imprisonment any person who might publicly excite the various cIasses of society one against the other, or who might attack such institutions as marriage, family and property. The Reichstag however, refused to pass that clause, and for a time the Socialists were able to pursue their propaganda subject to existing legislation. The aspirations of the more extreme sects were fully indicated by their literature. " In all Germany," said one of their journals about this time, " there will soon only remain two parties, those who possess and those who do not possess, the deceivers and the deceived, the satiated and the hungry. The struggle between them has already begun, and it will end by the destruction of the old forms of society. Come, Socialist toilers, set to it ! Long live the Commune ! " In a wild song written by a Socialist working man and sung at the party gatherings during the elections of 1877 there occurred the significant words: " We will not vote for a Black (i.e. a clerical) nor even for a White and Black (the colours of - the Prussian flag), for the Devil is black and Death is white.... Let us vote Red. Red is the colour of love which springs from the heart. Let us, then, vote Red. The Red Flag will bring us Liberty ! " Yet another song of the time, one set to the music of " La Fille de Madame Angot," had this chorus:

" Hier Petroleum, da Petroleum,

Petroleum um und um,

Lass die Humpen frish voll pumpen Dreimal hoch Petroleum ! "

That was inspired by a recollection of the burning of the monuments of Paris in the last days of the Commune, and was as plain an indication as could have been supplied of the tendencies by which the extreme German Socialists were swayed. In spite of the Reichstag's attitude the Government did not remain inactive. Many Socialist journalists were arrested, and at one moment the " Freie Presse " of Berlin had its editor and three Of its chief contributors in prison, their arrests being effected in a most summary fashion without any attempt at explanation, and without any steps being taken for bringing the assumed offenders to trial. We know, however, that Bismarck was at this time contemplating a fresh appeal to the hitherto recalcitrant Reichstag in order to induce it to give the Government sufficient powers to crush the revolutionary agitation, which, in his opinion, was becoming more and more dangerous. The accuracy of this view was fully demonstrated on May II, 1878, when an attempt was made upon the life of the Kaiser. William I., German Emperor and King of Prussia, was then in his eighty- second year, but still vigorous. From his earliest youth he had been a soldier, and had spent his life in uniform. During the reign of his elder brother, Frederick William IV., otherwise " King Clicquot," he had been very unpopular, notably during the revolutionary troubles of 1848, when he found it expedient to reside for a time in England. Varnhagen von Ense wrote of him at that period: " It is not merely in these days of riot that he has revealed his military haughtiness, his thirst for retaliation, his desire to crush the masses by means of the soldiery, his contempt for all civic rights, and his ambition to consolidate the principles of authority by the shedding of blood. Such language has been continually on his lips for months past." ID 1857 Prince William became Regent of Prussia owing to the collapse of his brother, whose mind had been shattered by his bibulous habits, and who was now in such an ignoble condition that he frequently perpetrated gross breaches of decorum--one of the least of these being to wash his face in his soup at state dinners. Early in 1861 King Clicquot died and William then became ruler de jure as well as de facto. He still remained unpopular owing to his policy of absolute rule coupled with stringent plans of military reorganisation, and shortly after his accession to the throne an attempt was made on his life at Baden- Baden by a student named Oscar Becker. On the eve of his coronation in the ensuing month of October the new King assembled the members of the Prussian Landtag and said to them: " The rulers of Prussia receive their crowns from God To- morrow, then, I shall take the crown from the Lord's table and place it on my head. This signifies royalty by God's grace, and therein lies the sacredness of the crown which is inviolable. I know that you will so understand the ceremony which I have summoned you to witness."

That address, in which the reader will recognise the spirit that has so often animated the monarch's grandson the present Kaiser, was soon followed by a bitter struggle with the Prussian Chambers on the question of supplies. Three years later, however, the Schleswig- Holstein War diverted attention from constitutional grievances, and then in turn came the triumphs over Austria in 1866 and over France in 1870-71 The prestige of repeated victories and the restoration of the Germanic Empire ended by procuring for the monarch considerable personal popularity among his subjects, including even the more liberally minded of them, who, in respect to constitutional questions, reserved their enmity for his powerful Chancellor. The Socialists, of course, regarded the sovereign with dislike, and many of them were often prosecuted for lese- majeste. Still, even among them, the surprise was profound when in May 1878, as we previously mentioned, there came a deliberate attempt to assassinate the laurel- crowned victor of Sedan.

He was taking his customary afternoon drive in an open carriage, accompanied on this occasion by his daughter the Grand Duchess of Baden, when, at about half- past three o'clock, while he was passing along Unter den Linden--being near the Russian embassy, about half- way between the Brandenburg Gate and the Royal Palace--a young fellow came up behind the vehicle, and fired at him with a revolver. But the bullet missed its mark, and seeing this the would- be regicide darted across the road, crouched down, and fired a second shot, with, however, precisely the same result. Nevertheless, the Grand Duchess of Baden was so terribly frightened by this attack that she sank back in the carriage, swooning. Not so the old Kaiser. He had smelt powder too often to take alarm; and his only feeling was one of profound surprise. " What ! is it possible that these shots are intended for me ! " he exclaimed. Then, standing up in order that the people who were running to the spot might see he was unhurt, he bade his coachman stop and his chasseur alight in order to secure the culprit. The latter tried to escape, and fired repeatedly though uneffectually at those who endeavoured to stop him; but near the corner of Schadow Strasse he encountered several people, and after a desperate struggle, during which one gentleman received such severe internal injuries that he died from them two days afterwards, the would- be regicide was at last arrested.

The Kaiser drove back to his palace, whither all the authorities speedily repaired to congratulate him on his fortunate escape. That evening he showed himself both at the Opera and at the Schauspielhaus, where the audiences greeted him enthusiastically. Moreover, Berlin was illuminated, and great crowds gathered in the streets to cheer the old Emperor and his daughter as they drove to one and the other theatre; whilst congratulatory telegrams continued to arrive at the palace from every other crowned head and chef d'etat. The very first of those messages was one from Marshal MacMahon, then President of the French Republic. The young man who had been arrested was named Emil Heinrich Max Hoedel, and his nominal calling was that of a tinsmith. He was a Saxon by birth, a native of Leipzig, and although he had barely attained manhood he already had a deplorable record. In his childhood he had developed thieving propensities to an unwonted degree, and had been flogged by the police and consigned for some years to the reformatory at Zeitz. Later after he had been pronounced physically unfit for military service, he had joined the Socialist party in his native city. But neither the theories of Marx nor those of Lassalle satisfied him, and when an Anarchist group was formed at Leipzig he promptly became one of its adherents. At the same time he did not sever his connection with the Socialists. In fact, he acted as a subscription agent for the " Vorwarts " and the " Fackel," the two Leipzig Socialist organs, in which capacity he repaired to Austria and Hungary, whence the police expelled him in 1877. In the following spring he arrived in Berlm, where he assumed the name of Lehmann, and became affiliated to three of the most advanced Socialist societies. He had now quite discarded the calling of tinsmith, for which he had been trained at the Zeitz reformatory, and appears to have subsisted chiefly by selling Socialist periodicals.

It seems clear that it was his association with the small Anarchist group at Leipzig which first inspired Hoedel with the idea of making an attempt on the Kaiser. It was shown at his trial that already in his Leipzig days he had spoken of the inefficacy of mere Socialist agitation and reform, and hinted at the necessity of striking down kings and emperors. That idea eventually possessed him. A few days before the affair in Unter den Linden, having gone to a photographer's studio to have his portrait taken, he had remarked to the master of the establishment that he was putting money in his way. He would soon be a famous man and thousands of his portraits would be sold " when a certain piece of intelligence was Hashed through the world." Those words fully indicated that the young fellow had deliberately premeditated his deed.

But there was more to come. Hoedel's attempt to shoot the Kaiser occurred, as we have said, on May II; and on Sunday, June 2, there came a second one, this being made by a certain Karl Eduard Nobiling, a doctor of philosophy and a gentleman by birth and associations.] It would be, of course, both wrong and foolish to assert that every regicide or would- be regicide has necessarily been an Anarchist. History proves the contrary. There were regicides, and many of them, long before the days of the Anarchist sect. To take but a few examples from the annals of France, Jacques Clement, who assassinated Henri III., was a monk imbued with the ideas of the " League "; Ravaillac, who killed Henri IV., was an ultramontane Catholic; the men who attempted to blow up First Consul Bonaparte with the infernal machine of the Rue Nicaise, were Royalists bent on restoring the Bourbons; Louvel, who despatched the Duke de Berri, was a Bonapartist who wished to deprive the senior branch of the Bourbons of the chance of leaving any posterity; Orsini and the other Italians who aimed at the life of Napoleon III. were men whose idea was to punish him for not intervening to free their country from Austrian domination. Again, the comparatively recent assassination of King Carlos of Portugal was simply the work of Republican revolutionaries having no connection with the Anarchist sect.

Reverting to Nobiling his case was peculiar. The truth appears to be that, like Hoedel, he stood on the borderline separating Socialism from militant Anarchism. In some respects he was certainly a prototype of the Anarchist solitaires of later times. We have already said that he was of gentle birth. Born at Kollno, near Birnbaum, in the province of Posen, on April 10, 1848, he was the son of a landowner and a lady of title. He had brothers serving as officers in the Prussian army, and for his own part had studied at the universities of Halle and Leipzig, where, however, the violence of his views had led to his being nicknamed the petroleur.

It was in October 1877 that Nobiling first took up his residence in Berlin, whence he carried on a fairly extensive correspondence with Paris and London, which it is supposed, was connected with the Socialist agitation in Germany. At the same time, however, he took no part whatever in any of the Socialist meetings at Berlin, but led a very retired life, just like the Anarchist solitaires to whom we have referred. It is at least known, however, that he deemed " the suppression of monarchs to be necessary for the good of the Commonwealth," and it is quite certain that he long premeditated his attempt upon the Kaiser.

After reaching Berlin Nobiling repeatedly changed his lodgings there, and, at last, in January 1878, was able to secure rooms on the second floor of No. 18 Unter den Linden, which he doubtless considered suitable for the purpose he had in view He then bided his time, living meanwhile in an irreproachable manner, paying his way out of his private means and the money he earned by contributing to various scientific periodicals. After Hoedel's attempt on the Kaiser, he expressed to some of his few acquaintances a kind of cynical satisfaction that it should have failed, as he did not regard the young tinsmith as a sufficiently worthy instrument for such an important deed. He undoubtedly felt that he was better qualified to undertake it himself, and made every preparation with that object. On June 2 he drafted and deposited in a prominent lace on his writing table a memorandum of the amounts which he owed to his landlady and his laundress, directing that they should be paid out of a sum of some [[sterling]]7 which would be found in the table drawer. He then placed in readiness a revolver and a double- barrelled gun, the latter being heavily loaded with shot, which he may have thought would prove more effectual than bullets at such a range; and seating himself at his window, overlooking the Linden, he waited for the Kaiser to pass on the afternoon drive in which he still indulged without any extra precautions being taken, in spite of Hoedel's recent attempt on his life. It was between two and three o'clock when the imperial carriage came in sight, and as it passed the Kaiser Gallerie, Nobiling appears to have covered the Emperor, and then to have kept the muzzle of his weapon dead on the latter's head until the carriage was directly in front of the window. At a moment when the Kaiser was acknowledging the salutes of some bystanders, Nobiling fired. The monarch, carrying his hand to his face, half rose from his seat, and the carriage, which had suddenly stopped, was by his orders on the point of turning round, when Nobiling discharged his second barrel. This time the Kaiser sank back in the vehicle, and the bystanders could see that he was bleeding profusely from the face. He was, moreover, wounded in the head, the back, the arms, and hands, and for a moment the spectators imagined that he had been killed.

But some police agents, followed by a few zealous citizens, had already rushed into the house where Nobiling resided, and the door of his room was speedily burst in. Nevertheless' he still had time to turn his revolver against himself, fire it, and fracture his skull before he was seized and pinioned. Bleeding and, no doubt, suffering acutely, he still momentarily retained command of his faculties, and after hastily confessing his deed attempted to justify it by his convictions. He even acknowledged that he had accomplices, but refused to name them, and shortly afterwards became totally unconscious.

Meantime the Kaiser had been driven back to his palace, put to bed and examined by his doctors, who found thirty small shot embedded in various parts of his person. He, retaining all his composure, seemed inclined to make light of his injuries, and sent word to Nasr- ed- Deen, Shah of Persia, who was then visiting Berlin, that a little contretemps would prevent him from dining with him that evening. But the muscles of the arms began to swell, and it soon became evident that although the Emperor's injuries did not endanger his life, some time must elapse before he would recover. It was necessary, moreover, that his hands and arms should remain bandaged, and on that account an imperial decree was issued investing the Crown Prince (afterwards the Emperor Frederick) with the duty of representing his father in the current business of government and of signing all documents which required the royal sign manual.

At that moment the famous Berlin Conference following the Russo- Turkish war--the Conference which, according to Beaconsfield and Salisbury, resulted for England in " peace with honour," that is the acquisition of Cyprus --was on the point of being held, and the Crown Prince represented his father throughout the sojourn of the various European plenipotentiaries in the Prussian capital. Kaiser William, indeed, as soon as he had sufficiently recovered to bear the fatigues of a journey was moved to his castle of Babelsberg, near Potsdam, there to recuperate.

Meantime Hoedel was brought to trial before the High Court of State, which he at first confronted with a defiant mien, thereby leading many to imagine that he intended to glory in his deed. But to the general amaze he absolutely denied having fired at the Kaiser at all He had been out of work for a long time, said he, and finding himself destitute had resolved to commit suicide. If he had selected Unter den Linden as the scene of this act of self- destruction it was, he declared, with the object of acquainting fashionable people with the misery prevalent among the working classes. His counsel pictured him as a victim of delusions and as a man who might well have intended to commit suicide, but that theory was completely demolished by the production of a letter which Hoedel had addressed to his parents since the attempt, and in which he plainly stated that " he had sacrificed his life to the public weal, that he regretted having missed his aim, and that the good cause would not be lost owing to his mishap." After twenty minutes deliberation (July IO), the court adjudged the prisoner to be guilty and sentenced him to death. It was with apparent indifference that he heard the announcement of his fate. The sentence was carried into effect at Berlin on August 16, the long interval which was allowed to elapse after the trial being due to a variety of causes, among which was a desire on the part of the authorities to ascertain whether Hoedel and Nobiling had been in any way connected. Such would not seem to have been the case if one may judge by the answers which Hoedel gave to the questions put to him by the officials. As for Nobiling no explanation could be obtained from him. After swooning away soon after his arrest he never recovered consciousness but lingered through June, July and August, literally between life and death, and incapable of making any further statements respecting his crime, even had he desired to do so. At last, on September 9, he died of his self inflicted wounds.

Meantime the Kaiser was being strongly guarded at

Babelsberg for fear lest any further attempt should be made upon him. None occurred, but the authorities remained in a state of apprehension, owing to the many threatening letters which were addressed to the aged monarch, letters which subsequently followed him to Toeplitz and Gastein, and which warned him against daring to return to Berlin, as should he do so he would be promptly put to death by more able men than Hoedel and Nobiling. Threatening letters also pursued Prince Bismarck wherever he went at this juncture, and it seemed not unlikely that some attempt might be made on him also.

At this period Berlin was so crowded with troops that one might have thought the city in a state of siege, and the hand of the law fell right heavily on every Socialist or Anarchist who talked at all uncautiously. In some instances the authorities were justified in the course they took, in others their rigour was excessive. From the beginning of June till the middle of August no fewer than 563 persons were tried for insulting the Kaiser or approving the attempts of Hoedel and Nobiling, and regretting they had failed. In only 42 instances were the prisoners acquitted; in 521 cases (which included those of 31 women) they were convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment amounting in the aggregate to 812 years. These were entirely trials by judges or magistrates; in no single instance did the prisoners have the advantage of trial by jury; and the convictions continued at the average rate of ten per diem during three months subsequent to the date we have given above, the terms of imprisonment meted out to the convicted parties tanging from one month to four years. In five instances persons thus accused of lese- majeste committed suicide. It should be added that while the great bulk of the prosecutions took place in Berlin there were others at Bonn, Breslau, Bochum, Mannheim and Halle.

In a few notable instances the government failed to secure the support of the judicial bench. For instance, the Socialist deputy, Hasselmann, had been arrested on various treasonable charges, soon after Hoedel's attempt, but though he was brought before court after court until the supreme tribunal was reached, the judges refused to Convict him. Further, the Reichstag, in which the National Liberals were then the most important party, again refused to pass an anti- Socialist bill which Prince Bismarck placed before it, and he then had to appeal to the Federal Council to dissolve the imperial parliament. At the elections on July 30 the Socialist candidates polled considerably more votes than they had done the previous year, but the majority of the new Reichstag was not unfavourable to the Chancellor's desire for repressive measures, and thus his anti- Socialist bill was now referred to a committee which adopted most of its provisions. Others it altered. For instance, for the purposes of the measure, it defined the term Socialist as referring to a person or a theory that aimed at the subversion of existing institutions by physical force, whereas Bismarck had wished to apply it to all who might endeavour to effect that object even by constitutional agitation and gradual undermining. It also restricted the operation of the bill to a period of two years and a half, and stipulated that five judges, instead of five functionaries, should serve on the special Commission of Appeal.

During the debates in the Reichstag several leading Socialists, including, notably, Liebknecht, expressly repudiated the crimes of Hoedel and Nobiling, and protested against the special legislation directed against their party. Nevertheless, the bill became law towards the end of October, and the Government at once put it into force. Before the end of the year the sale of 45 Socialist newspapers, German or foreign ones, and of 151 other publications had been prohibited; while 174 clubs or associations had been suppressed, in addition to 21 trades unions. Further, a " minor state of siege', was proclaimed in Berlin, by virtue of which the authorities expelled about fifty persons, who were considered " dangerous to public security," among then, being deputies Hasselmann, Fritzsche, and Johann Most.

Writing on this very subject thirty- two years ago we pointed out that although outwardly the German body politic had been pretty well cleansed of Socialism, the latter had in reality only been driven deeper into the system, and that the ultimate result of such a mode of treatment was well known. It was, indeed, both unjust and ridiculous to make every Socialist sect, without any distinction whatever, responsible for the attempts of Hoedel and Nobiling. Yet such was Bismarck's mistaken policy, and it came to pass that Socialism really gathered strength from the harsh repressive measures to which it was subjected. It is now a greater factor than ever in North German political life, and if the authorities of present times still keep it in some degree in check this is less by the virtue of exceptional laws than by that of the various measures which have been adopted to improve the lot of the working- classes. At the same time Bismarck's policy may be partly explained, if not justified, by the fact that the year 1878 was marked not only by the attempts on the Emperor William, but by others on the sovereigns of Russia, Spain and Italy. Thus the Chancellor became more and more inclined to extreme courses, the most drastic, indeed, that he could devise visiting his wrath not only on the Physical Force Socialists and the little group of Anarchists which had collected in Germany, but likewise on all the pacific Socialists, those who were merely bent on realising their ideal by constitutional means.

The plots which occurred in Russia at this time were, of course, Nihilistic, and may therefore be left on one side; but the attempt which was made on the life of the King of Spain was distinctly the work of a Catalan Anarchist) one of those who had adopted the teachings of Fanelli. In 1868 Alphonse, Prince of Asturias, then eleven years old, had accompanied his mother, Isabella II., into exile; and for six years or so his home was in Paris. But in 1874, after Spain had made a variety of experiments, sandwiching an Italian sovereign, Amadeus, Duke of Aosta, between two Republics, the young Prince was recalled and proclaimed King by Primo de Rivera and Martinez Campos. The liberal part of the nation accepted him less on account of any particular merit he possessed than because, in the tottering condition of the Republic, he was deemed to be the lesser of two evils, for if the throne did not go to him it would probably be secured by the Pretender, Don Carlos, who, since 1872 had been at the head of a dangerous insurrection in the north of the Peninsula.

Alphonse XII. was still only seventeen when he ascended the throne, and naturally enough, official accounts notwithstanding, he did little or nothing personally to subdue the Carlists. But they were subdued, and the young King was hailed with the title of " El Pacificador." In January 1878, when he was little more than twenty, he espoused his cousin, the beautiful Dona Maria de las Mercedes, a girl in her eighteenth year, and the younger daughter of the Duc de Montpensier. It was a love match, and the marriage was contracted in spite of the violent opposition of that depraved elderly lady, ex- Queen Isabella. But in June the same year, two days before her birthday, the young wife, who had been seized with gastric fever, suddenly expired, to the great grief of her husband and the regret of all who were acquainted with her charm and goodness of heart. In the autumn, in order to divert his mind, the King went on a tour of inspection through the north of Spain, and had barely returned to Madrid, when on October 25, while he was driving through the Calle Mayor, which runs from the Armoury to the Puerta del Sol, a young fellow in a blouse rushed forward and fired two pistol shots at him.

Neither took effect, and the King's assailant thereupon endeavoured to escape, but there are always a good many loungers about this part of Madrid, and these, shaking off their usual air of apathy, speedily surrounded and secured the culprit. In fact there was a likelihood of his being lynched had not the police energetically intervened. The prisoner's name was Juan Oliva Moncasi. He was a native of the province of Tarragona, a cooper by calling--one of the men, in fact, who make the casks in which so- called " Spanish port " is shipped to England--and he was already a married man although only twenty- three years old. He frankly admitted that he had come to Madrid a fortnight previously with the express intention of assassinating the King. The authorities not unnaturally thought that he might have accomplices, and his trial was postponed pending investigations, but they yielded virtually no result, though a good many people were arrested, and others were subjected to searching interrogatories. In the end, Moncasi alone was brought to trial, and early in January 1879, having been found guilty, he perished by the Spanish mode of. execution, the garrote, on the Campo de Guardias, outside Madrid, his execution being witnessed by a crowd of 50,000 persons.

As in the case of Cafiero and Malatesta in Italy, Anarchism, at this time, was not known to the Spanish authorities as a distinct doctrine. Thus Moncasi was generally described as a revolutionary Socialist or Internationalist, though some folk thought that his deed was of Carlist inspiration. There is no doubt. however, that he was one of Fanelli's followers. His attempt on the young widowed King had at least one result of importance. Dona Maria de las Mercedes had died too soon to leave offspring; and, influenced by Moncasi's crime, which, though in itself abortive, might be the signal for other and more successful attempts, the royal advisers deemed it urgent that the succession to the throne should be assured. This led to early negotiations with the House of Austria, and the King's marriage on November 29, 1879, to the Archduchess Maria Christina. Sentimental people thought that he had forgotten the beautiful Mercedes far too soon, but if his first union had been really a love match, his second was due solely to political considerations. There seemed to be justification for that speedy second marriage, for a month after its solemnisation, that is, on December 30, 1879, the King again became the target for an assassin's bullets.

On this occasion Alphonse and his consort were in a carriage near the palace gates, when a youth of twenty, named Francisco Otero y Gonzalez, fired at them twice, but each time unsuccessfully, for the first bullet passed between the royal pair, and the second through the hat of one of their attendants. Still it was a narrow escape. The culprit was apprehended and a number of other arrests were made, but it has always been doubtful whether this particular attempt had any real political significance, for Otero y Gonzalez, who was in service as a pastry- cook's assistant, was a young fellow of very weak intellect, and may merely have yielded to some aberration.

But let us now revert to 1878, and turn to Italy, where, in the month of November, King Humbert I. was assailed by one of Cafiero's disciples, a desperate Neapolitan Anarchist named Giovanni Passanante. Until then, it had been claimed by the House of Savoy that, ever since the days of Humbert of the White Hands, the virtual founder of their line, who ruled over Savoy, Aosta and the Lower Valais in the eleventh century, not one of them had been attacked by an assassin. At the time of Passanante's attempt King Humbert had been less than a year upon the throne, his father, Victor Emmanuel II., the re galantuomo, having succumbed to, pleurisy and fever on the 8th of the previous January Here let us mention that at Victor Emmanuel's obsequies a bomb had been thrown at the Corps of Veterans--the survivors of those who had taken part in the struggle for national independence--but it would be wrong to assume that this was the deed of any Anarchist or revolutionary Socialist. The latter, at all events, were represented among the Veterans, and there are reasons for thinking that the outrage was the outcome of the Papacy's loss of temporal power, a protest, so to say, against the spoilation of Holy Church, and the glorification of the usurping House of Savoy.

Within a month of Victor Emmanuel's demise Pius IX. followed him to the grave, and on February 20, Cardinal Pecci was elected to the throne of St Peter and took the name of Leo XIII. Thus there was both a new King and a new Pope in Rome. Both had anxious times before them. The position of the Church need not here detain us, but the reader may be reminded that the young Kingdom of united Italy was at this period in a difficult position. On bad terms with France, it had followed for some years, at a respectful distance, in the wake of the alliance of the Three Emperors (Gennany, Austria and Russia) established at Berlin in 1872, but it had ended by becoming almost isolated, owing largely to the Italia irredenta agitation which was fostered by enthusiasts of the Garibaldian school. The country was also in a bad way financially. There had been attempts to effect too many things by means of a slender purse; and corruption, also, was rife in certain official and parliamentary circles. In the summer of 1878 the results of the Berlin Conference displeased many people, who held that Italian interests had been sacrificed, and the Italia irredenta agitation then became far more violent than previously. Demonstrations took place all over the country, notably at Milan, Genoa, Florence Bologna, Rome and Ravenna, where the cry of Evviva Trento e Trieste libere ! was on thousands of tongues. Again, there was considerable social unrest owing to the economic situation to which we have referred. During the spring a strange affair took place in Tuscany where a certain David Lazzaretti, of peasant extraction, had some years previously founded a religious Socialist sect. Clad in semi- regal and semi- pontifical garb " the Saint," as he was called, endeavoured to stir up the peasantry and in fact collected between two and three thousand followers, with whom he proceeded to proclaim the Christian Republic. It was all very suggestive of the semi- Anarchical Adamite and Anabaptist movements of long ago, but it was of much briefer duration, for the carabinieri being called out, an affray ensued and Lazzaretti was shot dead.

A Cabinet presided over by Agostino Depretis was in office when King Humbert ascended the throne, but m March it resigned owing largely to a scandal which was created by the matrimonial entanglements of Francesco Crispi, the Foreign Minister. A new administration was then formed by Benedetto Cairoli, an able and liberal- minded man, who, like Crispi, had taken a prominent part in the struggle for Italian independence.

He experienced great difficulty in coping both with the Italia irredenta agitation, which, as we have said, became acute during the summer, and with the social unrest caused by the lack of money. The times were indeed missed the great crural artery. Still he did not relax his hold, though there is no telling what might have been the result of the struggle had not a municipal guard named Telemaco Giamettine rushed up, and secured Passanante from behind.

The prisoner being in safe custody, the royal carriage was driven in all haste to the palace, where Cairoli, whose wound had bled profusely, was at once put to bed and medically attended. For some little time it seemed as if his condition was not without danger. The King's injury, however, was much less serious. As at Berlin and Madrid, on the occasion of the attempts on William I. and Alphonse XII., so at Naples was the Italian sovereign the recipient of countless telegrams congratulating him on his escape. Foremost among these was a message from the new Pope, Leo XIII., who declared that he prayed God for the preservation of his Majesty's health. The Pontiff rightly put from him at that moment all thought of the fact that King Humbert was, in the Church's eyes, the usurper of Rome, the ruler who withheld from her the so- called patrimony of St Peter; and strong expression of sympathy came, too, from a very different quarter. The old Republican, Aurelio Saffi, one of the Roman triumvirate of 1849, protested vigorously against what he regarded as " an insane misdeed." Demonstrations in favour of the royal house also took place in many parts of the peninsula; but in two cities they were marred by the throwing of bombs. One was hurled into a crowd of citizens and students at Pisa, and another at a detachment of the Corps of Veterans at Florence. In the former instance little harm was done, but in the latter case three persons were killed and several wounded. We have not hesitated to admit that clerical fanaticism may have prompted the outrage at the funeral of Victor Emmanuel; but we do not think it had any thing to do with the affairs at Pisa and Florence As we pointed out early in this chapter Anarchists were already to be found in many cities of Northern Italy.

Passanante, who was twenty- nine years old and followed the calling of a cook, described himself to his judges as an Internationalist, and a programme of the International Working Men's Association was, indeed, found at his lodgings. But he was not an Internationalist of Karl Marx's school. His explanations showed that his views were those of the dissidents who had followed Bakunin's leadership, the views carried into Italy by Cafiero and others. He wished, he said, to see misery cease--and so do all of us--but he also desired not merely the abolition of monarchies--he frankly declared that he detested kings--but the abolition of all authority as well. Ergo he was an Anarchist, and, as his attempt on King Humbert demonstrated, a militant one, a believer in that Propaganda by Deed which Hoedel had begun. Tried and convicted, he was sentenced to death in March 1879, but about a fortnight later the King commuted the penalty into one of imprisonment for life.

The affair inspired Cairoli's colleagues in the ministry with a desire to follow the policy of stern repression inaugurated by Prince Bismarck, but the Italian Legislature, in spite of its undoubted sympathy both with the sovereign and with the prime minister, was averse from extreme courses, and this brought about the Cabinet's resignation and the advent of a new Depretis Ministry, which offered to maintain order with the aid of the existing laws. In defence of that policy it must be said that nineteen years elapsed before there was another attempt on King Humbert's life.

To finish with that regicidal year 1878, we will add that an interpreter of languages, appropriately named Madden, then addressed to the Home Office sundry letters in which he threatened to kill Queen Victoria, and that his insanity was proved. Further, the French Government (Marshal MacMahon being president of the Republic) instituted proceedings against Jules Guesde and some eighty other Socialists for attempting to revive the International Association in France. It had been Suppressed there by a law passed in March 1872 (under Thiers's presidency) owing to the participation of several of its members in the Commune of Paris, and naturally enough the French Conservatives who had risen to power did not desire its revival. On the other hand, although the Anarchists were now gradually increasing in numbers in France, there was as yet no attempt to put the Propaganda by Deed into practice in that country.

CHAPTER 4: THE ADVENT OF DYNAMITE (1878-1884)

A Papal Warning against Revolutionism--Emile Gautier, the Apostle of Anarchism in France--Quarrels between Socialists and Anarchists-- Assassination of Alexander II. of Russia--Johann Most prosecuted and Imprisoned--Irish Extremists and Infernal Machines as " Cement "--Assassination of President Garfield--Futile Attempts to organise the French Anarchists--The Strike Disturbances at Montceau-les-Mines--Two French Anarchist Periodicals--Arrest of Anarchists at Lyons--Explosions at Lyons--Trial of the Lyonese Anarchists--Career and Defence of Prince Kropotkin--Sentences at the Lyons Trial--The Cyvoct Affair--Anarchism in Spain-- The so- called " Black Hand " Conspiracy in Andalusia--Seven Executions--Revolutionary Troubles in Italy and the Triple Alliance--Dynamite Oukages in Great Britain--The Niederwald Plot to blow up the German Kaiser and others--Anarchism in Austria--Drastic Action of the Austrian Authorities.

At the close of 1878 Pope Leo XIII., greatly concerned at the progress made by Revolutionary doctrines of one and another kind in various parts of Europe, issued a well meant Encyclical to the Archbishops and Bishops of the Catholic Church, in which he exhorted them to warn the faithful against such pernicious doctrines as Socialism, Anarchism and Nihilism, al1 of which he unreservedly denounced. In another age such action on the part of the successor of St Peter might have had important results, but that day was past, and the warnings of the Vatican altogether failed to arrest the march of reactionary tendencies among certain sections of the community In fact at an Anarchist Congress held in 1879. at La Chaux- de- Fond, on the Swiss side of the Jura, the employment of Propaganda by Deed was openly advised notably by Prince Kropotkin.

In that year a first amnesty in favour of the partisans Of the Paris Commune was voted by the French Legislature, and as the Communards who then returned home included a good many who had gone over to Anarchist ideas during their exile, the progress of those ideas in France now became much more rapid than previously. They found there, moreover, about this time a real apostle--the term is not excessive--in the person of a certain Emile Gautier who was some thirty years of age and a man of good family and high attainments. He had taken the highest rank in scholastic competitions he held the degree of Licentiate in Law, which qualified him for the bar; he wrote remarkably well, and he was also a powerful public speaker. Gautier took the Anarchist cause to heart, and not only did he advocate it in certain so- called " advanced " periodicals, but he lectured on it virtually all over the country, addressing audiences in such cities and towns as Amiens, Le Havre Beauvais, Reims, Versailles, Levallois- Perret (in the suburbs of Paris), Bourges, Villefranche, Lyons, Besseges St Etienne, Vienne, Arles, Marseilles, Beziers, Cette and Perpignan This went on for two or three years, and only once or twice did Gautier come into collision with the authorities' when he was summoned for using insulting language with respect to President Grevy, for which offences he was fined. In other respects he pursued his campaign virtually unhindered, generally evading the provisions of the law by one or another device, such as putting his case in a hypothetical fashion. That he made numerous converts is certain In 1879 the French Anarchists still regarded themselves as belonging more or less to the Socialist party, and they therefore sent delegates to two Socialist Congresses which met that year. But agreement was found to be impossible. The Socialists held it to be right to take part in electoral contests, whereas the Anarchists urged that the proletariate ought not to participate in them but ought to employ only revolutionary tactics. They again endeavoured to make their views prevail at a Socialist Congress held in Paris in May 1881, but again failed, and after a series of violent scenes were expelled from the gathering. The scission of the two parties then became more pronounced.

That year was a notable one in revolutionary annals. On March I3, the Emperor Alexander II. of Russia, the Liberator of the Serfs, was at last done to death by the Nihilists. It is needless to recapitulate the many attempts made upon his life since his accession to the throne during the Crimean War. But three of the more recent ones may be mentioned. On April 14, 1879, Alexander Solovieff fired two revolver shots at him, and on November 19 the same year Leo Hartmann, the son of a merchant of Archangel, attempted, in conjunction with a man named Goldenberg and a woman called Sophie Perovskaia, to blow him up in the outskirts of Moscow whilst he was travelling thither by train from Livadia in the Crimea. As it happened, the imperial luggage- van was blown to pieces, but the Czar remained uninjured. Hartmann managed to escape to France, and his presence there having been ascertained by the Russian authorities, a request for his extradition was at once addressed to the French Government. But that was long before the time of the Franco- Russian alliance, and the first Freycinet Ministry, then in office, refused to surrender Hartmann, whereupon Prince Orloff, the Russian ambassador, was recalled. Hartmann, however, was expelled from France in the following year, much to the disgust of the French Revolutionaries, who had beers jubilant at the refusal to surrender him. On February 17, 1880, there was another attempt to assassinate Alexander II., this occurring at the Winter palace at St Petersburg at a time when the late Duke of Edinburgh (brother of Edward VII.) was the Czar's guest there. On this occasion it was proposed to blow up the imperial party by means of dynamite while they were at dinner, but the explosion took place prematurely, and the only victims were several men of the Finnish Guard. Moreover, the dining- room suffered no injury whatever' so that even had the explosion been properly timed no harm would have resulted to the Emperor and his guests.

But on March I3, 1881, the result, so far as Alexander II. was concerned, was very different. Accompanied by his brother, the Grand Duke Michael, the Emperor was driving in a closed carriage towards the latter's residence, when an explosion injured the horses of the vehicle, together with one of the half dozen Cossacks who served as escort, and a moujik who was standing near. The Czar alighted, and went to see after the wounded, whilst a soldier of the Preobrajenski Guard, who was on the spot, flung himself on the man who had thrown the explosive, and who, although armed with a revolver and a dagger, was speedily secured.

Having given some instructions respecting the removal both of the injured men and of the captured Nihilist, the Emperor was walking away, followed by his brother and others, when a young fellow suddenly threw something at his feet. Instantly there was another explosion, and the next thing seen was the Emperor and many others lying on the ground. The Grand Duke Michael, however, was unhurt. The Sovereign, terribly injured, was conveyed as speedily as possible to the Winter Palace where he expired. Of a score or so of other persons, who were also wounded by this second explosion, two died one of them being the young fellow to whom it was due His real name appears to have been Grivenetzky, and he passed away in a hospital before his identity and guilt were established. Numerous arrests followed the Czar's death, one individual shooting himself when the police were about to apprehend him; and finally six persons including Ryssakoff, who had thrown the first explosive and two women (a certain Jesse Helmann and the Sophie Perovskaia who had assisted Hartmann in the Moscow train affair) were arraigned for the crime. All were found guilty, but Helmann, being enceinte, was reprieved. The five others were hanged on April 15 when they were driven to the place of execution in vehicles in which they sat with their backs to the horses, and with black boards hanging from their necks, each of these boards bearing in large white letters--so that he who ran might read the inscription--" Assassin of the Emperor."

Now, at that time a former member of the German Reichstag, Johann Most, had come to London where he published a Communist- Anarchist journal called " Die Freiheit " (" Liberty ") to which he contributed an article entitled " At Last! "--this being suggested by some German verse which was Englished at the time as follows:

" Seize these, seize those, and hold them fast But one shall reach thee still at last! "

This article attempted to justify the assassination of Alexander II., describing it as a " Brutus- like action" and an " heroic deed," and, what is more, declaring that it would make all " the long- forfeited heads " of sovereigns and heads of states tremble from Constantinople to Washington. The result was the prosecution of Most on the charge of approving the murder of the Czar and inciting people to murder foreign sovereigns generally He was found guilty at the May Sessions of the Central Criminal Court, but the jury recommended him to mercy on the ground that he was a foreigner and " might be suffering violent wrong." As a matter of fact, Most had been virtually driven from Germany by prince Bismarck, against whom the jury's recommendation seemed to be directed. Sentence was deferred until certain legal points had been disposed of by the Court of Crown Cases Reserved; but the jury's finding having been upheld, Most was sentenced by Lord Coleridge, OD June 29, to sixteen months' imprisonment with hard labour. After his release he betook himself to the United States, to carry on Anarchist propaganda there, and there we shall meet him again.

Another revolutionary element was at that time becoming very prominent across the Atlantic, but it was not identical with the Anarchist sect, and its efforts were not directed against American institutions. It was composed of adherents to the Irish Physical Force Party, and its aim, apparently, was to secure the independence of Ireland by means of dynamite outrages. It will be remembered that there was a mysterious explosion on board H.M.S. Doterel, and that infernal machines were discovered in what purported to be barrels of cement sent to this country by the steamships Malta and Bavarian. A deplorable event which occurred in America during this same year 1881, had no direct connection with Anarchism, Nihilism, or the grievances of Ireland; but, as we well know the force of precept and example, we cannot be certain that the views expounded and the deeds perpetrated by the Revolutionists at that period were without influence on the crime to which we refer. It will be remembered that Johann Most had threatened the doomed heads of all the rulers "from Constantinople to Washington"; and it so happened that on July 2--three days after Most had been sentenced to imprisonment--Washington was the scene of an unexpected tragedy. President Garfield was getting into a train at the railway station when he was shot by one Guiteau, described as a Chicago lawyer and disappointed place- hunter. The President was not killed on the spot; for some time, indeed, there were hopes of saving him, but at last, on September 9, he succumbed to his wounds.

There was great activity among the Anarchists that year. We mentioned that some of the French ones attended a Socialist Congress in Paris and were expelled from it. A gathering held at Cette, however, and attended by delegates from nearly all the south of France, pronounced in favour of Anarchist views and methods by a very large majority. In July, moreover, subsequent to the prosecution of Most, a special Anarchist Congress met in London to discuss methods and means of propaganda, its members including representatives of the French, Belgian, Italian, Spanish, German, Austrian, Swiss, and American groups. We shall have to refer to this Congress again, but we will here mention that the attempt to arrive at a common programme proved unsuccessful, perhaps because Anarchism is more essentially a form of individualism in which each takes his own independent course. Groups, whose members shared certain particular ideas and who combined with the view of carrying them into effect, and occasional small federations of such groups certainly existed, but no one group was of really important numerical strength, and (excepting in Spain, as we shall show hereafter) all attempts at a real organisation of the sect invariably failed. It would have probably implied the creation of some central board with a certain degree of authority to which the groups and petty federations would have had to submit. And this would have been the negation of one of the essential principles of Anarchism--that is, the denial of all authority If in contending with Anarchism various governments had only realised what is here set down, they would have spared themselves many blunders. But when it was told them, they refused to believe it. They long and obstinately clung to the conviction that there must be a central body, a directorate, a governing power of some kind. As for the statements, often repeated even by English newspapers of standing and repute, that London was--and is--the headquarters of the sect, the city whence the order for this or that deed went forth, no greater nonsense was ever written. It may, of course, be said that at the outset Bakunin, with his domineering personality, inspired and led the movement, and that the Federation Jurassienne, whence it so largely emanated, was an organised body, but after them (leaving Spain on one side, as we have said) all real organisation came to an end, and equality prevailed among the numerous small groups and the many solitaires.

It was in 1882 that the French Anarchists first began to practice the so- called Propaganda by Deed. A strike, for which the employers or rather their managers were largely to blame, occurred among the miners of Montceaules- les- Mines and Blanzy (Saone- et- Loire), from which localities the famous foundries and engineering works of Le Creusot chiefly derive their coal. The advent of some revolutionary leaders from Paris, but more par ticularly of several militant Anarchists from Lyons, greatly fanned the excitement, and deplorable excesses occurred. It was now that dynamite previously brought into play by the Nihilists and the members of the Irish Physical Force Party resident in America--began to figure in French risings. There were numerous explosions around Montceau, and on one occasion a chapel, that of Bois Duverne, was completely destroyed. The government (President Grevy's sixth ministry, headed by M. Duclerc, with M. Fallieres at the Interior and General Billot at the War Office) intervened very energetically, however; troops were despatched to the spot, the rising was suppressed, and nine of the ringleaders were tried and sentenced at Riom to imprisonment, much to the displeasure of the French Anarchists generally, and notably those of Lyons.

It is now advisable to mention that during the previous year the sect had managed to establish two periodicals, one called " La Revolution Sociale," in Paris, and one entitled " Le Droit Social," at Lyons. The last- named, which was issued once a week, speedily acquired an average circulation of 8000 copies. Its views were pithily summed up in a single sentence printed in its issue for Christmas Day, 1881: " Our action must be permanent rebellion by speech, by writing, by the dagger, by the gun, by dynamite, and even by the voting paper when it is a question of voting for Trinquet or Blanqui, who are ineligible, for everything unlawful is of service to us." The article in which those lines appeared was imputed at the time to Prince Kropotkin, but it was really written by Count Carlo Cafiero, to whom we have already referred more than once, and who, we may here add, died in 1883, after becoming insane during the previous year.

In the spring of 1882 " Le Droit Social," to which the well- known Anarchist writer, Jean Grave, contributed, under the pseudonym of Jehan Le Vagre, his work " La Societe au Lendemain de la Revolution," was killed by various prosecutions, and replaced by a similar journal entitled " L Etendard Revolutionnaire," whose programme was drafted by the geographer Elisee Reclus, then, if we are not mistaken, still resident in Switzerland. Now the Lyonnese Anarchists had taken some part in the Montceau disturbances. They had distributed tracts and leaflets of a nature to inflame the men on strike, and their organ " L'Etendard " had signified its approval of the excesses which had been committed. Already in August, at the time of the suppression of the disturbances, the authorities had resolved to take action against the Anarchist journal, and before long, various members of its staff being arrested, the paper ceased to appear. At this juncture some documents concerning the Anarchist party in the region were seized by the authorities, and as, on further investigation, they found that it included in its ranks a few foreigners--two or three, we think, at any rate less than half a dozen-- they decided to take proceedings against the sect generally on the charge of infringing the Law of March 23, 1872 by which the International Working Men's Association had been placed under interdict in France. This was, we believe, merely an expedient on the part of the authorities, who must have been well aware that the men they intended to prosecute really had little or nothing in common with the International as organised by Karl Marx.

Towards the close of September, just as " L'Etendard Revolutionnaire" was about to reappear, some thirty Anarchists of Lyons and neighbouring towns were suddenly arrested by the police, and during the ensuing weeks several more warrants were executed, in such wise that by October 21 fifty- two Anarchists had been lodged in prison. There were still warrants out for fourteen others, who contrived, however, to make their escape. The action of the police met with a speedy response on the part of other Anarchists. On the evening of October 23 came an explosion at a cafe on the Place Bellecour, frequented by middle- class folk, a person named Miodre then being killed and several others wounded. During the next few days dynamite cartridges were exploded with more or less serious results in other parts of Lyons, notably at the recruiting office of La Vitriolerie More arrests were then made, the garrison was called out to guard the public buildings and overawe the working- class faubourgs, and for several days business and amusements alike were suspended. There were, however, no further outrages.

The Anarchists who had been arrested were kept under lock and key until January in the following year, when they were brought to trial. There were, as we just now mentioned, fifty- two of them, the principal ones being, first, Emile Gautier, the so- called French apostle of Anarchism, of whom we have previously spoken; secondly, Toussaint Bordat, a journalist who had been connected both with " Le Droit Social " and " L'Etendard Revolutionnaire"; thirdly, Joseph Bernard, originally a locksmith, and subsequently a delegate of his trade at working- class congresses; and, fourthly, the well- known Prince Peter Kropotkin. There was also a young fellow named Ricard, who was said to be the leader of the Anarchist party at Saint Etienne.

The prosecution divided the prisoners into two categories. Twenty- two of them were charged with being members of an international association whose objects were the suspension of work, and the abolition of property, family, country, and religion, this being against the public peace; while the thirty others (among them being those whose names we have given) were indicted for having accepted functions in the said association and for having knowingly helped to develop it. Among Subsidiary charges brought forward during the proceeding was that of advising the employment of dynamite to bring about the Social Revolution, and that of attempting to seduce the military from its allegiance to the State.

Several of the accused defended themselves with spirit and ability, while a few declared that they belonged to no such association as was mentioned in the indictment, and even that they did not hold Anarchist opinions. Bordat equivocated in regard to his connection with the Anarchist press; but Gautier frankly admitted the propaganda he had carried on, asserting, however, that with respect to the employment of dynamite he had only spoken or written " figuratively." The most interesting part of the case, however, was that which concerned Prince Kropotkin, respecting whom it is now appropriate to give some particulars.

Peter Alexeyevitch Kropotkin was born at Moscow in 1842. " My father," he said to the Lyons judges, " was an owner of serfs--no, of slaves. In my childhood I often witnessed such scenes as are described in ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' " At sixteen years of age he was at the School of the Pages, which he left to join the army, securing a commission in the Cossacks of the Amur, and becoming, when he was only nineteen, an aide- de- camp to the Governor of Siberia. At that period he travelled over most of the province in question, and in Manchuria also. " But I found," said he at Lyons, " that Russian Liberalism was only a mask, so I resigned from the army, and entered the Faculty of Mathematics at St Petersburg." He afterwards became secretary to the Russian Geographical Society, on whose behalf, moreover, he explored the glaciers of Finland and Sweden in 1871. He subsequently visited Belgium and Switzerland, in which latter country, in or about 1872, he was affiliated to the International. Then, on his return to Russia, he joined the Tchaikovski secret society, in connection with which both he and his brother were arrested in 1874. His brother was sent to Siberia, whilst he remained under detention, and falling ill was sent to a hospital, whence he contrived to escape in 1876, making his way first to England and then to Switzerland, where he arrived in the following year under the name of Pierre Le Vachoff. As we know, he there assisted Elisee Reclus in carrying on " Le Revolte." But in 1881 the Russian authorities induced the Swiss Government to expel him, and he then took up his residence at Thonon, on the Savoy side of the Lake of Geneva.

At the Lyons trial the presiding judge pressed Kropotkin with respect to his doings both in Switzerland and in England--for as regards the latter country he had attended the Anarchist Congress held in London in 1881 as a representative of the Lyons groups--but the Prince at first refused to reply on those subjects, holding that whatever he might have said, done, or written in foreign countries did not come within the jurisdiction of a French tribunal. From the legal standpoint he was right, but it was curious that a legal argument should emanate from a member of a sect which refuses to acknowledge any laws. The Prince's position was thus illogical; and there was, moreover, the point that he, a foreigner, had meddled in French affairs. If the judge possessed no right to question him as to what he had done elsewhere, how came it that he had assumed the right to interfere with the existing order of things in a country which was not his own ? A little later, however, Prince Kropotkin somewhat modified his attitude, and in reply to the charge that at the London Congress he had advocated the employment of dynamite, he declared that it had been advocated by some young men there, but that he himself had twice opposed it. At the same time he added: " When a party is placed in the necessity of employing dynamite it has to do so, as for instance in Russia, where the people would disappear if it did not employ the means which science places at its disposal." He also stated: " I have worked with all my strength for the triumph of the Anarchist party in France and abroad also." A lecture which he had delivered at Lyons was, however, only based, he said, on the proposition that universal suffrage could not bring about a solution of the social problems. He acknowledged certain journeys to Vienne and St Etienne, where he had met members of the French Anarchist Party, and had participated in a plan for its organisation; but he evaded the inquiry whether the association to which he belonged had for its object a change in the form of government. In his defence, speaking on the general question of Anarchism, he quoted James Stuart Mill as prophesying that the middle classes (bourgeoisie) would be expropriated. They had already expropriated the nobility, said Kropotkin, and would be expropriated in their turn by the masses. As for the trial, he declared it to be only a pretext for suppressing freedom of thought and the right of giving expression to one's thoughts.

On January 19 (1883) the Court convicted and passed judgment on forty- seven of the fifty- two prisoners. Kropotkin, Gautier, Bordat, and Bernard were each sentenced to pay a fine of 2000 francs and to undergo five years imprisonment, ten years police supervision, and four years deprivation of civil rights. Among the other cases three prisoners were sentenced to four years, four to three years, and five to two years imprisonment, with ten years surveillance, five years loss of civil rights, and the payment of various fines. Further, in eleven instances the sentence was fifteen months, and in ten twelve months imprisonment, with five years loss of civil rights and the payment of fines, but without police supervision. In the remaining cases smaller penalties were imposed.

There remained, however, the right of appeal, of which several prisoners, though not Kropotkin, availed themselves. The cases came on, again at Lyons, in the month of March, when the Procureur de la Republique exerted himself to prove that the International had been reconstituted at the London Congress of 1881. On that point, however, he was absolutely wrong. In the result the Appeal Court upheld the convictions and sentences of Gautier, Bordat, Bernard, and eight others, and made sundry reductions in respect to the remaining appellants.

It is indisputable that the sentences were serious ones, and some readers may even think they were unduly severe, and wonder at the law allowing them under such an indictment. But it may be pointed out that the law in question was voted by the National Assembly in the year following the insurrection of the Paris Commune, and that, at the time of its adoption, the International was credited with having contributed to the Commune in a far greater degree than was actually the case. Hence very severe penalties were enacted againt any attempt to revive the International in France.

The Lyons affair had a curious sequel. In January 1883 a man who passed under the name of Metayer was killed in Belgium by the explosion of a bomb which he carried in his pocket, and was found lying dead in a ditch. A young friend of his named Cyvoct was then arrested, and it was found that both he and the soidisant Metayer had been included in the warrants issued by the French authorities in connection with the Lyons proceedings Alleging that it was Cyvoct who had thrown the bomb into the cafe on the Place Bellecour, the French Government prevailed on Belgium to surrender him, to the great disgust and anger of the revolutionary elements in the former country, who claimed that he was a political offender entitled to the right of asylum. Thus bitter controversies ensued on the subject of " I'affaire Cyvoct."

At the trial of the young fellow it came out that he was only twenty- two years old, and had not belonged to the Anarchist party for more than twelve months, having previously led a well- ordered and industrious life. The evidence against him in connection with the Place Bellecour explosion was of the very flimsiest description, and thus, although the jury found him guilty and he was condemned to death (December 1883), President Grevy speedily granted him a pardon.

Earlier in the year, that is in March, there had been some rather serious disturbances in Paris, where many thousands of working people were without employment. Revolutionaries, and particularly some of the Anarchists, exploited this state of affairs, and steps were taken by them to convene a great demonstration on the Esplanade des Invalides. It degenerated into a riot, during which several shops were pillaged. Many arrests ensued, among the people who were apprehended being a prominent Anarchist named Emile Pouget, and a female notoriety of the time, an ax- schoolmistress called " La Vierge rouge" whose real name was Louise Michel. She had been mixed up in the Commune of 1871 and bans

ported for some years to New Caledonia. It is quite certain, however, that her case was one for treatment in hospital or asylum. Subject to hysteria, she had lost her mental balance. At times she raved, at others she was all gentleness, full of solicitude for the poor and suffering. Nevertheless, for her share in the disturbances of 1883 she was sent to prison like Pouget and several others.

We must now revert to 1882 and pass from France to Spain. Anarchism was still making progress there, not only in Catalonia but in Andalusia also. At a working- class Congress held at Seville, in the year in question, on which occasion 254 delegates assembled, representing 10 provincial unions and 632 local sections with 59,000 adherents, there was a distinct Anarchist element cooperating with the Socialists of various schools. Here it may be pointed out that the Spanish--and particularly the Catalonian--Anarchist differs in certain respects from his brothers of France and Italy. In strict logic he is not exactly an Anarchist, for in matters of economics he favours Collectivism, and he and his fellows have genuine organised trade federations, with local sections and distinct syndicates of trades. He is therefore more a Revolutionary Socialist than an Anarchist, though he freely assumes the latter name.

Of the conditions prevailing in Catalonia we shall have to speak hereafter. At present we are only concerned with Andalusia and the so- called Black Hand conspiracy there in 1882- 83. For many years previously the conditions of life in that province had been most deplorable, in spite of all the commerce of Cadiz, Malaga, and Jerez. The situation was not unlike that of Ireland. The bulk of the population was agrarian, and apart from bad harvests and vintages which had been frequent, the people suffered notoriously from the absenteeism of the great territorial proprietors Dukes, Marquises, and Counts, who seldom if ever visited their estates (often quite as large as those Of great English noblemen), but spent at Madrid and elsewhere the rent- money of which they incessantly drained the province. The Andaluz is generally satisfied with very little, and is often quite a happy- go- lucky fellow. But he is prompt to resent a wrong, and at the time of which we are writing something of the old bandit spirit survived in Andalusia. During our sojourns there in the seventies there were still men who took to the hills, men who held travellers to ransom or kidnapped well - to- do townsfolk for that purpose; and one can understand that by a natural process of evolution the remaining men of that class, and folk in whom a similar spirit lurked, should have taken to semi- Socialist or Anarchist notions.

In 1882 there existed in Andalusia two provincial comarcas or Federations of Workers, counting 30,000 adherents, a large proportion of whom belonged to the rural class. There were other agrarian organisations also, more or less secret, and bent far more on physical force courses than on any mere legal assertion of rights. At times the members of these societies also belonged to the Federation of Workers. That appears to have been the case of a certain Bartolome Gago Campos, who kept a tavern in the outskirts of Jerez de la Frontrera, the centre of the sherry trade. Owing, however, to an intrigue with a comrade's wife, he was suddenly expelled from his societies, and there seems to have been a suspicion that he then betrayed or meant to betray their secrets to the authorities. At all events, on December 4, 1882, there was a violent dispute between him and his cousin, Manoel Gago, and another man named Cristobal Fernandez Torrejon, near the mill of La Parilla, not far from Jerez. An affray ensuing, Bartolome was killed by the others, and buried by them on the scene of the encounter.

The crime came to the knowledge of the Commander of the Civil Guard at Jerez, Don Tomas Perez Monforte, and eventually a hundred persons were arrested on the charge of belonging to a society of Anarchist malefactors said to have its headquarters at Jerez, its alleged leaders being the trusted capataz or overseer of a titled vineyard proprietor, and a schoolmaster of the neighbouring town of Arcos. To the society in question Don Tomas Monforte assigned the name of " La Mano negra " or " The Black Hand," though there was no evidence that it had really borne any such appellation. One day, however, in the course of his investigations, he had noticed sundry imprints of a black hand on a white wall in the village of Villamartin, which nestles at the foot of the Serrana heights, where, in previous years, many a bandido had sought asylum. It was subsequently shown, however, that the imprints in question signified nothing-- being simply the work of an individual who, having broken a bottle of ink, had dried and in some degree cleansed his stained hand by pressing it against the wall on which the marks were found. But the Commander of the Civil Guard was a man of imagination. In his eyes the imprints were significant symbols, connected with the society to which the men whom he was arresting belonged; and it needed only another slight effort of fancy to bestow on that society the name of " The Black Hand," a name which since those days has repeatedly appealed to novelists and journalists, who, with picturesque recklessness, have assigned it to all sorts of nefarious organisations, including the Sicilian Mafia and the Camorra of Naples.

Nevertheless, whatever sentimentalists may have written in subsequent years, there is no doubt that many Of the men arrested early in 1883 were Revolutionists and some of them professional criminals. There had already been great excesses around Jerez during the Federalist rising of 1873, when Seville, Cadiz, Granada, ~alaga, Alicante, and particularly Cartagena, had proclaimed themselves independent cantons; and the affair of 1882- 1883 was in a measure an aftermath of that period, aggravated by agrarian conditions. The movement embraced a system of terrorism--extortion, arson, and the uprooting of the vineyards and the destruction of the crops of the wealthier landowners being among the proceedings advocated and occasionally attempted and even carried into effect. At the same time, the authorities undoubtedly went too far in accusing the Andalusian Federations of Workers of general complicity in the affair. If they did so it was undoubtedly simply in the hope of striking a decisive blow at Socialist as well as Anarchist tendencies in the province. The prisoners having been tried--the evidence against them was chiefly that of an informer--no fewer than fourteen were condemned to death for complicity in the murder of Bartolome Gago and other crimes. Among them were Francisco Corbacho, the Jerez capataz whom we have mentioned, and Juan Ruiz, the Arcos schoolmaster. Most of the remainder received sentences of imprisonment, " the chains for life " being the penalty pronounced in a score of cases. But there was great excitement among the working- classes of the province of Cadiz when the number of death- sentences became known. A serious Revolutionary rising, which the men of Puerta de Santa Maria seemed anxious to lead, became immi_ nent, whereupon five reprieves were accorded, and the execution of the other death- sentences was deferred until the authorities should be strong enough to deal with emergencies. In the interval repeated efforts were made to save some of the remaining prisoners. In the case of one who became insane a further indulto ensued A second escaped the penalty of the law by committing suicide; but on the morning of June 14, 1884, the other seven mounted the scaffolds which had been set up among the palm trees on the Plaza of Jerez, where three executioners were in attendance, and were strangled by means of the garrotte in the presence of a great military force and many awe- stricken spectators.

In respect to Revolutionary troubles, Italy was the first European country to claim attention in 1883. But although the Italian Anarchists participated in the disturbances on the principle of fishing in troubled waters, two of their leaders, Malatesta and Meslino, being arrested, the trouble was more particularly the outcome in part of the Italia .irredenta agitation, in part of the execution of a soldier named Oberdank, who had threatened the life of the Austrian Kaiser, and in part of the Triple Alliance of Italy, Germany, and Austria, first signed during the previous year. Already in 1879 Count Andrassy, the Austrian Foreign Minister, had warned the Italian Government that Austria would have to take measures for her self- protection if the Italia irredenta agitation were not checked. The Italian Government had replied by declining responsibility for that agitation, and during a subsequent exchange of views the way had been paved for the entry of Italy into an alliance with the empires of Central Europe, their formal compact with Russia having virtually come to an end owing to the Russo- Turkish War and the Treaty of Berlin, by which Russia had been despoiled of some of the fruits of her victories. At the same time, on a few points the three Empires still remained in agreement. It was the French invasion of Tunis and the establishment of a French Protectorate there which ultimately cast Italy into the arms of Germany and Austria, but a large body of Italian patriots bitterly resented the idea of any alliance with the last- named power, and early in 1883 when a bomb was thrown into the courtyard of the Palazzo di Venezia, the seat of the Austrian Embassy at Rome, more than a hundred persons were arrested in the Eternal City.

In Great Britain both 1883 and 1884, and particularly the first months of the ensuing year, were essentially a period of dynamite conspiracies and outrages. There was the Gallagher- Whitehead plot, followed by others at Birmingham, Liverpool, and Glasgow; there were explosions at the offices of the Local Government Board, Victoria Railway Station, the Tower of London, Westminster Hall, and the House of Commons, on which last occasion (January 24, 1885) the peers' and strangers' gallery was brought down and the seat usually occupied by Gladstone blown up. Several prosecutions and convictions ensued, with the introduction into Parliament of Sir William Harcourt's Explosive Substances Bill, which Lord Salisbury carpingly opposed, but which nevertheless became law. The plots and outrages in England were the work of extremists among the Irish Revolutionaries, not one of whom, we think, professed Anarchist opinions; but example is contagious, and this employment of dynamite--though the amount of damage it caused was relatively small and it altogether failed to achieve its principal objects--more than ever impressed the Anarchist mind. A little more care in making preparations, in selecting favourable opportunities, in timing explosions, and dynamite might yet become a most efficient weapon for furthering the cause of Revolution. That many a mind gave way to such ideas as those was proved conclusively by subsequent events.

It was by the means of dynamite that in the autumn of 1883 a group of German Anarchists plotted to assassinate the Kaiser. Hoedel's revolver and Nobiling's gun had proved ineffectual, but the terrible explosive which certain Irish Extremists were already using, might, perhaps, be employed successfully. Since the enactment of the repressive laws passed by the German Reichstag after the earlier attempts on the Emperor, and renewed in 1880 for a period of three years and a half, Anarchism had recruited a good many partisans from the ranks of the more revolutionary German Socialists, who were smarting under the severity of Bismarckian rule; and, in the general bitterness which prevailed, it was not surprising that some reckless men should resolve on a desperate deed, one by which not only the octogenarian Kaiser but others of his House and some of the chief men of the Empire, including the obnoxious Chancellor, might, perhaps, be destroyed.

An occasion when many of the highest and mightiest personages of the regime would be assembled together, presented itself in the autumn of 1883. There was to be great national patriotic ceremony in glorification of the Fatherland and the revival of the Empire. High on the summit of the Niederwald, which rises some eight hundred feet above the villages of Assmannshausen and Rudesheim, famous for their wines, there had been reared a gigantic statue of Germania, a symbolical " Wacht am Rhein " with face turned towards the great river at the point where it rushes past Bingen and the Mouse Tower of the egend which Southey put into English verse. Thirty six feet high and set on an even loftier pedestal, this bronze Germania, whose left hand rested on the hilt of a drawn sword, whilst with the right she held a laurel- wreathed imperial crown, had been designed,] cast and erected at a cost of 1,200,000 marks, derived in part from public subscriptions and in part from a parliamentary grant. And on September 28 that year the monument was to be inaugurated with all solemnity by the Emperor William, then six and eighty years of age, accompanied by " Unser Fritz," his heir; the " Red Prince," his nephew; and others of his family, while all the great ones of the " Grosse Zeit," Bismarck, Moltke, the surviving captains of the days of Koniggratz, Worth, Mars- la- Tour, Sedan and Metz were to assemble around him.

What an opportunity for a crime! What an opportunity for proving the virtues of dynamite, and at the same time annihilating several if not all of the men who had made United Germany! Such, at all events, was undoubtedly the thought of Kamerad Reinsdorf, a compositor, and certain of his friends, among whom were Kameraden Rupsch, Kuchler, Holzbauer and Bachmann, most of whom were also of the printing world. So they put their heads together, and finding that a disused drain ran across a road along which the Imperial party would have to pass, they resolved to use it for their purpose They secreted a considerable quantity of dynamite inside it, some of the explosive being in stone ware bottles or jars, then fuses were attached; briefly everything was got in readiness. But when the ceremony came nothing happened.

It was never clearly shown, at the subsequent trial of the conspirators before the Supreme Court at Leipzig (December 1884), whether their courage had failed them at the last moment, or whether a fuse had missed fire. The evidence against them consisted largely of their own denunciations and recriminations. Reinsdorf, who was the leader, defended himself with some ability, airing his knowledge by indulging in many classical quotations and allusions, but at the same time frankly confessing that he was a Communist- Anarchist, one who desired the abolition of all government and the expropriation of all holders of property. He, Rupsch and Kuchler, were condemned to death (December 1884), Holzbauer and Bachmann being sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, while three other defendants were acquitted. The trial was speedily followed by an act of Anarchist vengeance-- a police official named Rumpf, who had played an important part in unravelling the case, being stabbed to death at Frankfort. That did not check the course of the law, however; for in February 1885 the men under sentence of death were decapitated at Halle. On the other hand, the affair induced the Reichstag to vote, at Bismarck's request, an extremely stringent Explosives Law.

At the time of the Niederwald affair Anarchism had already recruited a large number of partisans in various parts of the Austrian dominions. There were groups at Vienna, Prague, Buda- Pesth, Presburg, (Edenburg, Temesvar, Agram, Cracow and Trieste, as well as in some of the towns of Styria and Carinthia. In and around the imperial capital the efforts of the police to prevent meetings and demonstrations frequently led to violent disturbances, in which both Revolutionaries and members of the police force occasionally lost their lives. In December 1883 a police superintendent was deliberately murdered at Florisdorf, a village across the Danube to the north of Vienna. At times, when crimes at common law were brought to light, it was found that the people implicated in them had Anarchist connections. For instance, in 1883, when a conspiracy to poison various people with cyanide of potassium was unravelled, the ringleader, an individual named Penkert, was found to be a disciple of Johann Most, with whom he had carried on a voluminous correspondence, which was seized. Subsequently an Anarchist printing- press having been discovered in the Viennese suburb of Neulerchenfeld, the authorities decided on drastic action against both the Anarchists and the Socialists. Both the Viennese police and the garrison were increased, and on February I, 1884, an Imperial decree virtually suspended the Constitution. Perquisitions were made in numerous directions, the Socialist organ " Die Zukunft " (" The Future ") was suspended, and 40 leading Socialists were expelled from the capital, while 238 Anarchists were placed under arrest. Of these, it was ascertained that no fewer than 215 were foreigners, and their expulsion from Austrian territory promptly ensued. The others, chief among whom was a certain Michael Kappauf, were tried on various charges and sentenced to imprisonment; but in the case of an Anarchist named Stellmacher, convicted of murder, the capital penalty was imposed.

CHAPTER 5: ANARCHISM ON THE MARCH (1885--1890)

Unrest in the Labour World--An Explosion at Temesvar--Tlle Federal Palace at Berne threatened--The Decazeville Skike and the Murder of M. Watrin--The Strikes in Belgium--An Outrage at the P=is Bourse--The Watrin Murder Trial--The American Strikes and the Chicago Anarchists--The Haymarket Affray--The " Martyrs of Chicago "--The Clement Duval Affair--The Situation in France--Attempts on Alexander III. of Russia--Anarchists versus Socialists and Communards--Deaths of the Emperors William I. and Frederick I.--Germany, Switzerland and the Right of Asylum--Outrages in Italy (1889)--Anarchist Literature in FranceThe first International May Day Celebrations in France Austria, Spain and Italy--Expiration of the German AntiSocialist Laws--The hew Kaiser's new Policy--Resignation of Prince Bismarck.

The year 1885 was, on the whole, one of somewhat less violent propaganda on the part of the Anarchists. There was, however, considerable unrest in the Labour World at this time both in Paris and in London, owing to the prevalence of unemployment. In the former city a somewhat tumultuous demonstration took place on the Place de 'Opera and was dispersed by the mounted Garde Republicaine. In London there were many meetings of the unemployed, and the Social Democratic Federation made itself extremely prominent. On March 2I a singular affair occurred at Temesvar in the Banat south of Hungary. Three little bags, supposed to contain seed, exploded at the post- office there, killing three officials. About this time there was also some little trouble in Switzerland, from which country, ever since 1883, a number of Anarchists had been periodically expelled in consequence of the complaints lodged with the authorities by Foreign Ministers. These expulsions were naturally resented by the remaining Anarchists, but the only result of some anonymous letters which vrere addressed to the Federal Council, threatening to blow up the Federal Palace at Berne, was another series of expulsion orders. It is really doubtful, however, whether the letters in question actually emanated from Anarchists, for, as we shall presently see, there were then several foreign agents provocaleurs in Switzerland, bent on stirring up trouble in order to induce the authorities to drive the Anarchist and Nihilist refugees out of the country.

In January 1886 there being no Anarchist disturbances in France, Prince Kropotkin, Bordat, and some of their fellow- prisoners, as well as Louise Michel, Pouget and others were pardoned by President Grevy and released from prison. Prince Kropotkin, for his part, then repaired to London and took up his residence there. But the unrest in the Labour World remained very great, and only a few weeks later there were serious troubles. A strike had broken out at Decazeville in the department of the Aveyron which, the reader may be reminded, is on the confines of the excitable region popularly known as Le Midi. Though the movement was at first of no great extent, terrible excesses were Committed, and on January 26 an unpopular engineer narned Watrin was murdered under circumstances of the greatest brutality, being struck on the head with iron bars, then, after having his hair torn out, being flung from a window, and trampled under foot by a crowd which was waiting outside. It was a truly horrible affair, such as Zola depicted in the pages of his famous novel " Germinal." Eight men and two women were arrested in connection with the crime, which found however, not only apologists but even glorifiers among prominent Parisian Socialists and Anarchists, Whose periodicals described it as an "execution."

Moreover, the situation at Decazeville was now designedly aggravated by the intervention of a couple of Revolutionary Socialist deputies, Camelinat and Basly, and two journalists of the same party, Roche and DucQuercy, who contributed to " L'Intransigeant " and " Le Cri du Peuple." These agitators were less concerned about the condition of the workers of Decazeville than anxious to strike a blow at Leon Say, the statesman and economist, who happened to be Chairman of the Decazeville Mining and Foundry Company, and was regarded as a typical representative of the hated capitalist class. The authorities at last arrested Duc- Quercy and Roche, but this only fanned the excitement; and, before long, coal- miners, iron- founders, glass- workers and others were all on strike throughout the region. Anarchist fanatics, moreover, were busy among them, and there were a number of outrages and various collisions with the gendarmerie. On one such occasion, when the strikers assailed a non- striker named Leitner, quite an engagement with firearms ensued, and a score of people were wounded.

While these excesses were occurring in the Decazeville region, others of an even more serious character were taking place in Belgium, where several thousand miners, glass- workers and others came out on strike, in part with the object of securing an eight hours' working day. densely populated districts of the valley of the Meuse and the province of Hainault were soon in a state of fernent, and around Liege and Charleroi there came a perfect explosion of destructive fury. Public buildings, factOries, convents, private houses were fired and pillaged by the men on strike, and Belgian Socialists and Anarchists, the latter of whom were reinforced by numerous foreigners, notably Germans, vied with one another in encouraging these deeds. The Belgian Government proceeded against the rioters with great vigour. At the head of a large military force General Van der Smissen succeeded in restoring order, and many prosecutions ensued, these being directed not only against the actual authors of the outrages which had been perpetrated, but also against those who had incited them. Thus the editors of several extremist journals were sent to prison. In France a similar fate once more overtook Louise Michel who, unable to restrain herself, had indulged in incendiary speeches at public meetings.

While the French and Belgian strikes were at their height a strange Anarchist outrage occurred at the Paris Bourse. A man named Gallo made his way to the gallery overlooking the great hall where business is transacted, and threw a bottle into the midst of the stockbrokers and others who were assembled below him. The bottle was broken by its fall, but, instead of any explosion, only an abominable stench resulted. Immediately afterwards, however, Gallo drew a revolver from his pocket and shouting " Vive l'Anarchie!" fired three times into the throng of amazed speculators. Fortunately nobody was killed, and Gallo, being secured before he could make any further attempt, was carried off, tried, and sent to prison.

In June the Decazeville strike at last came to an end, the company making concessions to the coalminers, with whom the trouble had originated; and about the same time the prisoners arrested for the murder of M. Watrin were brought to trial. It was difficult to produce evidence against them for few independent persons had witnessed any part of the actual crime. Six prisoners, therefore were acquitted, four others being found guilty, with " extenuating circumstances" on the ground that there had been no premeditation. They accordingly escaped the capital penalty and were sentenced to terms of hard labour or solitary confinement. Rodez, where the tria took place, is famous in the annals of French crime as the scene of the murder of Judge Fualdes, perhaps the most wonderful of all French causes celebres. It has been well said that everything ends in France with a song. The Fualdes murder led to the composition of a long- famous and lugubrious ditty, such as is called a complainte, and the Watrin case had a similar sequel in the form of some execrable verses of a sarcastic turn which were entitled " The Anarchist Execution, or the Lamentable Fate of M. Watrin, Engineer." Here is a specimen of this extraordinary effusion:--

Ce fut done par la fenetre

Qu'on precipita Watrin.

La foule faisait un train

A ne pas sty reconnaitre

Et l'ingenieux ingenieur

Etait dechire d'horreur!

On lui jette de la boue,

On veut le mettre en morceau,

On le traite de pourceau, On lui dechire la joue!

Bedel, le bon compagnon,

Dit: *' Mais etranglez- le done. "

Les femmes, toujours charmantes,

S'en melent. Les voici:

Pendaries, Phalip aussi.

Les voutrait- on pour amantes ? II est feroce et rageur L'aimable sexe enchanteur! France and Belgium were not the only countries where there were serious labour troubles during the spring of 1886, for the Eight Hours Day agitation was also rife in the United States. Demonstrations took place in >,Tew York, and strikes broke out at St Louis, Milwaukee and Chicago. The last named, in which railwaymen and woodworkers participated, was the most serious. On May I a considerable body of strikers, among whom Germans, Poles and Bohemians predominated, attacked the M'Cormick reaper- factory, on the ground that the men employed there worked ten hours a day. The factory was defended by police, and after a number of men had been shot on both sides the attacking force drew off defeated. At this time there was already a considerable Anarchist colony in the United States. At Pittsburg in 1883, the sect had held a congress attended by representatives of twenty- two cities. At Chicago, the most prominent Anarchists of the time included Michael Schwab, to whom we referred in a previous chapter, George Engels, Albert Parsons and August Spies, the last named of whom edited a paper issued in the German language. This sheet incited the men on strike to violent actions and after the repulse of the attack on the M'Cormick reaper- works, it convened an indignation meeting to protest against the behaviour of the police

On May 4 this meeting assembled in Haymarket Square, Randolph Street, when the proceedings began with a speech by Spies followed by another by Parsons. Both of these addresses tended to inflame the crowd, but they were quite mild in comparison with an oration orderedby another Anarchist whose lurid, threatening utterances were greeted with great applause by the excited crowd and provoked the intervention of tile authorities. A force of I25 police, which had been previously assembled, was marched to the spot, and tile meeting was ordered to disperse. An Anarchist narned Samuel Fielden answered that injunction by shouting

"To arms!" and, when it was repeated, somebody else in the throng replied: " Kill the!" Immediately afterwards a bomb was hurled at the police, five of whorn fell to the ground, while others, and several of the demon strators also, were injured.

The rest of the police immediately retaliated with their revolvers, the demonstrators produced theirs, and bullets were soon whizzing hither and thither across the Square. Before the spot was cleared there had been, altogether, seven policemen killed (or mortally wounded) and twentyseven injured more or less severely. The casualties on the side of the demonstrators were never accurately ascertained as many of the wounded were carried or assisted to the rear and thence elsewhere; but including a few who were killed, it is computed that there were about fifty sufferers.

Eight of the ringleaders were seized by the police, including Michael Schwab, Samuel Feilden, Albert Parsons, George Engels, Adolph Fischer, August Spies, Louis Ling and a man whose name we find given sometimes as Neebe and sometimes as Neald. None of them, it appears, had actually thrown the bomb with which the affray had begun, this having been, it is said, the act of another Anarchist named Schnaubelt. The ensuing trial, hov;ever, resulted in seven of the prisoners being sentenced to death, and the eighth, Neebe, to fifteen years imprisonment. Schwab and Fielden, however, were reprieved, their sentences being changed to imprisonment for life, though ultimately they and Neebe also were pardoned and released by Governor Altgeld. A fourth prisoner, Louis Ling, escaped the penalty of the law by Committing suicide in as extraordinary a manner as could well be imagined. He obtained possession of a cigar, which contained, it was asserted, fulminate of merCury, and had no sooner lighted it when it exploded in his mouth, blowing off a portion of his face This entailed far greater physical suffering than he would have incurred had he submitted to his sentence, for instead of being killed immediately he lingered for some lours before expiring. In the case of the remaining prisonersJ Spies, Parsons, Engels and Fischer, the law eventually took its course, and electrocution not yet having been introduced into the United States, these four men were hanged in November 1887. Among their sect in America and Europe they became known as the Chicago Martyrs, and symbolical presentments of them or engravings depicting their execution circulated widely in Anarchist circles. Moreover, there was no lack of protests and denunciations of the American authorities, who, however, were in no degree intimidated but promptly arrested Schwab's friend, Johann Most, when he subsequently attempted to stir up further trouble, bringing him to trial with the result that he was sentenced to twelve months solitary confinement.

In the autumn of 1886 some semi- Socialist, semiAnarchist troubles occurred at Leipzig, while in Vienna there was a discovery of a quantity of explosives, with which it was surmised that the Anarchists proposed to follow the example formerly set by the Irish extremists in London. The following year, 1887, was not remarkable for Anarchist activity. Prince Kropotkin, however, was the guest of the evening at a meeting held in London to commemOrate the rising of the Paris Commune of I87I --an anniversary which was celebrated in France by a large number of so- called banquets at which the bill of fare consisted of little beyond roast veal and salad which, for some mysterious reason, French Socialists, Anarchists and other Revolutionists have always regarded as the most appropriate dishes for a festive occasion. Over the case of a burglar named Clement Duval, who plundered and set fire to Mme. Madeleine Lemaire's mansion, the Anarchist press, which was reinforced this year by a periodical of some note " L'Idee ouvriere,' produced at Havre, engaged in a bitter controversy with other journals which asserted that the said Duval was an Anarchist, whereas the organs of the sect declared that he was nothing of the kind. They may have been right, and if so were entitled to repudiate him, but it may be pointed out that a few years later they never thought of repudiating Ravachol though he was guilty of far greater crimes at common law than any committed by Duval.

But in 1887 attention in France was diverted from the Anarchists by the famous Franco- German frontier incident known as the Schncebele Affair, which at one moment threatened to bring war in its train. Indeed, such might well have happened had the French War Minister, the notorious General Boulanger, had his way. But his colleague at the Foreign Office, M. Emile Flourens --brother of the madcap Gustave Flourens of the Commune--was an adroit diplomatist, and contrived to avert a catastrophe. There was, however, another matter which shook the bou`rgeois republican regime-- the great Decorations Scandal, in which Daniel Wilson, son- in- law of President Grevy, was implicated, and which eventually brought about the resignation of Grevy, who was succeeded by Sadi Carnot (December 3, I887)e As we know, the troubles in which the Republic found itself involved gave heart to Revolutionists of many kinds, not Socialists and Anarchists only but also those who aimed at a rev*al of C`esarian rule.

In Russia in 1887 the Nihilists were again active, there being no fewer than three attempts to assassinate the czar Alexander III., two of them occurring at St Petersburg and one at Novo Tscherkask. The only outrages imputed to Anarchists that year, occurred in Spain, where an infernal machine was deposited at the Palace Of the Cortes in Madrid, while a dynamite cartridge was exploded in the courtyard of the Ministry of Finances. The next year 1888 witnessed, particularly in France, a variety of incidents in which Anarchists participated. In May they attacked a party of Communards who were on their way to visit the tombs of Auguste Blanqui, Jules Valles and Charles Delescluze. The idea of rendering homage to the memory of three Revolutionists who had also been authoritarians, Delescluze in particular having person)fied the principles of Robespierre and St Just, was repulsive to the Anarchist mind. So sundry members of the sect fired on the procession, and wounded two of the misguided people who formed part of it. Again in August, and in a like spirit, there was Anarchist interference at the funeral of the Communard " General " Eudes, who, during the insurrection of 1871, had occupied the Palace of the Legion of Honour and there amused himself by lying in bed with his boots and spurs on, and using the large mirrors around him as targets for his revolver. Although in reality Eudes had been little more than a militarist po?`r rire, his personality was obnoxious to the Anarchists, and thus his obsequies were attended by an affray in which that notorious journalist, Citizen the Marquis de Rochefort- Lucay, who imagined himself to be the idol of each and every Revolutionary, had to be protected from Anarchist violence. These incidents showed that although the Anarchists were only too willing to abet and aggravate Labour troubles stirred up by other Revolutionists--such as the strike of abourers, masons and carters that year in connexion with the work for the Paris Exhibition of I889--they remained extremely hostile to every sect which, like the detested bourgeoisie, represented one or another form of the obnoxious principle of authority. From this it follows that they were naturally opposed to the Boulangist agitation which was now approaching a climax.

The only dynamite outrages imputed to French Anar chists this year (1888) were explosions in November at two registry offices for waiters, when considerable damage was done to property and a few people were slightly injured. In the summer, however, there had been further attempts at Anarchist disturbances at Chicago where a number of explosives were discovered and seized by the police. It was on March 9 this year that the aged German Emperor, William I. was gathered to his fathers, being followed to the grave on June I4 by his son and successor, the Emperor Frederick, whereupon the imperial dignity passed to the present Kaiser, William II., who was then m his thirtieth year. Before that happened Prince Bismarck and his ministerial colleague Herr von Puttkammer, had prevailed on the Reichstag to pass further measures against the Socialist and Anarchist sects. The right of association was curtailed, the official powers for suppressing seditious literature were increased and the participation of German subjects in foreign polittcal congresses was forbidden. In the course of a speech made by Herr von Puttkammer at this time it was stated that Germany had agents in Switzerland carefully watching the doings of the Revolutionary refugees who resided there, and the Minister remarked that these agents often rendered valuable services to others tates and rulers, the Russian Government, for instance, having been warned by this means of various plots against the life of the Czar.

The presence, however, of German police- agents on Swiss territory led to serious trouble between the Empire and the Confederation. About the end of April 1889, a certain Herr Wohlgemuth, a police official of Mulhausen- in Alsace, was arrested at Rheinfelden, in the Swiss canton of Aargau, for acting as an agent provocaleur in conjunction with a certain Lutz, who had been trying to foment revolutionary agitation among the workers of the region of Basle. Wohlgemuth and Lutz were thereupon expelled the country by Government decree, whereat Prince Bismarck became mightily indignant. He summoned the Swiss authorities to withdraw the decree of expulsion, and matters went so far that it seemed at one moment as if the German Minister to the Confederation would be recalled.

The Chancellor complained that Switzerland harboured many German subjects contrary to the stipulations of a treaty concluded in April 1876, which had specified under what conditions Germans should be allowed to reside in the Confederation; and he signibed his deliberate intention of maintaining a force of German police- agents on Swiss territory, as the Swiss police did not protect foreign Governments sufficiently against the enterprises of all the Socialists, Anarchists and Nihilists who had taken refuge in that country. The Federal Government replied at first with some spirit that it had invariably discharged its duty towards foreign powers, but on remonstrances from Austria and Russia following those of Germany, it weakened and made concessions. Bills submitted to the National Council, and passed by it unanimously, restricted the right of asylum in the country, and provided for the appointment of an attorney- general of the Confederation, whose duty it would be to regulate the settlement of foreigners and prosecute all those whose actions might endanger international peace and security. Further, several more Nihilists and Anarchists, the latter principally French, were now expelled from Switzerland.

There was, however, comparatively little Anarchist Propaganda by Deed in this year 1889, the centenary of the French Revolution. There were a few signs of some strikes which broke out in Germany; and two bomb outrages occurred in Rome: one at the end of March, in a church, during a Lenten sermon, when there was a panic among the congregatiOn though very little damage was done, and the second on the evening of August I8, when a bomb was flung into a crowd of loungers who were listening to the band on the Piazza Colonna. On this occasion two policemen and six other people were injured. On the other hand Anarchist propaganda by the pen was now rapidly increasing, particularly in France. In the previous year Constant Martin had issued his " C,'a Ira," and Malato his " Travailleurs des Villes " and " Travailleurs des Champs,'' two pamphlets whose sales were estimated at the time at 20,000 copies. In 1889 appeared Malato's " Philosophie de l'Anarchie" as well as Most's " Religious Plague," and a new edition of Jean Grave's work " La Societe future." In the following year it was found that four and twenty books or pamphlets expounding the theories of Anarchism were in circulation in France, and - it was calculated that quite 150,000 copies of them had been sold.

It was now, 1890, that the Labour Demonstrations on May Day first became international. The Anarchist freely participated in them. In Paris all the public buildinfgs were strongly guarded by the military, but apart from some attempt at a hostile demonstration near the Elysee Palace there was no disturbance, though Malato, Merlino and Louise Michel were prosecuted and sent to prison for revolutionary speeches. There was a little rioting at Lyons, and some of a more serious character at Vienne, farther south. Disturbances also Occurred at Buda-Pesth, but the Austrian capital remained quiet by reason of the energy of the authorities and the numerOus arrests which had taken place during the previous month in consequence of a demonstration Outside the imperial palace of Schcenbrunn.

In many parts of Spain the May celebrations were attended by a complete cessation of work for several days. Strikes were prevalent in the Basque provinces, and some disorder occurred there. Barcelona had been decreed in a state of siege in view of possible eventualities, and explosives were certainly thrown at a few public buildings, doing, however, little or no damage. On the whole the city was overawed by the military preparations. At Valencia, however, matters were more serious. There were attacks on a Jesuit convent and on the residence of a nobleman who favoured the Carlist cause.

The worst excesses occurred, however, in Italy, where no fewer than 6000 arrests were effected, the men who were apprehended including a number of foreign agitators. Revolutionists of every school and perfervid patriots, carried away by the " Italia irredenta" agitation, participated in the demonstrations which were often distinctly hostile to King Humbert, particularly at Rome, where "Down with the Austrian Colonel!" was the rallying cry. At Leghorn a bomb was flung at the Prefecture, and wounded a shopkeeper who was standing near. At Turin two officers of the Bersaglieri were shot with revolvers, whereupon their men charged the crowd with their bayonets, wounding, it was estimated, a hundred people. Revolvers were also fired at the troops at Rimini, and there was a tumultuous demonstration at Naples.

Meantime an important change was impending in Germany, where, as previously mentioned, the present Kaiser William II. had succeeded his father in June

1888. Prior to that date, as we pointed out, Prince Bismarck, the Chancellor, had obtained from the Reichstag some important additions to his measures for the repression of Socialism and Anarchism. But the new sovereign did not believe in the Bismarckian policy, and thus no attempt was made to secure any further renewal of the original anti- Socialist laws which expired automatically in 1890. They had been in force for a dozen years, during which time the voting strength of the Socialists had become four times greater than it had been prior to their enactment. The young Kaiser was of opinion that he might effectually take the wind out of the sails of the Revolutionary factions by devising State measures to ameliorate the lot of the working classes. He issued a rescript expressing his desire for such improvement and also convened a conference on the subject. Those measures led up to the resignation of Prince Bismarck and the appointment of General Count Caprivi to the Chancellorship. The once all- powerful minister was reported at the time to have said: " One must either fight Socialism or yield to it. I prefer the former course, the Emperor prefers the other. That is why I have retired." The Prince's view of the Emperor's intentions was not, however, accurate, for, as we all know, the Imperial German Government has been contending against Socialism, in one way or another, from that day to this.

Some readers may think that in giving the above particulars and others which have figured in this chapter and the previous one, we have strayed unduly from our subject, Anarchism. But it must be pointed out that the history of Anarchism is often closely interwoven with that of other Revolutionary movements, and that one has frequently reacted on another. In order, therefore, to understand the situation of the Anarchists at certain periods, it is necessary to take account of the other Revolutionary sects and their position, as well as of a variety of events which tended to further or to check one or another movement. Thus we now propose to say something of the occurrences which led up to the great outburst of Anarchism m France from MISSING TEXT

CHAPTER 6: The French Terror: Ravachol (1891--1892)

Troubles of M. Carnot's Presidency--Nihilists in France--May Day, 1891 The Affair of Fourmies--The Affray at LevaUois- Clichy--The sentences on Dardare and Decamp--The real Name and Origin of Ravachol--The Murders at La Varizelle--The Profanation of Mme. de Rochetallee's Grave--The Hermit of Chambles--He is murdered by Ravachol--Arrest and Escape of Ravachol--The Marcon Murder--Ravachol and his Friends at St Denis--The Dynamite Cartridges of Soisy- sous- Etiolles--Ravachol as an Avenger--His Acolyte " Biscuit "--The Boulevard St Germain Explosion--The Explosion at the Lobau Barracks--The Rue de Clichy Explosion-- Ravachol denounced and arrested--The Review " L'En- Dehors " and Ravachol's Apologists--Meunier, Bricou, Francis and the Very Restaurant Explosion--Trial of Ravachol and his Friends in Paris--Trial of Ravachol at Montbrison for Murder--Execution of Ravachol--Songs inspired by Ravachol's Exploits.

THE Third French Republic was in a very difficult position at this period. It had many troubles to contend with. We previously pointed out that President Grevy was compelled to resign office in December 1887 owing to charges brought against his son- in- law in connection with the sale of the decoration of the Legion of Honour. Grevy's personal honorability was never in question, but he was then eighty years of age, and had placed too much confidence in the husband of his only child. Sadi Carnot, by whom he was succeeded, was an equally honourable but much younger man, a grandson of the famous Lazare Carnot, who did so much to raise the fourteen armies with which the first Republic resisted the invasion of France, and who thereby became known as the "Organiser of victory, From first to last, Sadi Carnot's Presidency was one of stress and storm. He and his advisers had to deal first with the agitation raised by General Boulanger and his partisans--an agitation which, supported by Orleanist money and influence, threatened to sweep the republic away. Afterwards came a whole series of financial troubles, which tended to make the position of the Republic still more precarious. There was a scandal in connection with the Credit Foncier, a worse one in connection with the Comptoir d'Escompte, another in relation to some City of Paris Bonds, in which some members of the metropolitan Municipal Council were involved; but the crowning affair was the memorable collapse of the Panama Canal Company. Responsibility for all those affairs was largely imputed to the existing regime which was currently described as a reign of cor ruption. Some corruption did exist undoubtedly, and though it was far less extensive than was then asserted, there were certainly grounds for public dissatisfaction and unrest.

Such being the position, it was natural that the Revolutionary elements should assert themselves. The Socialists figured prominently in several strikes, as did also the Anarchists. Propaganda by deed, however, had not yet reached an acute stage in France when in May 1890 the police arrested several Russian Nihilists who were found making explosives at the village of Le Raincy, northeast of Paris. It seems certain that these explosives were not intended for use in France, but the men were naturally brought to trial and sent to prison. Six months later a Pole named Padlewski murdered General Seliverskoff, a former Russian Minister of Police at the Hotel de Bade on the Boulevard des Italiens, and with the connivance of some French Revolutionary Socialists contrived to escape. This affair and that of the Raincy explosives undoubtedly produced a great impression on the minds of the physical- force wing of the French Revolutionary parties, that is, on the more militant Anarchists, and suggested to many of them the advisability of passing from words to deeds.

At last May Day 1891 came round, attended by the usual celebrations and by numerous disturbances also At Lyons where processions carrying red and black flags had been organised to deposit wreaths on the graves of those who had fallen in the risings of 1831 and 1834 against Louis Philippe's government, the Revolutionists came into collision with the troops. There were cavalry charges, revolvers were fired, and several soldiers and civilians were injured. Somewhat less serious disturbances occurred at Marseilles, Toulouse and Bordeaux. At Nantes there was a dynamite explosion, which fortunately did little damage, and another took place at Charleville near the Belgian frontier. On the other hand, at Lille, Roubaix, and Douai, in the same region, the workers merely took a holiday and signed petitions for an Eight Hours Day.

Unfortunately there were very serious occurrences at the little town of Fourmies near Avenues. The population there is chiefly composed of glass- workers and cotton- spinners, and a strike having broken out at a few establishments, its leaders endeavoured to induce all the workers of the district to join in it. The Sub Prefect of Avesnes, M. Isaac, had repaired to the spot, and in addition to the gendarmerie there was a force of infantry under the command of a Major Chapu. Disturbances arose, and some stones having been thrown at the soldiers eight men were arrested. Some attempts at rescue followed, and M. Isaac and Major Chapu lost their heads to such a point that the soldiers were ordered to fire on the crowd. They did so with the result that two men, women and three children were killed, and no fewer than forty persons wounded. It seems certain that the disturbance might have been quelled by the employment of much less drastic means, which naturally caused considerable indignation. It found vent, however, in words only, no outrage ensued in consequence Of this lamentable affair, great as the provocation was in the eyes of all the French Revolutionary parties.

Very different was the eventual outcome of an incident which occurred on the same day in the outskirts of Paris. Sundry groups of Anarchists existed in the working- class suburbs of the capital, notably Saint Denis, Reuilly, Levallois, and Clichy. At the last named locality, on that same May Day, 1891, a score or so of the sect held a meeting at which the corrupt bourgeois Republic was denounced in the usual fashion. That done, the party foolishly sallied forth, headed by a woman who carried a red flag, at the sight of which a zealous police agent at once rushed to inform his superior the Commissary that a gang of Anarchists was flaunting that seditious emblem the drapeau rouge in the public streets. The Commissary, a certain M. Guilhem, thereupon assembled all the available police and hastened to break up the procession. There was a somewhat serious affray, both the police and the Anarchists making use of their revolvers, though without effect; and in the end, whilst most of the processionists took to their heels, three of them were arrested and dragged to the posse- de- police. There can be no doubt that they were very roughly used--respectable eye- witnesses of the scene subsequently testified to that effect and, indeed, the prisoners had to be transferred to an infirmary for medical treatment before they could be brought to trial--but the Commissary of Police declared that he knew nothing of any ill usage, for immediately after the arrests he had--gone to wash his hands!

The original offense committed by the prisoners, that of taking part in an unauthorised procession and displaying an illegal emblem, the red flag, was not a particularly heinous one. Ever since the amnesties by which former partisans of the Commune of 1871 had been enabled to return to France, there had been several occasions, anniversaries and so forth, on which the red flag had been waved here and there in Paris. Scuffles had ensued, the flag had been seized by the police, and the offenders had been fined or sent to prison for a week or two, without any ulterior consequences. On this occasion, however, firearms had been brought into play and thus the arrested men found themselves in a more serious position. It was alleged on their behalf that the police had been the first to produce their revolvers, but the police evidence was to the contrary effect, and at the trial, which took place at the end of August (1891), M. Bulot, the Public Prosecutor, not only called upon the jury to return a verdict of guilty but asked the court to inflict exemplary punishment upon the prisoners.

The jury's verdict in regard to two of the men was such as M. Bulot desired, but it was coupled with a declaration that there were " extenuating circumstances " in the case. M. Benoit, the Presiding Judge, however, took no notice of that declaration, but inflicted the highest penalties which the law allowed. Briefly, he sentenced one prisoner, named Decamp to five years hard labour, and the other Dardare to three years of the same punishment. The third man, Leveille, had been acquitted.

In Anarchist circles the sentences inspired a feeling of angry resentment. Nevertheless, though the public prosecutor and the judge were freely cursed for their severity, and Decamp and Dardare were styled " the Clichy martyrs" several months went by before there was an attempt to " avenge " the imprisoned men. In fact the whole affair had been forgotten by the general public when all at once, on March II, 1892, an infernal machine exploded in the house where M. Benoit, the judge who had presided at the trial, was living. Four days later came an explosion at the Lobau Barracks, followed on March 27, by a third, this time at the residence of M Bulot, the public prosecutor.

It was thus that the Anarchist Terror of 1892- 94 began in Paris, and the reader will now understand why we have given a somewhat detailed account of the Clichy affair. Everything sprang from it, the consternation into which the Parisians were plunged by repeated explosions, the loss of life, the destruction of property, the wonder of the whole world at such a succession of alarming occurrences in Paris, the enactment of drastic exceptional laws, the revival of the Post Office cabinet now, the thousands of perquisitions, the wholesale arrests and sentences, and finally the assassination of President Carnot. It was as if the militant Anarchists had only waited for a signal to carry out in a more determined manner than ever the much talked of Propaganda by Deeds and as if, that signal having been given, they would never pause in their work of murder and destruction. By whom had the signal been given, it may be asked. The answer is by a man called Ravachol, who was apprehended after the third explosion we have mentioned, but whose arrest by no means stopped the outrages which became, indeed, more and more frequent, as we shall see.

This Ravachol was an extraordinary type of criminal. France had not known his like since the time of Tropmann, who murdered the entire Kinck family towards the close of the Second Empire. It is a curious circumstance that Ravachol, like Tropmann, was half of Germanic and half of Gallic stock. His real name was Francois Auguste Kcenigstein, his father being a German who had married a Mademoiselle Ravachol, a native of Saint Chamond, a town lying in a valley between Rive- de- Gier and Saint Etienne. That region of the upper Loire is one of coal mines, iron, steel and glass works, silk and ribbon factories, a toiling industrial district, where under a dark hazy sky the towns, mostly black and grimy, spread out in unromantic valleys girdled by sombre heights. Life is generally hard there, capital and labour are constantly in antagonism, and revolutionary ideas spring naturally from the unsatisfactory social condition of the hard- working masses. It is, indeed, in such regions that the most rebellious spirits are generally found.

Ravachol--he had assumed his mother's name probably because he thought that his father's would lead people to think him a foreigner--was no mere rebel, however. He followed the calling of a journeyman dyer, such as are employed in silk and ribbon works, and he had acquired while learning it some little knowledge of chemistry, which he had afterwards carried sufficiently far to be able to compound nitro- glycerine. With a vain disposition, fond of display and eager for everything which money can procure, he found his wages altogether insufficient, and endeavoured to increase his means by coining. He put into practice, indeed, the Tucker theory of " free money," with a complete disregard, however, for the proviso that the money should not be fraudulent. But his venture was not a very lucrative one, and for the sake of small gains he often had to incur the risk of arrest. At last--it is not quite clear for what reason--he was dismissed by his employer at Saint Chamond, and the straits to which he then found himself reduced, impelled him to commit his first great crime. We doubt if he long hesitated about it, for he had much the appearance of a man destined to become a criminal. Rather slim, and only of the average height, he nevertheless possessed very powerful arms, and big knotted hands, Similar to Tropmann's, such hands indeed as will effectually strangle a chosen victim.

It was on the night of March 29, 1886 that Ravachol committed his first murders, his motive being to possess himself of the money of an old gentleman named Rivollier who with an elderly female servant, lived in the outskirts Of the village of La Varizelle near St Chamond, and was reputed to possess considerable means. Ravachol broke into the house armed with a hatchet, and surprising Rivollier in bed, killed him by splitting his skull. The servant, alarmed for her own life, fled into the road, whither Ravachol pursued her. The next minute he had killed her also. Then he went back to the house, and in his desperate search for money forced open every receptacle he perceived. It was never known how much he actually secured, but according to the subsequent statements of his mistress, a lean ill- favoured little woman named Rulhiere, whose appearance suggested hysteria, the amount was a small one.

He returned to Saint Chamond, where he told this woman of what he had done, but she refrained from denouncing him; in fact they continued living together as before. Meantime the local gendarmerie scoured the region, searching for the murderer of Rivollier and his servant, and four or five " suspicious characters " were arrested, interrogated and finally released for lack of evidence against them.

Five years elapsed. Ravachol got another " job," lost it, then got another, lost that also, and once more found himself in great straits for money. He may, during that interval, have committed more than one crime, but according to his own account his next offense Occurred in May 1891. One of the chief aristocratic families of the region where he dwelt is that of the Counts de Rochetaillee, who take their name from a once fortified village perched on a crag between Saint Etienne and Mount Pilat. Now, in the spring of 1891 a Countess de Rochetaillee died, and was buried in the cemetery of Saint Jean de Bonnefond, between Saint Etienne and Saint Chamond. It was rumoured through all those localities that by her express request this lady had been interred wearing a considerable quantity of jewellery. Ravachol heard the story, and thinking, as many might think, that it was altogether wrong to bury valuables when there were so many people in need of money, he resolved to appropriate the jewels in question.

He set out on a dark rainy night in May, and after trudging nearly six miles under the incessant downpour he climbed over the cemetery wall and made his way to Mme. de Rochetaillee's grave, which he had reconnoitred on a previous occasion. He was provided with a few tools with the help of which, thanks to his great strength, he was able to remove two stone slabs, one weighing 260 and the other 330 lbs. Then he broke the coffin open, and proceeded to search for the jewellery, in the first instance feeling the hands and wrists of the corpse to ascertain if there were any rings or bracelets. He found none, and on feeling the neck he only discovered there a ribbon to which a small consecrated medal and wooden cross were attached. In his rageful disappointment he tore them from the ribbon, threw them away, and hurried out of the cemetery. The horrible outrage was discovered in the morning, but nobody could tell by whom it had been perpetrated.

Ravachol had to look elsewhere for the means of replenishing his purse. There is a village named Chambles at no great distance from Saint Chamond, and in its outskirts, at the time we write of, dwelt a very old man named Brunel who was known locally as the Hermit. We do not know whether he had ever taken any religious vows, but for half a century, that is from about 1840 onwards he had dwelt in a kind of cabin on the hillside above Chambles, much after the fashion of some hermit Of the middle ages. He was said to be very pious, and devout folk constantly gave him victuals, cast- off clothing and money, and asked him to remember them in his prayers. As he expended little or nothing on food and raiment it was quite possible that he might possess a little hoard. Such at least was Ravachol's surmise and he resolved to ascertain whether it was correct.

He betook himself to Chambles, and towards mid-day on June 19, 1891 he repaired to Brunel's cabin and found the old man (who according to some accounts was an octogenarian, whilst others say that he was no less than ninety-two years old) lying on a wretched pallet in a corner of the hut. Ravachol (we here follow his subsequent confession) began by telling him that he would give him twenty francs to have some masses said if he could give him change for a fifty franc note. Brunel replied that he had no change, and was about to get up, perhaps because he distrusted his visitor, when the latter sprang forward, seized him, thrust a handkerchief into his mouth, knelt on his chest, and finally strangled him. Then he searched the hut for money and found it in all sorts of places, in a cooking pot, in a little loft, in a cupboard, and under the bed. According to Ravachol's own account the total amount exceeded [[sterling]]1600, but it was at first impossible to calculate it, as gold, silver and coppercoins were indiscriminately mingled together.

The assassin took as much gold and silver as he could conveniently carry, locked up the cabin and went off to lunch at a cafe near the railway station. The landlord of this establishment afterwards testified that Ravachol (who declared he was very hungry) consumed an omelet of six eggs, some fresh water fish and a steak, and drank a quart of wine, followed by some punch. But his work was not yet finished. Returning to the hermit's hut, he shut himself inside and sorted the money he had found. There was more than he could conveniently take away' so he went home, informed his mistress of his exploit, and on the morrow, having procured a conveyance, they both drove to the vicinity of Chambles.

Then Ravachol went up to the hut again, provided this time with a valise, in which he packed all the remaining gold and silver and several other valuables which he found in the place. Rejoining his mistress, they drove off together, and it seems probable that they repaired, not to their home at Saint Chamond, but to Saint Etienne, where they had certain friends to whom we shall refer presently, and with whom was deposited a large part of the plunder. A few hours after Ravachol and La Rulhiere had quitted Chambles, a person of the locality found the hermit lying dead on his bed, with some [[sterling]]50 worth of bronze coins strewn over the floor of the hut.

Ravachol, however, had been noticed on his journeys backwards and forwards, and being suspected was arrested by the gendarmerie, as were his mistress and two men named Pierre Crozet and Claude Fachard, to whom he had disposed of some of the things stolen from the hermit's hut. While, however, Ravachol was being conducted to prison by the gendarmes it chanced that a drunken man reeled into the group, and in the confusion which ensued the murderer managed to escape. Thus only La Rulhiere, Fachard and Crozet were brought to trial, their respective sentences being terms of seven, five and one years imprisonment.

Meantime, the coat and hat which Ravachol had been wearing were found on the bank of the Rhone near Lyons, where in all probability he had deposited them before repairing to Saint Etienne to join his friends there. These were a man named Jus- Beala and a girl (Beala's mistress) called Mariette Soubert. For a short time then hid Ravachol in their dwelling. At this same period a mysterious murder occurred at Saint Etienne. In the Rue de Roanne stood a little ironmonger's shop kept by a Septuagenarian widow named Marcon, and her daughter, an old maid of six and forty. At about ten o'clock on the night of July 27, two men called at this shop, and one of them, after purchasing a shoemaker's hammer, hit the daughter over the head with it, thereby killing her. Immediately afterwards the mother, who was in a room behind the shop, was also murdered. It was subsequently claimed by the authorities that Ravachol and Jus- Beala were the culprits, and that Mariette Soubert had kept watch for them in the street. Beala and Mariette, however, were afterwards acquitted of the charge, and Ravachol denied all participation in it. We ourselves believe that he and his friends were quite innocent in this matter. The only possible motive of the two crimes was robbery, and they occurred but five weeks after the murder at Chambles, that is at a time when Ravachol was in no need of money, as Beala had handed him several thousand francs deposited in his keeping.

Before long, Beala, Mariette and Ravachol, the last of whom had assumed the name of Louis Leger, quitted Saint Etienne for Saint Denis, the northern suburb of Paris. They there found themselves in a real hotbed of Anarchism, which counted numerous partisans among the men employed at the works and factories of the neighbourhood. These men had lately been carrying on a particular form of propaganda, that is inciting young fellows to refuse military service, and soldiers to disobey their officers. A young Anarchist named Villemejeaune, who was forcibly incorporated in the ranks, protested violently against the obligation of serving, and thereby drew upon himself a sentence of twelve months imprisonment. This was the first notable incident in the Anti-Militarist campaign which is still carried on by the French Anarchists.

Both Ravachol and Jus- Beala professed Anarchist principles; and here we must say that we are in agree ment with the many writers who have pointed out that the theory of Anarchism is one which appeals to the criminal mind. Hundreds of times in the law courts of Europe during the last twenty or thirty years have criminals proclaimed themselves to be Anarchists, and although there is no doubt that they have often been absolutely ignorant of the higher theories on the subject it is quite certain that such elementary principles as self- interest and the rejection of all authority have forcibly appealed to them. Such was undoubtedly the case with respect to Ravachol.

Now among the Anarchists of Saint Denis he often heard mention made of the Clichy-Levallois case and the sentences inflicted on Decamp and Dardare; who were currently described as martyrs of the cause. Even as others wished to avenge some of the Spanish Anarchists who of recent times had come into collision with the authorities, so he conceived the idea of avenging Dardare and Decamp. With this object he engaged in a plot with a few other Anarchists to steal a number of dynamite cartridges which were known to be in the possession of a contractor named Couezy at Soisy- sous- Etiolles, south of Paris. Ravachol's principal associates in this venture were named Faugoux, Drouhet and Chalbret, and some information about the plot was also confided to a man called Chaumentin, who subsequently turned informer. A hundred and twenty cartridges were stolen, and a number of them appear to have been deposited with a carpenter named Bricou, who was also an Anarchist and in the secret. On hearing of the theft the authorities made a number of perquisitions in such suburbs as Saint Denis, Puteaux, Levallois and Asnieres where Anarchist! were known to be living, but at first nothing was dis covered. Ravachol, for safety, had for his part now removed from Saint Denis to Saint Mande just outside parts on the Eastern side.

He was of a very boastful disposition--indeed although he seems to have had no connection with Gascony his manners and language often suggested that he came from that province--and he had repeatedly told his friends that he intended to avenge Decamp and Dardare. On being asked if he had designs against Guilhem, the police commissary who had arrested them, he had replied that he intended to strike people of much higher position than that official. His intended victims, indeed, were the public prosecutor and the judge who had presided at the Clichy- Levallois trial. The better to accomplish his design he had secured the services of a sly and impudent youth of eighteen, named Simon, a typical Parisian gavroche, one who might have stepped out of one of the novels of Eugene Sue, Emile Gaboriau or Fortune du Boisgobey. Had Simon lived nowadays he would undoubtedly have been an " Apache " with a lurid nickname. The one in which he rejoiced, however, was quite mild, being simply " Biscuit."

In the first instance Ravachol employed him to reconnoitre the house on the Boulevard Saint Germain, where M. Benoit, the judge, occupied a flat. Then, on March II, 1892, Ravachol, having arrayed himself in a frock coat and a silk hat and slipped a couple of revolvers into his pockets, repaired in person to the Boulevard Saint Germain, travelling thither in a tramcar, and having with him an explosive apparatus which he had prepared at Saint Mande. He deposited it on the second floor landing of the house, and then slipped away in a nonchalant fashion. Scarcely had he departed, however, than there was a serious explosion, the damage which it did afterwards costing [[sterling]]1600 to repair. Fortunately nobody was injured, though M. Benoit's little grandson had a very narrow escape.

The affair caused a considerable sensation, which became yet greater when on the night preceding the anniversary of the rising of the Paris Commune, March 18, there came a second explosion, this occurring at the Lobau Barracks, behind the Hotel- de- Ville. It was not due to Ravachol, however, but to an Anarchist carpenter named Meunier, a friend of the man called Bricou, with whom some of the cartridges stolen from Soisy- sous- Etiolles had been deposited. No loss of life was caused by the explosion at the barracks, but numerous fruitless perquisitions and arrests ensued; and the Government, of which M. Loubet (afterwards President of the Republic) was Premier, holding, moreover, the office of Minister of the Interior, at once submitted to the Chambers a bill providing that all persons responsible for such outrages should be liable to capital punishment.

That measure failed to intimidate either Ravachol or Meunier. On March 27 the former repaired to a house in the Rue de Clichy where M. Bulot, the public prosecutor in the case of Decamp and Dardare, occupied a flat. The miscreant carried a small valise containing an explosive apparatus, a more powerful one than on the previous occasion as the result of the explosion showed, for the stone walls of the house were badly cracked and the staircase absolutely wrecked, the damage of one kind and another representing no less than [[sterling]]6000. At the same time six persons were more or less severely injured.

Well satisfied with his work, Ravachol betook himself to the Boulevard Magenta and lunched at an establishment there--half wine- shop, half restaurant--kept by a M. Very, who had married a Mlle. Lherot, her brother serving in the place as waiter. We have already said that Ravachol was very vain and pretentious, and thus it came to pass that after his lunch at M. Very's restaurant he indulged, in the presence of Lherot the waiter, in some extremely boastful remarks respecting the Boulevard Saint Germain and Rue de Clichy crimes. These remarks prompted Lherot to denounce him, and he was arrested, as were his friends Jus- Beala, Mariette, Simon alias " Biscuit," and Chaumentin, the last named, who was a sleek, smug, hypocritical individual, afterwards giving evidence against the others in order to save himself.

The Anarchist press of Paris and the provinces did not hesitate to extol Ravachol's deeds. In the capital this press had been reinforced of recent years by journals entitling themselves " Le Pere Peinard," " Le Riflard," " Le Pot a Colle," and " La Revolte," which last was edited by Jean Grave. Further, Sebastien Faure produced an Almanach Anarchiste," and there was in particular a review entitled " L'En- Dehors" established by an individual named Galland who assumed the ridiculous appellation of " Zo d'Axa." He was the son of a well- to- do engineer and had prepared himself for Anarchism by leading for several years a life of perfectly Free Love. In that connection we may mention that while serving in the army, this gay Lothario had carried off his captain's wife and deserted. Several other affaires de femmes had ensued, but in the midst of them all, the irresistible " Zo" had still found time to edit an ultra- Catholic journal, until at last, going to the other extreme, he had founded the review we have just mentioned.

So long as it merely advocated Anarchism in a platonic sort of way the authorities did not interfere with it. They reserved their severity for such organs as " Le Pere Peinard" founded and edited by Emile Pouget, an excounter- jumper who was frequently brought before the courts Among Zo d'Axa's contributors and friends was a certain Tabaraut of whom we confess we know nothing. But others were Malato, the well- known Anarchist writer, Octave Mirbeau, and Bernard Lazare. The last two names will perhaps surprise the reader.

M. Octave Mirbeau, a man with a handsome private fortune, is known nowadays as the author of some very powerful novels. M. Bernard Lazare leapt into celebrity by being one of the very first to champion the cause of Captain Dreyfus. Indeed, it was the representations of M. Bernard Lazare that first induced Emile Zola to inquire into the Dreyfus case. Going back, however, to the time of which we are writing, we find M. Lazare described as " a most convinced and most ardent Anarchist.'' We do not know exactly what he said or thought of Ravachol and his explosives; but M. Octave Mirbeau wrote on the subject in a highly appreciative strain, as is shown in the work from which we have just quoted. We will admit that he was not then acquainted with Ravachol's antecedents, and that when subsequent explosions occurred he declared them to be " stupid " and likely to ruin the Anarchist cause. But his apology for Ravachol, the author of the Boulevard St Germain and Rue de Clichy explosions, is difficult to explain away. The attitude of the " En- Dehors " review was at this period of such a nature that the authorities ended by prosecuting it, and M. Galland, otherwise Zo d'Axa, was sent to prison, where for a period of two years he was unable either to carry on his Anarchist propaganda or to pursue the career of a disciple of Don Juan.

On the very eve of the day appointed for the trial of Ravachol and the others at the Paris Assizes a terrific explosion occurred at the restaurant by whose waiter, Lherot, Ravachol had been denounced. This was the work of Meunier, who had previously caused the explosion at the Lobau barracks, and he had for his accomplices first, the man Bricou with whom many of the cartridges stolen at Soisy- sous- Etiolles had been deposited; secondly, Bricou's mistress, Marie Delange, a common- looking wench, who had previously served in a wineshop; and, thirdly, an Anarchist named Francis. The latter's share in the affair was comparatively slight, for he merely lent Meunier a suit of clothes. These, however, Meunier procured for the purpose of disguising himself, which he did at Bricou's residence, carefully "making up " his face and embellishing it with a thick false beard. Some dynamite cartridges were placed in a wooden box, pierced with holes for a fuse or wick, and with this box deposited in a bag, Meunier set out for M. Very 's restaurant. Before entering it, however, he went into a urinal and there lighted his wick. Then, going to the restaurant, he called for a petit verre of rum--price three sous--drank it off, left his bag near the door, and hurriedly departed.

It was twenty- five minutes past nine o'clock in the evening when the explosion occurred. Its results were terrible. Very, the landlord, was killed; so was one of his customers named Hamonod; and several other persons were injured, some of them very grievously. Meunier escaped to London, whither Francis also fled. The former was not found and extradited until the summer of 1894, being tried in Paris about a month after the assassination of President Carnot. He then endeavoured to set up an alibi, which was very unconvincing, but as there were certain gaps in the evidence against him he saved his head and was sentenced to hard labour for life. Bricou received a sentence of twenty years, whilst Francis, against whom it could not be proved that he had knowingly lent Meunier clothes for a felonious purpose, was acquitted.

Let us now return to Ravachol, whose trial began in the midst of the panic caused by the explosion at Very's restaurant. Everybody suspected of Anarchism on whom the police could lay hands was now being arrested, and many foreign members of the sect were summarily expelled from France. The jury at the Assizes, however, was leniently inclined. M. Quesnay de Beaurepaire, who appeared as public prosecutor, did not press the charges against Chaumentin, who freely gave evidence against his fellow- prisoners. Two of the latter, however, Jus- Beala and Mariette Soubert, were, like himself, acquitted' only Ravachol and young Simon being found guilty Moreover, the verdict specified that there were " extenuating circumstances" in their favour, and thus sen- fences of hard labour for life ensued.

During the investigation of the Paris crimes, however, the authorities had carefully inquired into Ravachol's antecedents, and he was finally sent before the Assize Court at Montbrison to answer for the murders which we recounted earlier in this chapter. Pending the new proceedings he was kept for a couple of months in a kind of cage, in which he was constantly under surveillance, and when he appeared in court he looked livid, emaciated, quite shrunken. His friends Beala and Mariette were arraigned with him, but were only convicted of having harboured him after the murder of the Hermit of Chambles. Among the witnesses brought forward by the authorities was Ravachol's former mistress, La Rulhiere, at the sight of whom he shed tears, whilst she for her part declared that she still loved him and had accused him wrongly before the investigating magistrate. Ravachol, however, confessed some of his crimes, notably the Chambles murder, and was therefore condemned to death. " Vive l'Anarchie ! " he retorted when sentence had been pronounced on him.

He refused to appeal to the Cour de Cassation or to solicit a reprieve of the President of the Republic, and was executed at Montbrison on the morning of July IO, 1892 The prison chaplain accompanied him on his way to the guillotine, and exhorted him to repent; but Ravachol savagely rejoined: " Take away your crucifix ! If you show it to me I shall spit upon it ! " And thereupon he began to sing a verse of an Anarchist song, running:

Pour etre heureux, nom de Dieu

Il faut pendre les proprietaires

Pour etre heureux, nom de Dieu

Il faut couper les cures en deux !

As in the case of M. Watrin, the engineer murdered at Decazeville, there soon appeared a complainte on the subject of Ravachol's crimes and fate. It concluded in this sarcastic fashion:

Mes enfants, elle est bien triste

La morale d'c't'histoire- la.

En quelques mots la voile:

C'est qu'lorsqu'on est anarchiste

Faut pas s'vanter d'ses hauts fan's

Devant des garcons d'troquets !

As we are quoting la Muse anarchiste we may perhaps give one or two more examples. There was at that time a ditty called " La Ravachole," the first verse of which ran, if we remember rightly, as follows:

Dans la grand'ville de Paris,

Il y a des bourgeois bien nourris;

Il y a aussi des misereux

Qui ont le ventre bien creux.

Ceux- la ont les dents longues--

Vive done le son, vive le son,

Ceux- la ont les dents longues,

Vive le son de l'explosion !

Chorus:

Dansons la Ravachole,

Vive le son, vive le son,

Dansons la Ravachole

Vive le son de l'explosion !

Ah, ca ire, ca ire, ca ire,

Tous les bourgeois gout'ront d'la bombe !

Ah, ca ire, ca ire, ca ire,

Tous les bourgeois on les sautera ! Further, there was a song specially addressed to the explosive by the means of which the Anarchists hoped to revolutionize society; and this was its lively refrain:

Danse, dynamite,

Danse, dense vise,

Dansons et chansons:

Dynamitons, dynamitons !

CHAPTER 7: The French and the Spanish Terrors (1892- 1894)

An Attack on Jerez--A Plot at Madrid--The Walsall and " Commonweal " Affairs--Repression of Anarchism in Belgium and Italy-- The Homestead Riots--The Carmaux Strike--The Explosion in the Rue des Bons Enfants, Paris--Anarchism in various Continental Countries--Attempt on Senor Canovas del Castillo--The Aigues- Mortes Affray--Attempt on M. Edouard Lockroy by C. Moore, Cabman, Poet and Anarchist--The Case of Villisse--An Anarchist Murder at Pittsburg--Pallas attempts to blow up Marshal Martinez Campos--The Fortress of Monjuich--The Explosion at the Liceo Theatre, Barcelona--Wholesale Arrests of Spanish Anarchists--Salvador Franch--Further Outrages and Executions at Barcelona--Leauthier, the Anarchist Shoemaker--His choice Dinner at Marguery's--He stabs the Servian Minister in Paris-- His Trial and his Death at Devil's Island--Ministerial Changes in France--A Bomb in the Chambers of Deputies--Auguste Vaillant and his Career--The Making of his Bomb--Unpopularity of Casimir Perier and Charles Depuy--Further Legislation against the French Anarchists--Perquisitions and Arrests--Trial of Vaillant--Attempts to secure a Reprieve--Little Sidonie--Execution of Vaillant-- Threats of Vengeance.

FRANCE was not the only scene of Anarchist exploits in 1892, for the sect figured prominently in other countries, notably Spain.

No little unrest, springing largely from agrarian causes as at the time of the so- called " Black Hand " affair, and fomented by disseminators of Anarchist ideas, was still apparent in Andalusia; and certain agitators having been consigned to the prison of Jerez de 1 Frontrera, the " sherry capital," a plot was laid to release them--a plot which ultimately resolved itself into an audacious attempt to obtain possession of the town which, in proportion to its size and by reason of its trade' was accounted one of the most affluent of southern Spain On the night of January 9, when it was thought that both the military and the civilian inhabitants Would be in bed and asleep, a band of four hundred men, armed with guns, revolvers, and in some instances with Scythes entered Jerez and attempted to burst into the prison But they were opposed by the Civil Guard, and failed in their design, whereupon they transferred their attentions to the town hall, in the vicinity of which fighting was kept up throughout the night. At daylight, however, a force of cavalry appeared on the scene, and the band was driven off, some eighty men being captured by the soldiers either during the fighting or in the pursuit. In February four of the ringleaders of this affair were executed, and many others sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Some French Anarchist, or possibly a Spanish one resident in Paris, thereupon resolved to avenge the executed and the imprisoned men by blowing up the Spanish embassy in the French capital, but a mistake was made respecting the house where the ambassador resided, and thus an explosive apparatus was deposited at the neighbouring Sagan mansion. It did comparatively little damage there, but the concierge or house- porter was unfortunately injured. This occurred at the time when Ravachol was preparing his first outrage. In April, after the Boulevard St Germain and Rue de Clichy explosions, a plot to blow up the Congreso and other buildings was discovered at Madrid. A Frenchman and a Portuguese, named respectively Jean Marie Delboche and Manuel Ferreira, being arrested in connection with this affair, were found in possession of two very powerful bombs weighing nearly six pounds apiece. The authorities thereupon laid hold of numerous Spanish Anarchists, whom they suspected of complicity with the two foreigners, but for lack of evidence several of them had to be released, including one of the leaders of the sect, a certain Felipe Munoz.

During April there were also several outrages at Barceona, and arrests again ensued in and around that city. These had a somewhat salutary effect, as at the May Day celebrations only one explosion occurred. In Galicia, however, where some strikes had broken out, notably at Ferrol, there were serious riots, in which the Anarchists, as usual, played a part.

Before then, that is in January, about the time of the attack on Jerez, we had an Anarchist affair in England, several men being arrested at Walsall in Staffordshire on charges of manufacturing bombs and engaging in a criminal conspiracy. Two of these men, Charles Battolla and Carles, were sentenced to ten years penal servitude, and another, Deakin, to five years of the same punishment. At that time there was a Revolutionary organ in London called " The Commonweal," carried on by a certain David J. Niccoll, with the assistance of a printer named Mowbray. The latter's wife dying about this time, her funeral became the pretext for an Anarchist demonstration in London, in which participated that unfortunate deluded creature Louise Michel, who was then residing on this side of the channel, as she feared further imprisonment in France. Now " The Commonweal " published Some very violent articles respecting the Walsall affair and other matters, and the outcome of these effusions was a government prosecution of Niccoll and Mowbray on the charge of inciting people to murder the Home Secretary, Mr Henry Matthews (later Lord Llandaff), Mr Justice Hawkins, and Police- Inspector Kennedy. The trial, which took place at the Central Criminal Court before Lord Chief- Justice Coleridge, resulted in being sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment Mowbray, however, was acquitted.

During the earlier part of 1892, while Ravachol and his imitators were terrifying Paris, numerous Anarchists were arrested in Belgium, and nine men, Convicted outrages at Liege, were sent to prison, with hard labour for periods ranging from twelve months to twenty- five years. In Italy also, although the authorities tolerated a Republican Congress in Rome, they proceeded vigorously against the Anarchists and other Revolutionary extremists Amilcare Cipriani and others were arrested for belonging to a society composed of more than five members and established for the purpose of fomenting disobedience to the laws: and although ten of the prisoners were lucky enough to secure acquittal, fifty of them were sentenced to imprisonment, the terms extending from one month to one year, except in the case of Cipriani, who was consigned to durance for two years. Let us now say a word respecting America. During the autumn, there were extremely serious disturbances in connection with some strikes among the men employed at the Carnegie Works at Pittsburg and Homestead. As in Europe, Anarchist incitement augmented the bitterness of this dispute between capital and labour, which was followed by a determined attempt on the part of a man named Bergmann to shoot Mr Frick, the manager of the Carnegie establishment.

Meantime several months had elapsed in Paris since the explosion at the Very restaurant without any further outrages occurring there; but the arrests of Anarchist suspects continued, and there were numerous prosecutions and sentences. During the summer there was a very riotous strike among the pitmen of Carmaux, in the department of the Tarn--a locality less than thirty miles distant from Decazeville, the scene of the Watrin murder we previously related. Trouble had arisen at Carmaux in connection with a man named Calvignac, who was both secretary to the Miners' Union and a member of the Municipal Council, in which latter capacity he v as elected mayor of the town. The Mining Company, at the head of which was that old Bonapartist, Baron Reille, assisted by his son- in- law, the Marquis de Solages, behaved, in these circumstances, in a very high- handed manner. The idea that one of their workmen should be mayor was most distasteful to the directorate, and on the ground that Calvignac neglected his work in order to attend to municipal matters, it was arranged that the manager, a certain M. Humblot, should dismiss him.

A general strike ensued (August 1892), and after considerable rioting and numerous arrests, followed by demonstrations in Paris and elsewhere in favour of the strikers, M. Emile Loubet, who was still Prime Minister, offered to arbitrate between the men and their employers. The proposal was accepted, and an award ensued by which Calvignac was to be reinstated in the Company's employment with leave of absence to attend to his duties as mayor, while the manager, M. Humblot, whom the men disliked, was also to retain his position. As for the men on strike they were all to be taken back by the Company, excepting such as had been sentenced to imprisonment for acts of violence. That last provision was regarded as very unsatisfactory by the men, who urged--one might indeed say, demanded--that their imprisoned comrades should be amnestied. At one moment, then, it seemed as if M. Loubet's award would be cast aside, but although the Government firmly refused to grant an amnesty it commuted the sentences in a very liberal manner, and the men then soon decided to return to work.

It was this affair which led to the next Anarchist outrage in Paris, where, on November 8, a very suspicious- looking closed stew- pan was discovered at the offices of the Carmaux Mining Company in the Avenue de l'0pera The utensil was so heavy that a vehicle must have been used to convey it thither, and in all probability more than one person had taken part in preparing its contents Every precaution was used in order to remove it safely to the office of the district Commissary of Police, which was in the Rue des Bons Enfants, but there it exploded and four policemen were killed on the spot, two more being mortally wounded, whilst other members of the force and several civilians received injuries of varying gravity. So terrific was the explosion that it was com- puted there must have been a score of dynamite cartridges in the pan, a calculation which was subsequently confirmed by the admissions of the culprit, Emile Henry of whom we shall speak presently.

For a time this affair naturally revived the panic which had previously reigned in Paris; but there again came a period of calm, at least in regard to the Anarchists though the Panama scandals kept the Parisians in a more or less restless and excited state. Meanwhile, in other countries, the Anarchists continued active. In February, 1893, and again at Easter that year, some bombs were exploded in Rome; and much turmoil in which Anarchists were often concerned prevailed in Belgium throughout the spring. During May a *fresh conspiracy was discovered at Vienna, and in the same month there was a trial of Anarchists at Leipzig, where four men were sent to prison for periods varying from twelve months to eight years. In June Berne became the scene of serious riots, a number of Swiss workmen objecting to the employment of Italians in some house- building there, and the affair becoming at last a terrific affray with the police and a company of artillerymen, in such wise that a hundred people were injured before order was restored. On investigation it was found that the outbreak had been instigated by an Anarchist named Wassilieff, of Russian extraction, as his name showed, but naturalised as a Swiss citizen. This affair and another later in the year led to additional legislation against the Anarchists in Switzerland, severe penalties being enacted in respect to all crimes against public safety and both public and secret incitement to that effect.

Further, in June that year, there was a plot to blow up Senor Canovas del Castillo, the Spanish statesman under whom so many Anarchists had been prosecuted and imprisoned, but who was now no longer in office, having resigned the post of chief Minister in the previous autumn when Senor Sagasta had replaced him. As is well known and as we shall relate hereafter, Canovas del Castello eventually perished by the hand of an Anarchist, but on this occasion (June 30, 1893) the bomb with which it was hoped to kill him exploded in the garden of his residence at Madrid, killing one of the two men who had charge of it and severely wounding the other. They both belonged to the Anarchist fraternity.

The month of August had arrived before there was any crime connected with Anarchism in France. The very serious disturbances which broke out at Aigues- Mortes in Languedoc during that month were not brought about by Anarchist propaganda, but sprang from the bad feeling then prevailing between France and Italy, a bad feeling which was intensified by the attendance of the Prince of Naples (now King of Italy) at the German military manoeuvres near Metz. Violent disputes on that subj ect arising between the French and Italians employed at the salt works of Aigues- Mortes, several of the former were wounded with knives and stilettos, whereupon half the population of the town rose against the Italians, killing seven of them and wounding over thirty. In like manner the French and Italians working on the railway line near Toul, in the north of France quarrelled and fought with tragical consequences' and on the news of these deplorable occurrences reaching Italy, there was a general explosion in that country the inhabitants of many cities demonstrating against the French residents in their midst, whilst at Rome the embassy of the Republic had to be protected by the military. At one moment it seemed as though a positive rupture between France and Italy would ensue, but that was fortunately averted.

Now at this same period general elections were impending in France, and in connection with them there occurred an affair which may be linked with the history of Anarchism. Among the candidates in Paris was the well- known Radical politician, M. Edouard Lockroy who both before that time and afterwards held office in various Ministries. He had married the widow of Victor Hugo's son, Fran,cois- Victor, and through his connection with the great poet's family it had come to pass that he had more than once befriended a certain Charles Moore, who aspired to fame as a poet, but whose Pegasus, unfortunately, was only a cab- horse. Moore, indeed, was a Paris cabman, in which capacity, as he proudly related, he had often driven Victor Hugo to one or another part of the city. It was that circumstance, perhaps--unless it were some knowledge of a certain Thomas Moore, belonging perhaps to the Irish sept from which he himself had sprung--that inspired this Parisian cabby with a fondness for the muse, and prompted him to compose sundry little pieces of indifferent verse, called " Le Mineur," " L'Argent," and " La Patrie."

Victor Hugo had treated Moore kindly and generously, and, as we just mentioned, this Parnassian Jehu had also been befriended by M. Lockroy. Desirous of obtaining further assistance *from the latter, Moore wrote him several letters during the electoral period in 1893; but amidst the turmoil of the political campaign his applications remained unanswered. At last, on August I3, Moore repaired to M. Lockroy's Committee Rooms in the Rue de Charonne, and seeing him on a landing there fired at him twice with a revolver--fortunately without serious effect.

Having been arrested, the foolish cabman was brought to trial on December 21 that year. There is little doubt that his deed had been prompted solely by M. Lockroy's failure to respond to his applications, and that he had lost his head on finding himself treated with contempt' as he imagined, by a brother litterateur. It is true that he had occasionally appeared on the platform at public political meetings, but nobody had ever taken him seriously as a politician. At his trial, however, he made a ridiculous exhibition of himself by professing the most extreme Anarchist opinions, and whereas under other circumstances he might have escaped with comparatively light punishment, he found himself, to his amazement, sentenced to six years hard labour and prohibited from residing in Paris for a further period of ten years. A good many offenders at that time declared themselves to be Anarchists--it was the fashion of the hour in certain spheres--but we have always held that the little, bald- headed, sad- faced Charles Moore, cabman and poet, was merely an Anarchist pour rire.

At the same time he had evidently lost his mental balance, and it was as well to place him under restraint, though scarcely, perhaps, in the manner decreed by the court At that period, however, so stern were the feelings inspired by the deeds of the real Anarchists that the judges did not pause to consider whether an asylum rather than a prison would not be the proper place for certain offenders. In the autumn that year when the Russian Admiral Avellan came from Toulon to Paris, with several of his officers (those were the early days of the Franco- Russian entente), an old workman named Villisse tried to fire a revolver on the Place de l'Hotel de V'lle, where a crowd was assembled. The weapon missing fire, nobody was hurt; but Villisse, adjudged to be too old for hard labour, was sentenced to five years solitary confinement. He certainly called himself an Anarchist, but his insanity was manifest.

While those affairs were taking place in France, there had been some serious occurrences in other countries A quantity of explosives and yet another secret printing press had been discovered at Vienna; a Mr and Mrs Rees, who had become acquainted with the secrets of some Anarchist organisation, had been murdered at Pittsburg in the United States; and the last week of September had been marked at Barcelona by a deliberate attempt to assassinate Marshal Martinez Campos who commanded the forces there. The occasion selected for this attempt was a parade of the troops, during which a bomb was flung at the Marshal and his staff. Wounded by the projectile, he fell from his horse, which was killed; and thirteen other officers or troopers of his escort were also injured. as well as several civilian spectators. The crime was due, undoubtedly, to the severity with which the Marshal had treated the Barcelona Anarchists, a severity also exemplified in his dealings with the Cuban insurgents, whom, however, he failed to overcome.

The man who had thrown the bomb was speedily arrested--in fact he offered little or no resistance--and was found to be an Anarchist named Pallas. Conveyed to the fortress of Monjuich, where both before and since that time so many Anarchists have been confined, and which dominates Barcelona in such a manner that no rebellion in the city can ever prove successful, Pallas was there tried by court- martial. His guilt was obvious, and on October 6 he was shot in accordance with the provisions of military law. Several other men were apprehended for complicity in the affair, but this was not immediately established. Life resumed its usual course at Barcelona' though among the Anarchists who were still at large there already existed a design to avenge their so- called " martyred comrade."

On the evening of November 7 a numerous audience, including a good many people of the official world, had assembled at the Liceo Theatre in the Rambla del Centro. The auditorium of this large and well- appointed house, which has a sumptuous staircase, several finely decorated lounges, and a flower- decked terrace whither people resort between the acts on summer evenings, is built on the model of that of La Scala, and can accommodate 4000 spectators. The people of Barcelona are extremely fond of music, and on the evening we have mentioned there was to be a performance of that revolutionary opera of Rossini's, " Guglielmo Tell," the third act of which figured, curiously enough, in the programme at the Paris Opera House on the night when Orsini and his confederates attempted the lives of Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie.

The performance at the Liceo was in progress (the second act of the opera having begun) and the attention of the spectators was being given entirely to the vocalists when all at once two bombs were flung in rapid succession from the gallery into the stalls. Only one exploded, but twenty- three people, including nine women, were killed by it, and forty others were injured, some in a truly terrible manner. Of one family, seven in number, two were killed and five wounded. The theatre, of course, was very badly damaged. Ornaments, woodwork, metal work, plaster work rained on the terrified spectators, and in the wild stampede which followed, amid the piteous shrieks of girls and women, yet more lives were lost, and more people injured.

A very large number of arrests ensued. Everybody suspected of Anarchism was seized and carried to Monjuich by virtue of a decree issued by the Queen- Regent Christina, which suspended the Constitution in the city and gave the authorities wholesale powers of arrest. Two hundred members of an Anarchist club, where certain chemicals were said to have been found, were among the prisoners. The authorities particularly congratulated themselves on the capture of a man named Codina who was supposed to have supplied Pallas with the bombs thrown at Marshal Martinez Campos, and to have been the actual perpetrator of the outrage at the Liceo.

That last surmise was erroneous, the bombs used at the theatre having been flung by another Anarchist, named Salvador Franch, who appears to have been Subsequently denounced by a confederate, perhaps under torture or the threat of it, for Spanish " justice" is often inhuman, and there were certainly some horrible doings at Monjuich at this period. In December an important laboratory and store- place of explosives was discovered, and on the second day of the new year, 1894, Franch was at last run to earth at Saragossa. In order to avoid capture he made two desperate attempts to commit suicide, but failed, and was carried to Monjuich. The Anarchists of Barcelona replied to his arrest, and the enactment of a law whereby every author of an explosion was punishable with death, and the illegal possession of dynamite with penal servitude, by firing on the civil governor of the city who was wounded, and on the same day (January 24, 1894) exploding a dynamite cartridge near the port. Two people were killed and several wounded by this outrage. In April came six sentences to death and four to penal servitude in connection with the attempt on Marshal Martinez Campos and the explosion at the Liceo. Franch was not sentenced until July II, and his execution took place only on November 21.

We have gone thus far in order to give something like a continuous narrative of the struggle with Anarchism in Spain at this period, but we must now retrace our steps. In November 1893, about the time of the Liceo affair, two boxes were sent from Orleans to Berlin, addressed respectively to the Kaiser and his Chancellor, Count Caprivi. With them were letters stating that they contained seeds for planting.] We have unfortunately failed to ascertain whether this was a serious Anarchist attempt or merely a hoax on the part of some German- hating Frenchman, but it appears that the boxes were not delivered to the addressees, but handed over to the Berlin police. At the same period that is only six days after Franch's crime at Barcelona, whilst all Europe was still ringing with the news of the most dreadful of all the outrages that had yet occurred. Paris was the scene of yet another attempt to carry on that Propaganda by Deed to which the Anarchists of the time clung so obstinately although hitherto it had entirely failed to achieve the objects they had in view, having simply stiffened the back of Authority and rallied to its support many who had previously been disposed to favour an increase of freedom and a larger measure of popular participation in the direction of public affairs.

The occurrence in Paris to which we have referred bore no resemblance to the appalling affair at the Liceo. It was simply an Anarchist attempt to assassinate a bourgeois --a bourgeois being persona ingrata to the Anarchist mind. The case had various curious features, some indeed of a rather amusing character in spite of the gravity of the offence. The culprit, whose name was Louis Jules Leauthier, came from that arid, barren depart ment of the Basses Alpes where the mountains of Provence Dauphine and Piedmont meet and mingle. All the young folk of such a cheerless region who have an oppor tunity to quit it do so, and betake themselves to some spot where nature is less harsh and life less dreary. It thus happened that Leauthier had made his way to Paris. Still quite young--he was in fact little more than nineteen years of age--he had very industrious habits, being willing to work both early and late at his calling as a shoemaker, and in that way earning a fair livelihood He was, moreover, entitled to receive a family legacy of nearly [[sterling]]50 on completing his twenty- first year. But his education was very defective and his mind inclined to be weak. He had read a good deal of so- called Anarchist literature, and it had left him--as much of it might leave others--in a muddled state. The glorification of Ravachol and his adepts in Anarchist periodicals and romances--for there had been lurid works of fiction such as " Les Exploits de Ravachol" and " Les Amours de Ravachol," issued in penny illustrated numbers-- had inspired Leauthier with a profound admiration for those " martyrs of the cause," but he really knew little about the principles of Anarchism. His intellect, moreover, was so limited that when he read of the hateful bourgeoisie " which consumed but did not produce," he attached to the word " consumed" a particular, limited meaning' imagining that it applied chiefly if not exclusively to people who consumed food or drink in restaurants or cafes, where he knew that customers were generally designated as cortsommateurs. It was, therefore, on a bourgeois consumer of that description that he resolved to avenge " the sublime Ravachol," of whose great deeds he had been lately reading.

On the evening of November 12, then, Leauthier betook himself--arrayed in his Sunday best--to that well- known house, Marguery's Restaurant, adjoining the Gymnase theatre on the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, and there ordered a good dinner, selecting r!oast quail to follow the soup, and telling the sommelier to let him have, first, a half- bottle of old Macon, and afterwards a half- bottle of Moet's best Champagne. As he had an intense admiration for Ravachol and intended to avenge him, Leauthier felt it incumbent on him to imitate that martyr's habits. He was aware that Ravachol had always taken delight in the pleasures of the table and thus it was that he ordered a somewhat recherche repast, during which he glanced at the consuming bourgeois around him, with the object of selecting an appropriate victim.

He was, he considered, most suitably armed for the crime which he contemplated. He knew that these bourgeois toiled not, neither did they spin, so how could one of them be better killed than with the shoemaker's knife which he, Leauthier, used in working--yes, working for his living ! Something in his manner, however made the waiter who served him rather suspicious, and thus he had barely finished his meal and had not yet made up his mind as to whom he should assail, when the bill was brought to him. On seeing it, he fired up remarking that he had dined because he was hungry, but did not intend to pay as he possessed no money. The waiter thereupon turned to M. Marguery, who came up exclaiming: " You have no money, you say ? In that case a man does not drink Champagne."

"But the bourgeois drink Champagne!" Leauthier retorted.

"They pay for it," said M. Marguery.

"With our money!" was Leauthier's rejoinder.

However, that might be, the well- known restaurateur did not argue the point. As all who knew him will remember, he was a very worthy kind- hearted man, the last person in the world to be harsh with poor folk; and thus, though he might have sent for the police, he contented himself with putting his hand on Leauthier's shoulder and leading him to the door of the restaurant. The young shoemaker had his right hand in his pocket at that moment, and was doubtless grasping his knife.

But either M. Marguery's briskness prevented him from attempting violence, or his courage momentarily failed him, or else he did not regard the restaurateur as a sufficiently important personage for the avenging of the martyred Ravachol. In any case he simply went off.

But he had by no means renounced his design, and on the following evening he sallied forth again, this time fully determined to carry it into effect. Repairing to the Avenue de l'Opera, he ordered some dinner at the Bouillon Duval in that thoroughfare, and had barely finished it when on seeing a well- dressed customer putting On his overcoat' he sprang up and stabbed him in the chest Then he made off, but being hatless and feeling certain he would be caught, he ended by surrendering to the police' telling them that he had just had a good dinner and had stuck a boltrgeois. On being asked why he had done so, why he had stabbed a complete stranger against whom he could have no possible grievance, he replied: " Because he was well- dressed and wore a decoration ! " And on being told that his victim was M. Georgevitch, the Servian Minister to France, he retorted, " An ambassador! Well, so much the better ! "

M. Georgevitch survived his injury but remained for some time in a serious condition,] in such wise that Leauthier s trial was deferred until February 1894. M. Bulot, the Public Prosecutor, then urged the jury to give such a verdict as would entail capital punishment under the laws for the repression of Anarchism; but although Leauthier openly professed Anarchist principles he enunciated them in such a childish, incoherent fashion that the jury regarded him as mentally unhinged. Thus extenuating circumstances were declared in his favour, and a sentence to penal servitude for life ensued. He did not live long, however. Transported to the Iles du Salut (the best known of which is Devil's Island where the wrongly- convicted Captain Dreyfus spent so many unhappy years) Leauthier was there in October ('94) when an alarming revolt broke out among his fellow prisoners. One of them having been guillotined for a murder, considerable excitement arose, and an Anarchist convict who had climbed a flagstaff began to shout " Vive l'Anarchie ! "--repeatedly refusing to desist when he was ordered to do so by one of the soldiers on duty The latter at last fired on the man, who immediately fell to the ground dead. This provoked a rising of all the convicts, nearly 800 in number, and for some time the situation was desperate, the outbreak only being quelled at last by the repeated volleys of the soldiers. Many of the prisoners were thus killed or wounded, among the former being Leauthier, and also young Simon, alias Biscuit, Ravachol's former acolyte.

It was on November I3, 1893, that Leauthier wounded M. Georgevitch. Shortly afterwards there came another change of Ministry in France. M. Loubet's Cabinet, to which we previously referred, had resigned late in 1892, being succeeded by an Administration formed by M. Ribot. This, however, retired in the ensuing month of March, and was replaced by a Ministry constituted by M. Charles Dupuy, a Conservative Republican of very authoritarian instincts, who merely because a trumpery students' riot occurred in Paris filled the city with troops, and proceeded to punish the working- class syndicates-- for offences of which they were not guilty--by closing the Bourse du Travail then virtually their headquarters. The result of Dupuy's policy was seen at the General Elections (August- September 1893) when both the Rad ical and the Socialist parties secured the return of many more candidates than on any previous occasion. Two of Dupuy's colleagues then resigning, his Administration was broken up, and replaced (December I, 1893) by a Cabinet under M. Casimir- Perier, who had previously been President of the Chamber of Deputies. ~ The moderate or conservative Republican party still being the most numerous of those into which the Chamber was divided' Casimir- Perier recruited his ministerial colleagues entirely from its ranks. Dupuy, meanwhile, took the Presidency which Casimir- Perier vacated. Such, then, was the political position at the time of the next Anarchist outrage, arid when we add that this occurred in the Chamber of Deputies the reader will understand why we have referred to the more recent ministerial changes

At the sitting of the Chamber on the afternoon of December 9, when M. Dupuy was in the presidential armchair behind the tribune, and M. Casimir- Perier and most of his colleagues were assembled on the ministerial bench a bomb was suddenly thrown from one of the public galleries by a man who had meant to hurl it into the open space between the tribune and the government seats in the hope that the Prime Minister and the President might both be injured. But, according to a further statement, which he made subsequently, a woman nudged his arm, and the bomb, striking either a pillar or else the gallery- balustrade, exploded prematurely, injuring several of the spectators, whilst a quantity of little scraps of iron and shoemakers' nails fell upon the heads of the deputies seated below. Altogether, some forty people were struck, but in most cases their injuries were very slight, often the merest scratches, the most severe of all being received by the author of the outrage himself. Escape was impossible, and he was promptly arrested. " Let the ministers and deputies know," said he, at the first question put to him, " that there is a bomb of Damocles over their heads I shall be followed by another, who will succeed better than I have done ! "

It was found that he had procured an admission ticket in the name of Dupont, but his real name was Auguste Vaillant' and he was born at Mezieres in the Ardennes in 1861 At the time of the Palais Bourbon affair he was residing at Choisy- le- Roi on the southern side of Paris. Previously' however, he had led a somewhat wandering and erratic life. An illegitimate child, he had received but a rudimentary education when, at fourteen years of age, he was cast on the world penniless. He grew up in one or another petty situation, was at one moment con nected with a co- operative society, then tried his fortunes in Algeria and afterwards betook himself to the Argentine where, according to one account, he secured a concession of 150 acres of land with which he hoped to prosper It appears, however, that he was there won Over to Anarchist ideas and, although imperfectly educated as we have mentioned, joined other French members of the sect at Buenos Ayres in carrying on a weekly journal which was entitled " La Liberte: Organe ouvrier paraissant tous les Dimanches." That may account in a measure for the difficulties in which Vaillant at last found himself, at all events he ended by returning virtually penniless to France. He had previously married, but had lost his wife, who had left him, however, a little girl named Sidonie. Since his return from abroad, moreover, he had co- habited with another woman by whom he had one or two children, but we are not quite certain whether they were alive at the time of the Palais Bourbon affair.

Vaillant had found it very difficult to secure work in Paris. Ill- luck always dogged his footsteps, and it was this which so greatly embittered him against the world in general. Apart from his liaison nothing could be urged against his general character. He did not drink--in fact he had always been practically a total abstainer and he was, moreover, a willing worker. But the only employment he had been able to secure since returning to France was a petty post as a commercial clerk at the huge salary of eighty francs a month--that is about 6s. a week, rather less than more.

There can be no doubt that Vaillant personified a feature of the social problem which is ever with us--a feature with which Governments and other organisations Would have done well to deal long before they attempted to do so. Vaillant was no worse than many another man born into the world. But turned adrift as he had been in his early youth, imperfectly educated, prepared for no calling whatever, he was almost fated to lead a life of wretchedness Now and again there occurs a case when a person similarly situated rises superior to circumstances and achieves a successful career. But such instances are exceptional, and Vaillant was simply one of the majority. Doubtless there has been progress in France, progress also in England, since the period we write of. Nowadays the young are not so entirely abandoned to their own resources as they used to be. But very much still remains to be done. Paris and London still contain plenty of " unemployables," troops of young fellows who are of little use either to themselves or to others. In the former city the weaker or more vicious minded of them gravitated in Vaillant's days towards Anarchism--they were "les Jeunes Anarchistes;" since then they have only too often become Apaches.

Vaillant's ill luck and misery made him an Anarchist. His nature was dreamy and sensitive. He brooded over his bitter want, and, as his counsel put it at his trial, became exasperated. If he could not live, well, he would die, but not before he had had his fling at some of the representatives of that social system to which he ascribed his position. So this man set about making a bomb, and as he only disposed of a paltry twenty francs a week with which to keep himself and others, he made that bomb by slow degrees, expending a few sous on it week by week, buying chemicals in very small quantities preparing a glass tube for sulphuric acid, utilising scraps or iron, and nails such as are found in boot heels, by way of " shrapnel." Altogether, his engine of destruction- which destroyed nothing, its bark indeed was far worse than its bite--cost him only a few francs.

His desire, as we previously indicated, was to strike M. Casimir- Perier, the Prime Minister, and M. Dupuy, the President of the Chamber; and it is as well perhaps to explain here his reasons for that desire. Clever, brilliant, full of good intentions, Casimir- Perier, was at the same time distinctly an authoritarian, with a disposition akin to that of his famous and imperious grandfather. A sincere Republican, but one of strictly limited views, and in no sense a democrat, he also happened to be one of the very richest men in France. Much of his wealth was derived from the great Anzin mines of which he had long been an administrateur, and in all disputes between capital and labour, employer and employed, he invariably took the former side. Scarcely had he become Prime Minister than he was virulently attacked for his connection with the Anzin Company, but retorted proudly enough that he had retired from his position a considerable time previously, that is on being elected President of the Chamber. It happened, however, that Anzin had long been chosen by the extremist press as an example of the manner in which capitalists " exploited " the workers; and thus Casimir- Perier was still reviled for being even a shareholder in the enterprise. Such names as " the Man with the Forty Millions " and " the Vampire of Anzin " were currently bestowed on him in Anarchist and Socialist journals. To Vaillant all that was incitement. Again, the same journals never ceased thundering against M. Charles Dupuy, whose disposition was as authoritarian, and who, moreover, had already coquetted with the Royalists, and evinced distinct clericalist tendencies. Thus one can understand whyVaillant, in his embittered state of mind, hoped to strike the President of the Chamber as well as the President of the Council. At the same time it may well be questioned whether the bomb he had prepared could have killed anybody.

Casimir- perier gave a speedy reply to Vaillant's deed. Whilst amazement reigned in Paris and the Palais Bourbon was strictly guarded for fear of some fresh attempt, the Prime Minister shut himself up with his colleagues to prepare fresh laws against the Anarchists. Forty- eight hours later four bills were submitted to the Chamber, one making Anarchists criminals at common law, another modifying the regulations with respect to explosives, a third aimed at the Anarchist press, and a fourth, requesting a credit of [[sterling]]32,deg.deg.deg., to increase the Paris police force. The deputies whose heads had been scratched by Vaillant's boot nails promptly adopted those measures, seven- eighths of the Chamber voting in their favour. It was years since any such huge majorities had been known at the Palais Bourbon.

But M. Raynal, the Minister of the Interior, was also busy in another way. Orders were issued to the postal authorities to seize all suspicious correspondence, there being special instructions to keep a vigilant eye on letters to or from England and Switzerland. Thus the " Cabinet noir" of the Empire was revived. But that was by no means everything. Long lists of Anarchists and of their friends or acquaintances who might be inclined to assist or harbour them, were prepared, and then 2000 permission warrants and IOO warrants of arrest were issued, and put into execution on New Year's Day. The number of actual arrests amounted, however, to only sixty- four, among those who were apprehended being MM. Elie and Paul Reclus, nephews of the distinguished geographer mentioned in the earlier part of this book. In regard to the many perquisitions, although a considerable quantity of Anarchist literature was seized, there was no discovery of any important documents, such as the Government had hoped to secure--documents establishing the exist ence of a great Anarchist organization, for that was the idea which prevailed in official quarters, and it was useless to point out that no such organisation was in being When you did so, when you urged that the Anarchists were a party of individualists who assembled only in little groups, who acted simply on personal inspiration, independently of one another, though influenced more or less by example, the sage gentlemen of the Ministry of the Interior and the Prefecture of Police smiled and replied: " We know better." As a matter of fact they knew nothing. They were deplorably ignorant, and ridiculously obstinate in their ignorance.

Meantime the judicial authorities were bent on hastening the trial of Vaillant; and Maitre Ajalbert, the advocate selected for his defence, having failed to secure a reasonable delay threw up his brief, which was thereupon accepted by another member of the Paris bar, Maitre Fernand Labori. Some years later M. Labori made himself famous all the world over by his defence of Emile Zola. It was, however, his defence of Vaillant which first brought him to the front in Paris. At the trial on January IO extraordinary precautions were taken to prevent any Anarchist attempt on the Palais de Justice. M. Labori pleaded very eloquently for the prisoner, whom he described as an exaspere de la misere, a view which, as the reader will have perceived, we also have adopted, and which was largely borne out by a statement which Vaillant himself read to the jury: the callousness of society and the misery of the destitute being the chief points which he urged in his defence. But his deed had been directed against the representatives of the nation, and the jury was in a measure under the influence of all the recent steps which had been taken by the Government, and which pointed to the existence of some great Anarchist plot, which it was necessary to nip in the bud. Thus, after half an hour's deliberation, a verdict of guilty was returned without any mention of extenuating circumstances. Sentence of death necessarily ensued.

Several newspapers, however, recognising that there were special circumstances in the case, were in favour of clemency; while others vigorously upheld the verdict and sentence. For instance, " Le Journal des Debats " declared that a reprieve would be an insult to the jury. No organ of the press, however, was more zealous in its demand for the prisoner's execution than " L'Evenement," whose political director, M. Edmond Magnier, a Republican Senator of the Var, wrote some trenchant articles calling on the Government to remain firm and show no indulgence. Curiously enough, at that very time, Magnier himself was amenable to the criminal law for having sold his parliamentary influence to Baron de Renach in connection with the Panama Canal Company, and, indeed, a little later he was cast down from his position and sent to prison for his venal practices.

On the other hand " Le Figaro," although a Conseservative organ, advised a reprieve, and even started a subscription in favour of Vaillant's daughter Sidonie, thereby raising a few hundred pounds for the child's benefit. This led, however, to some unseemly contentions respecting the girl's future upbringing. A number of people thrust themselves forward, offering to adopt her, and while some of the offers were undoubtedly sincere and prompted by the best of motives, others were plainly inspired by a mere desire for self- adverti- sent Vaillant himself ultimately brought the disputes to an end by appointing the Anarchist writer, Sebastian Faure, as his daughter's guardian.

The girl, who was about ten years old, addressed a touching letter to Mme. Carnot, wife of the President of the Republic, begging for her good offices in her father's favour; and it was so simple, so naive an epistle, that although Sidonie may well have been helped to compose it there can be no doubt that it was largely her own work Some fifty Radical and Socialist deputies and about the same number of senators also solicited a reprieve, and M. Labori urged his client s case at a personal interview with President Carnot. The latter was inclined to clemency, but his ministers, headed by Casimir- perier, and the President of the Chamber, Charles Dupuy, were altogether opposed to lenient courses, and thus the decision went forth that the law must take its course.

It was, we feel, a regrettable decision. Naturally we cannot be sure that had a reprieve been granted the course of subsequent events would have been different from what it proved to be; but it is virtually certain that from the hour of Vaillant's execution President Carnot was a doomed man. In the government of States, in the administration of the interests of the general community, there are doubtless occasions when an unflinching policy must be pursued without regard to the consequences which may befall individuals But one may well question whether Vaillant's case was such an occasion, and whether the exercise of leniency towards him might not have spared France several further outrages, culminating in the assassination of the President, and leading to a dark period of reactionary policy, when the Dreyfus case became the pretext for years of turmoil, amidst which the very existence of the Republic was threatened. The only persons who profited by Vaillant's execution were those who urged it the most strongly:-- Charles Dupuy, whom it restored before long to ministerial power and Casimir- Perier, who, for a brief space, stepped intodeg. Carnot's shoes after the latter's assassination.

It was on the morning of Monday February 5, 1894, that Vaillant suffered the penalty of the law on the Place de la Roquette. When the prisoner was awakened at seven o' clock he expressed himself quite ready to die. He refused everything that was offered him, being unwilling either to smoke or to drink. He also declined the ministrations of the chaplain, Abbe Valadier. It was exactly twelve minutes past seven when he emerged from the prison, carrying his bearded head high, and walking with a firm step. His shirt was cut low and unbuttoned, allowing a view of his somewhat ruddy chest. When he was half way between the prison and the guillotine he shouted in a powerful voice: " Death to middle- class society, and long live Anarchism ! " Then, still unassisted, he went swiftly towards the instrument; and within two minutes had ceased to live.

His remains were conveyed to what is called the coin des supplicies in the cemetery of Ivry, south of Paris, whither many people repaired during the next few days. It did not satisfy the Anarchists to allow people to guess the sentiments with which they regarded the execution. They hastened to declare them urbi et orbit Only twenty- four hours had elapsed when the cemetery- keepers discovered on Vaillant's grave a little pyramid inscribed: Labor improbus omnia vincit, as well as a card bearing the words: " Glory to thee, I am only a child, but I will avenge thee " And on the morrow the spot was decorated with a large palm branch (evidently brought during the night), whilst on a larger card than the first one, the following threatening lines were written in a bold hand:

Puisqu'ils ont fait boire a la terre,

A l'heure du soleil naissant,

Rosee auguste et salutaire,

Les saintes gouttes de ton sang,

Sous les feuilles de cette palme,

Que t'offre le Droit outrage

Tu peux dormir d'un sommeil calme,

O Martyr, tu seras venge!

That this was no vain menace was shown by the occurrences of the next few months.

CHAPTER 8: The French Terror (1894)

Swiss Enactments against Propaganda by Deed--The Avengers of Vaillant--The Explosion at the Cafe Terminus, Paris--The career of Emile Henry--The Affair of Martial Bourdin at Greenwich-- Trial and Execution of Emile Henry--Jean Pauwels and the Affairs in the Faubourg St Martin and the Rue St Jacques-- Nervous Tension in Paris--Trials of Anarchists at Vienna and Berlin--Prosecutions in France--The Case of Gaston Richard-- Proceedings against Anarchist Writers: Jean Grave and Maurice Charnay--The Doctrine of Anti- Militarism--Jean Pauwels killed at the Madeleine--The Cafe Foyot Explosion and Laurent- Tailhade --May Day, 1894--Fall of Casimir- Perier's Ministry--The Dupuy Cabinet--The Career of Sadi Carnot--His Policy as President of the Republic--His Decision to retire--His Travels and personal Popularity--He starts for Lyons--His last Interview with his Children and Grandchildren--Lyons and its Population--Carnot entertained at a Banquet--His last Speech--He sets out for the Theatre--His Reception in the Rue de la Republique--His Assassination--The Italian Colony assailed--Attempt on Crispi at Rome--Measures against Anarchists in Italy--Murder of Signor Bandi--Queen Victoria and the German Kaiser on the Assassination of Carnot--Election of Casimir- Perier to the Presidency--Career of Santo Geronimo Caserio--His Sojourn at Cette--His Journey to Lyons--His Trial and Execution--Adolescent Crime.

BEFORE Vaillant was executed Switzerland had witnessed another outbreak in which Anarchists were concerned, and which arose, like the previous one, out of the hostility prevailingbetween Swiss and Italian workmen. Demonstrations, attended by explosions outside the Italian Consulate at Zurich, led to a serious encounter with the police and far from advancing Anarchist interests in any way did exactly the reverse, for the Confederation, long so lenient to the revolutionaries of all kinds on its territory now adopted additional special laws against that Propaganda by Deed which the Anarchists seemed to be adopting all the world over. It was enacted that ten years imprisonment with hard labour should be the minimum penalty for making use of explosives with a criminal design, that five years of like punishment should be alloted to those who prepared explosives or taught others to prepare them for criminal use, and that another five years should be the portion of any individual who might be convicted of having publicly or privately incited others to commit crimes against either persons or property, whether in Switzerland or elsewhere.

The enactment of those provisions demonstrated the folly of the Anarchists in introducing the methods of Propaganda by Deed into the only state of continental Europe which they had hitherto been able to regard as a fairly safe place of refuge. Switzerland, one of the most liberty- loving countries in the world, had long been loath to comply with the representations of the great Powers in respect either to right of asylum, or freedom of action among political refugees. It had only gradually conceded one or another point in proportion as either Nihilist or Anarchist Propaganda by Deed became more and more serious. When, however, there were attempts to carry on that propaganda on its own territory against its own government or officials, it at once decided to punish it severely--so differently does one judge things according as to whether one's own interests or merely those of other people are affected by them.

At the same time the Federal Council was undoubtedly influenced in its decision by the course of events in other countries, notably France. Five days after Vaillant had been guillotined the threat to avenge him was put into execution at a cafe near the well- known railway terminus called the Gare Saint Lazare. The enlargement Of that station some years previously had been attended Iby the demolition of several old houses and the building Iof an hotel' called the Hotel Terminus, on a spot where during the Bloody Week of May, 1871, we were fired upon by a party of Communards, a person with us being killed by one bullet, and our own escape from death being due solely to the presence of mind and alacrity of a good friend who has since joined the majority, Captain the Hon Dennis gingham, at that time Paris correspondent Of " The Pall Mall Gazette." On the side of the Rue Saint Lazare the ground floor of the hotel we have mentioned was fitted up as a cafe, where on the evening of February 12, 1894, a number of customers were assembled, when a bomb was suddenly flung among them, the result being that a gentleman, named Borde, was killed, and twenty other persons were injured. The young fellow who had committed this outrage ran off, firing several revolver shots at those who tried to stop him, but before long he was secured and removed to prison. He at first gave the name of Le Breton, but this proper appellation proved to be Emile Henry. Though born--curiously enough--in the great centre of Spanish Anarchism, Barcelona, he was the son of French parents who belonged to the bourgeoisie but whose family had produced various revolutionaries in previous times, notably at the period of the Paris Com mune Moreover, Emile Henry's elder brother, Fortune, was like him an Anarchist. Emile was extremely intelligent. Educated at the (code Jean- Baptiste Say in Paris, he had displayed great proficiency in mathematics, securing already at the age deg.of sixteen a bursary which entitled him to admission into the famous Ecole Polytechnique. On the ground, how ever, that he was opposed to militarism he did not enter that college, but took to commercial pursuits, being at first employed by one of his uncles, named Bordenave an engineer, who sent him to an establishment at Venice Returning to France, Henry next secured a situation with a cloth merchant at Roubaix, whom he left in order to apprentice himself to a clockmaker. It was afterwards asserted that he did so with the express object of studying a branch of mechanics which he might utilise in preparing a really effective infernal machine. However that may be, no long period elapsed before he gave up clockmaking and entered the employment of a Sculptor of ornamental work. At the same time he dabbled in Anarchism and sent occasional contributions to the review was entitled " L'En Dehors," some account of which was given in one of our previous chapters.

At the time of his arrest Henry ought really to have been in the army, but he had managed to evade incorporation owing to his birth abroad. His guilt in respect to the explosion at the Cafe Terminus was unquestionable, but, like a person proud of his achievements, he candidly informed the investigating magistrate that it was he who had deposited an infernal machine at the Paris offices of the Carmaux Mining Company on November 8, 1892, which machine had subsequently exploded at the Pohce Commissariat in the Rue des Bons Enfants. On being interrogated by the Procuror of the Republic respecting that affair, Henry reiterated his assertions, supplying particulars which confession was authentic. At the same time he declared that he had acted alone in the matter, having no accomplices whatever, the truth of which statement is extremely doubtful.

After the explosion in the Rue des Bons Enfants Henry had temporarily betaken himself to London, and if in this instance we may believe the frequently unreliable Mcmoirs of Henri Rochefort, he there openly boasted among Anarchist and other Revolutionary refugees that the outrage in question was his work Rochefort who had also been obliged to seek an asylum in London at that time, owing to his participation in the BouIangist intrigues, relates that Charles Malato, the well- known Anarchist writer, remarked to him one day : " There is a young fellow going about London saying that he is the author of the Rue des Bons Enfants explosion. He is evidently taking people in." In fact, nobody believed the story, but regarded it either as a young man's boasting, or as a romance concocted for the purpose of extracting money out of sympathisers with the cause Accepting Rochefort's account, however, there can be no doubt that Henry substantially told the truth, even though he always remained reticent or equivocated on such points as the procuring of the dynamite used in his apparatus, and the conveyance of the latter (which was extremely heavy) to the Avenue de ['Opera. Those were points, of course, which suggested the complicity of other people.

During the time which Henry spent in London a good many Anarchist refugees were to be found there. The sect also counted a certain number of English members and m December 1893 two attempts were made to hold Anarchist meetings in Trafalgar Square. But the police promptly intervened and dispersed the " demonstrators," who took to their heels chivied by the crowd. Three days after Henry flung his bomb into the Cafe Terminus, that is on February 15, 1894, a remarkable discovery was made in Greenwich Park at no great distance from the Observatory, a man's body being found there in a more or less mutilated condition. It was surmised that this individual had stumbled whilst walking, and had been killed by some explosives which he was undoubtedly carrying at the time. The police were apparently of opinion that he had entertained some design against the Observatory, but we doubt whether such was the case His name was Martial Bourdin, and he was of French nationality and an Anarchist in politics. We incline rather to the view that he may have betaken himself to Greenwich in order to meet somebody from whom he was to receive or to whom he was to deliver the chemicals which caused his death, and we greatly doubt whether they were intended for use in England. Had Bourdin been an Englishman such might certainly have been the case; but now that Switzerland was being gradually closed to foreign Anarchists, England was becoming their sole place of asylum, and it was incumbent on them all to do nothing which might tend to close the one open door that remained to them. We greatly doubt therefore whether Bourdin meditated an outrage in this country.

At that time the chief, or perhaps it is preferable to say the best known place in London where English and foreign Anarchists met, was the so- called Autonomie Club in Windmill Street, Tottenham Court Road, and the police raided that establishment on the day after Bourdin's death; but it does not appear that this raid yielded any notable results. Feeling was running high in London at that moment. The outrage at the Cafe Terminus in Paris was as still fresh in people's minds, and, besides, that city had since been the scene of two more explosions of which we shall presently give some account. Thus on February 29 on the removal of Bourdin's remains from an undertaker's shop in Chapel Street near Lisson Grove, for interment at St Pancras Cemetery at Finchley, Londoners gave free vent to their anti- Anarchist sentiments. Just before the little funeral procession, composed of a hearse and a mourning coach, started on its journey a body of Anarchists, carrying red flags edged with black, endeavoured to join it. But the police, who were present in force, ordered them to withdraw, and as they demurred to obeying they were forced to disperse leaving behind them their banners which were speedily torn up by the crowd. So antagonistic was the latter's demeanour that the police had considerable difficulty in protecting the hearse and the occupants of the mourning coach--a brother of the deceased and some friends--from violence At the cemetery an agitator of that time, named Quinn, who styled himself a " Christian Anarchist " (he had figured in the attempted demonstrations at Trafalgar Square), endeavoured to deliver a speech by the graveside, but he had only been able to utter the words: " Friends, Anarchists, comrades," when he was seized by the police, who kept him in custody until the departure of the mourning coach, in which he gladly took refuge from the ever- threatening crowd.

Let us now return to Emile Henry and say something of his trial and execution, reserving for the present an account of other incidents which followed his arrest. When he appeared in the dock at the Paris Assizes the jury saw before them a young fellow in his twenty- second year, slightly built, with a thin face, a sharp nose, a little down on his upper lip and a slight ruddy beard. The prisoner displayed great composure and considerable intelligence. He was plainly of a frigid, energetic, skeptical nature, and it was remarked at the time that, in the days of the first French Revolution, he might well have become one of the Commissaries of the Convention. Briefly, to some minds, he suggested Saint Just.

He made several remarkable admissions during his examination by the presiding judge. He declared for instance, that it had been his desire to cause as much havoc as possible, and that before throwing his bomb into the Cafe Terminus he had looked in at Bignon's Restaurant in the Avenue de l'Opera, and at the Cafe de La Paix on the Boulevards; but having found very few customers at either of those establishments he had gone farther afield. On arriving at last at the Cafe Terminus, and perceiving that it was being fairly well patronised, he had regarded it as a suitable spot for his purpose He cynically remarked, however, that he was dissatisfied with the result of the explosion, as he had hoped to kill at least fifteen people, and injure twenty or thirty others But he recognised that, by his own fault, his bomb had been imperfect. Henry indulged in no little raillery and repartee throughout his trial, and remained quite unmoved when sentence of death was passed upon him; but all his courage collapsed when he found himself in presence of the guillotine, on the morning of his execution, May 21.

As we previously indicated, some notable occurrences had followed his apprehension after the Cafe Terminus affair on February 12. The French authorities then decided on further perquisitions and arrests, among those who were committed to prison being Sebastien Faure, the guardian of Vaillant's little daughter. Next, on February, 19 came some mysterious affairs in two very different thoroughfares of Paris, one being the Faubourg St Martin, north of the Seine, and the other the Rue St Jacques, in the " Latin Quarter," south of the river. In each of those districts the local commissary of police received a letter stating that the writer, being overwhelmed by misfortune, had decided to take his life, and was anxious that nobody should be accused of an act for which he alone would be responsible. Both letters were signed "Etienne Rabardy," that being (as was afterwards discovered) the name of a man who had lost some papers establishing his identity, which papers had come into the possession of a certain Jean Pauwels, an Anarchist of Belgian nationality, then in Paris.

Of course the object of the letters was to attract the police to the addresses given in them. At each of those addresses there was an hotel meuble, where Pauwels had taken a room; and in each room he had left a bomb in such a position that it might fall and explode directly the police should have forced the door, which he locked from the outside, carrying the key away with him. The police naturally repaired to the two lodging houses, and at the one in the Rue St Jacques there was an explosion by which three persons were wounded, one of them the landlady of the house, being so severely injured that she soon afterwards died. In the Faubourg St Martin fortunately, the bomb fell without bursting, and was then carefully exploded by the police for fear lest it should do hurt or damage.

The nervous tension in Paris was at this time very great. After Vaillant's attempt at the Chamber of Deputies had come the Cafe Terminus affair; and now, although the casualties resulting from the Rue St Jacques explosion were less severe, they none the less supplied proof, as did the attempt in the Faubourg St Martin, that the Anarchists had by no means renounced their policy of homicide and destruction. The situation in the city reminded one of a famous saying. On May 31, 1830, less than two months before the Revolution of 1830 which overthrew Charles X., Count de Salvandy remarked to the Duke of Orleans (later King Louis Philippe) at a ball given by that Prince in honour of his brother- in- law Francis I., King of Naples: " This is quite a Neapolitan fete, Monseigneur. We are dancing on a volcano " Now the Parisians of 1894 felt that they also were on a volcano, and they lived in daily dread of some fresh eruption' which might occur at any moment, and in any part of the city. If a trifling mishap occurred to a tramcar, through an electric wire getting out of order, people imagined that an explosive had been deposited on the line, and a panic ensued. When an accident happened to the scenery of a naval piece performed at the Gaite Theatre, and a few ballet girls, acting as sailors, dropped on to the stage shaken, no doubt, but by no means seriously hurt, half the ladies in the audience screamed hysterically, and many people rushed away fearing lest they might be blown to pieces. " Les Anarchistes ! Une bombe ! " were the exclamations heard at the least untoward incident which occured in any place of public resort.

In other cities, also, the Anarchists and their doings were prominently en evidence at this time. On the very day of the Rue St Jacques affair, fourteen members of the sect, who had been arrested the previous year at Vienna in connection with a discovery of some explosives and a secret printing press, were arraigned there on charges of conspiring to change the form of government, stir up civil war, encourage the military to desert, and commit crimes with dynamite. These men outwardly belonged to a party of so- called " Independent Socialists," who had separated from the Social Democrats in 1892. They had two journals at their disposal, one in German, " Die Zukunft," the other in Czech, the " Volne Listy.'' Their trial resulted in eight of them being convicted, the principal ones, named Haspel and Hahnel, being sentenced to ten and eight years' rigorous imprisonment respectively, while to the remaining six prisoners terms of from two to four years were allotted. A couple of Anarchists, a certain Pawlowitz, a locksmith, and another named Petersdorf, a cloth worker, were also tried at Berlin about this time for using violent language at public meetings, but they escaped with sentences of nine and three months' imprisonment.

It was probably in the hope of reassuring the Parisians that M. Casimir- Perier and his colleague M. Raynal persevered in their policy of making perquisitions and arrests, and suppressing or seizing Anarchist periodicals. About this time, both in Paris and in the provinces a number of reputed Anarchists were tried and sentenced to imprisonments' chiefly for using threatening or abusive language in speeches or writings. There were, for instance, the cases of Herteau, Castel, Merigaud, and Rousset. The last named was a Social reformer, who, with the assistance of various charitably disposed people, had organised during the winter a service of meals for poverty stricken folk, meals at which addresses were delivered on social problems and their remedy. Some of the language used at these so- called soupes- comferences displeased the authorities who would not tolerate the slightest citicism of their actions, or even allow it to be said that Society itself was largely responsible for the evil which had sprung up in its midst; and thus Rousset was prosecuted and sentenced to imprisonment in spite of the good opinion entertained of him by many people who were in no sense Anarchists--such as Jules Simon, Leon Say, Charles Floquet, Paul de Cassagnac, Alphonse Daudet, Sarah Bernhardt, and Emile Zola. A case like that tended to bring the authorities and the judges into contempt. Had the prisoner been tried by jury he would probably have been acquitted.

It became the fashion at this time to regard almost every criminal as an Anarchist. Who, indeed, would commit theft, fraud, assault, or murder if he were not one ? This, of course, was the reduction ad absurdam of the repulsions which Anarchism inspired. Previously la sagesse des nations had proclaimed money to be the root of all evil; now Anarchism was set in money's place. Some light was cast on the methods of the French authorities in this respect by the case of Gaston Richard, an impulsive hot- headed youth of seventeen, who had been assistant to a pork- butcher, and had stabbed and thereby caused the death of the brother of a tavern- keeper at Courbevoie near Paris. " You are an Anarchist," said the judge to Richard at his trial. " No, Monsieur le Pre sident, I am not." " But you told the investigating magistrate you were." " Well, it was like this: every time the magistrate examined me he repeated: ' You are an Anarchist. You must be one to have killed that man in the way you did. Come, confess it, you belong to the Anarchists.' And at last I got so tired of always hearing him tell me I was an Anarchist that to put a stop to it I said to him one day: 'Well, yes, I am.' And that is the whole truth of the matter, Monsieur le President." We have little doubt that Richard told the truth. His story was quite in accordance with the spirit prevailing at the time, but the court treated it with incredulity. In England the case would have been treated as one of manslaughter rather than murder, but Richard was convicted of the latter crime (under extenuating cir cumstances) and sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years.

On the other hand, much as we favour the freedom of the press, we feel that there was justification for several of the proceedings which the authorities took in respect to Anarchist periodicals and pamphlets. It is easy to indulge in sophistry on such a subject. The line must be drawn somewhere. When a writer deliberately incites his readers to murder and rapine, when he preaches defiance to all laws, the destruction of every social rule' the community is well entitled to take action. Moreover' if we concede that a man has a right to attack a social system of which he disapproves, we must also acknowledge that this system has an equal right to defend itself. It follows that the former is not logically entitled to complain if he is worsted in the encounter which he himself has initiated. Jean Grave, a very able exponent of Anarchism, to whom we have previously referred more than once had penned an extremely well written but none the less absolutely subversive treatise entitled " La Societe mourante et 1 Anarchie." It was full Of insidious suggestions and incitements. The Society, which Grave declared to be dying, undertook, however, to show him that it was not in such a moribund condition as he asserted. He was therefore prosecuted for issuing the work in question. Writers like Octave Mirbeau, Paul Adam, and Bernard Lazare spoke in favour of it, but Grave was sentenced to two years imprisonment, and it was ordered that all the copies of his work which had been seized should be destroyed. As it happened, he profited by an amnesty granted in February, 1895, and thereupon published a treatise entitled " La Societe future," which he had written during his detention.

Another case was that of " Le Catechisme du Soldat," the work of a writer named Maurice Charnay, who held that no real fundamental change could be effected in the social system unless the armed forces of the State were, in the first instance, either got rid of or won over. He therefore set himself the task of preaching Anti- Militarism and inciting soldiers to refuse to do their duty. Anti- Militarism is, of course, a pet hobby with many well- meaning folk. Numerous are the pious people who never weary of telling us about our duty towards God, but who at the same time never breathe a word about duty towards one's country. We have personally seen too much of war to regard it otherwise than as the greatest of calamities, one which men should make every effort to avert; but whilst we continue to love our country' whilst we are beholden to the State for good and orderly government and protection and the furtherance of all the interests of the community, it is our duty to guard our country from those who may wish it ill, and to support the State by personal service.

Nowadays Socialists as well as Anarchists denounce Militarism, but we entertain no doubt that if Socialist rule should ever be established in Great Britain it will find itself constrained to establish some form of universal military service (if only by virtue of the principle that the same obligations rest on one and all), even if such service should not come before that time. Virtually all the Socialist theories embody principles of authority and compulsion. It is only the Anarchist theory which rejects both; and Anti- Militarism is the first step on the road to Anarchism. That is a point to be remembered by many pious folk, and selfish folk, and utopian dreamers also.

So well is it understood by the members of the Anarchist fraternity that of more recent years all their greatest, most determined and persistent efforts have been directed against Militarism in every form. If the Socialists on their side also oppose it, that is because, such as it exists, it constitutes an obstacle to their ascendancy. Once in power, however, they would revive and strengthen it for their own purposes.

Maurice Cha nay's " Catechisme du Soldat," more insidious, less openly violent, no doubt, than several subsequent publications, was, however, the first really systematic attempt to spread disaffection through the ranks of the French army. At the time he wrote, the matter was regarded as less serious than it is nowadays, and thus Charnay escaped with a sentence of six months' imprisonment.

On Thursday, March 15, a man was entering the Madeleine church in Paris, being just between the swinging doors, when there was a loud explosion and he fell to the ground. He must have had a bomb either in his pocket or in his hand at the moment, intending to fling it inside the church. He was found dead and horribly mutilated, but little damage was done to the building. This man, as the investigations established, was Jean Pauwels, the Belgian Anarchist of whom we previously spoke, and he was identified as the person who, in the month of February, had taken rooms in the Rue St Jacques and the Faubourg St Martin, and deposited explosives there. The information which the police secured respecting him led to the arrest of several persons, but as the authorities failed to establish their complicity in any of his doings they were released after a few weeks' detention. The police held that Pauwels had been a friend and confederate of Henry's, and that the bombs of the Faubourg St Martin, the Rue St Jacques, and the Madeleine had been prepared by Henry, and removed by Pauwels from Henry's lodgings immediately after the Cafe Terminus affair, and before any perquisition was made.

The next incident in the Propaganda by Deed occurred on April 4, when a bomb exploded outside the Cafe Foyot, near the Luxembourg Palace, and blew in its windows, a customer, M. Laurent Tailhade, who had written on the psychology of Anarchism, being slightly injured. M. Tailhade was also a poet, and there was a kind of poetic justice in his mishap, for in treating the question of bomb- throwing in one of his papers on Anarchism he had blandly inquired: " Qu'importe l'acte, si le geste est beau? ? " This experience at the Cafe Foyot must have shown him that the exploits of the Anarchists had to be considered from other points of view than that of mere artistry. The supposition that the outrage was directed against him personally, as he feigned deg. imagine would seem, by reason of his own Anarchist leanings to have been erroneous. It is far more likely that the attempt was suggested by the circumstance that several Senators frequently lunched at the Cafe Foyot. The person to whom the outrage was due was never discovered.

Owing to the vigilance of the authorities all over Europe there were but few disturbances this year in connection with the usual May Day celebrations. The most notable of them occurred at Ghent, in Belgium, and at Gratz, in Styria. In London some Anarchists attempted to organise a meeting in Hyde Park, but their platform was cleared by the crowd, and the police had to protect them from assault. In Paris discretion was deemed the better part of velour, and only a few men, who indulged rather too copiously in the flowing bowl, attempted to sing " La Ravachole" or the inspiring Anarchist hymn which began:

Aux idoles de la Patrie

Nous sacrifions le bonheur;

En pratiquant l'Idolatrie

Nous avons pourri notre coeur

Serons nous toujours les victimes

Des dirigeants et des coquins ?

Non ! Alors arretons les crimes

Par la mort des chefs assassins !

Chorus.

Debout, freres de misere

Pour nous y'a pas de frontiere.

Revoltons nous contre tout affameur !

Pour ecraser la Bourgeoisie,

Et supprimer la Tyrannie,

I1 faut lutter en chccur

Pour l'Anarchie !

On May II there was an explosion in the Avenue Kleber, but it did no damage; and on the 21st Emile Henry was executed, as we previously related. Those occurrences, apart from the prosecution of a few brawlers, were the only ones directly connected with Anarchism which took place that month in France. But on May 23, the Casimir- perier Ministry, having forbidden the employes of the State Railway Lines to send delegates to a Syndical Congress, found its policy condemned by the chamber of Deputies. The alarm which Vaillant's bomb had caused among the members of that assembly had now subsided, and in spite of the later deeds of Emile Henry and Pauwels, it was felt to an increasing degree in parlia mentary circles that the Government policy was becoming too reactionary. The Ministry did not appear to have Stamped out Anarchism, and on the other hand it had undoubtedly provoked discontent among the working classes generally. The debate, then, on the question of the railway employee and their congress ended by 265 deputies voting against the Government, which secured only 225 supporters. Casimir- Perier thereupon resigned of office.

On May 30, after considerable difficulty, a new Administration was formed by M. Charles Dupuy. His presence at the head of it signified that its home policy would be much the same as that of the previous Cabinet. All its members, excepting two, might be described as Conservative Republicans, the exceptions being M. Poincare, who took the department of Finances, and M. Barthou, who became Minister of Public Works. Dupuy allotted the Interior to himself, confirmed the subsequently notorious General Mercier as Minister of War, and selected M. Felix Faure, afterwards President of the Republic, as Minister of Marine; whilst the portfolio for Foreign Affairs was, for the first time, secured by M. Gabriel Hanotaux, the most Anglophobist of all the statesmen of the Third Republic, and for many years subsequently the determined enemy of Great Britain in every diplomatic field. The new Dupuy Cabinet was promptly dubbed the " Ministere des Jeunes," by which appella tion it is generally designated in French parliamentary history, and which it owed to the circumstance that Dupuy himself was then only forty- three years old Hanstaux forty- one, and Poincare thirty- four, none of their colleagues, moreover, having yet reached his sixtieth year.

Three weeks went by, and if the extremist parties were well pleased with the resignation of Casimir- Perier (who had again become President of the Chamber) they were by no means satisfied with Dupuy's return to Office. Still, there were only the usual "rumblings, and the Anarchists giving few signs of life, public confidence was steadily reviving when, on June 24 the country was again plunged into horror and indignant resentment by the assassination of President Carnot at Lyons.

Before relating the circumstances of that deplorable event it may be allowable, perhaps even advisable, to give some particulars concerning Carnot and his career. The old French saying, Les morts vont vise, was never more apposite than it is to- day. In the hurry- skurry of twentieth- century life the departed and their work are soon forgotten. We mentioned previously that Sadi Carnot was the grandson of Lazare Carnot, the great organiser of the First Republic's armies. Lazare also served under Napoleon during the Consulate, and again during the Hundred Days, when the Emperor was constrained to seek the support of the more liberal- minded politicians in France. Lazare Carnot was one of them, in fact his Republicanism was sincere, and it was inherited by his son, Louis Hippolyte, who, after the Revolution of 1848, became a member of the Provisional Government and subsequently resisted the Coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon. Both his sons, Marie Francois Sadi and Adolphe, entered the Ecole Polytechnique, and the former became a state engineer of the Roads and Bridges Service. He married the daughter of Dupont- white, the famous political economist and precursor of Christian Socialism, one of whose axioms was that " Society has the right to compel individuals to act rightly, and it is its duty to protect the weak from the strong." By his marriage with Mlle. Dupont- White, Sadi Carnot had a daughter, who married a M. Cunisset, and three sons, first, Lazare Hippolyte Sadi, who entered the army secondly, Ernest, who became a civil engineer; and thirdly, Francois Adolphe, also an engineer but of themechanical branch of the profession. Those three gentlemen are, we think, still among us, the eldest now being one of the historiographers of the French War Office.

During the Franco- German War their father devised an improved mitrailleuse, and submitted a model of it to Gambetta, who thereupon attached him to the War Department and afterwards made him Commissary of the Republic in three departments of Normandy, in which capacity he placed Havre in a state of defence, and did everything possible to ensure the revictualling of Paris by way of the Seine. On the arrival of peace Sadi Carnot was elected a deputy for the Cote d'Or, his family being of old Burgundian stock, though he himself was born at Limoges in 1837. In the National Assembly he became secretary to the group called the Republican Left, and after M. Grevy had been elected President of the Republic, he held, under the successive premierships of M. Waddington and M. Jules Ferry, the office of Under- Secretary for Public Works. Later he became Minister of that department, and subsequently Minister of Finances, in which latter post, rejecting many of the financial expedients hitherto employed, he prepared a very able Budget which the Chamber, however, foolishly rejected, in such wise that the financial position of the Republic went from bad to worse. It was at that period that' careless of all the intrigues which existed at the Elysee, Carnot stoutly refused to further the interests of a trading company patronised by M. Grevy's son in law, Daniel Wilson.

The latter's conduct brought about Grevy's overthrow' as we previously related; and it was then that Carnot whose reputation for integrity stood so high, was elected to the Presidency of the Republic, instead of that able statesman, Jules Ferry, whose star had set amidst the repulse of the French arms in the much mismanaged Tonquin enterprise. At this time, December, 1887 Carnot was fifty years of age. He had an intellectual energetic face, a full squarely- trimmed beard, long moustaches and closely cropped hair. His figure was of the average height and slim, and although his gait was somewhat awkward, for he was inclined to be knock kneed, his appearance was not devoid of dignity.

We previously indicated that the period of his Presi was one of great unrest in France. The situation was already very difficult at the time of his election, for the Boulangist agitation was steadily spreading through the country. Carnot's chief aim, therefore, was to pro- mote the concentration of all sincere Republicans, and he readily co- operated with his ministers in removing General Boulanger from active service. The first ad ministrations of his Presidency, those in which Tirard and Floquet successively held the premiership, were not strong ones however; and it was only on Tirard's return to office, with M. Constans as Minister of the Interior, that Boulangism was definitely crushed. Meantime, various financial scandals had arisen, and the failure of the Panama Canal Company led to prolonged excitement and frequent ministerial changes, in dealing with which the President exerted himself to steer a middle course, in the belief that men of moderate views were more truly representative of the nation than others, and more likely to carry the Republican ship safely into port in spite of the storms by which it was beset. Thus men like Loubet and Ribot took office. As we have seen, the premiership passed eventually to Charles Dupuy, and behind the Semblance of bonhomie which had enabled the latter to make his way in politics, there suddenly appeared a very authoritarian spirit, dating from the time when Dupuy had discharged the duties of a schoolmaster.

There had been strikes among the working classes under Loubet, strikes again under Ribot, but there were far more during Dupuy's first ministry, and he often dealt with them with a blundering energy which hastened the evolution of a part of the masses towards Socialism tended to promote Anarchist rebellion, and led also to disruption in the Republican ranks. Then, the Anarchist Terror being at its height, another reputed strong man Casimir- perier, for a time took Dupuy's place, and in like fashion came into collision with the masses.

With two such Prime Ministers as these, both of them men of masterful dispositions, Carnot's personal authority, which, while other administrations held office, had often been exercised with salutary effect, became very greatly reduced; and there can be no doubt that it was largely this circumstance which influenced the President in deciding that he would not seek re- election at the expiration of his term of office. He was not a weak man but at the same time he was not a match for either Casimir- Perier or Dupuy with their passion for mastery their determination to hold all authority in their own hands. Thus he resolved to retire, leaving them to fight out the question of supremacy, as they did, after his death, with the result that both of them had to retire from their respective offices, Casimir- Perier for his part withdrawing altogether from political life.

Whatever may have been the faults of his respective ministers Carnot personally was respected on all sides Throughout the periods of Boulangism and Panamisrn his sincere Republican views and steadfast integrity remained unchallenged.

And he also made himself very popular in the French provinces by the frequent visits which he paid to one or another of them. He surpassed all his predecessors in that respect, travelling hither and thither quite as often as Gambetta had done, inaugurating monuments and works of public utility, opening exhibitions, presiding over gatherings of many kinds in one and another region. And as he possessed a ready command of language, and showed tact, unbending whenever the occasion required it, he made himself much liked in many directions. It is true that at the time of the Paris Exhibition of 1889, while he was on his way to a festival at Versailles, he was fired at by a weak- witted young fellow named Perrin, who was afterwards sentenced to four months' imprisonment, but throughout all the Anarchist Terror in the capital there was never the slightest attempt upon Carnot's person, though he constantly showed himself in public.

Such then was the position when in June 1894, the President decided to visit a Colonial Exhibition which was being held at Lyons. It was due to private initiative, but had secured the support of the municipality which was very anxious to have the President as its guest. On June 23, then, Carnot quitted Paris, accompanied by M. Dupuy the Prime Minister, General Borius, and other members of the Presidential household. When the train stopped at Dijon he found several members of ;his family waiting at the railway station to exchange greetings with him en passant. They were his eldest son, Lieutenant Carnot, his daughter, Mme. Cunisset- Carnot, her husband and her children. There was a brief but cordial chat, the President embraced his children and grandchildren--for the last time, though he knew it not--and the train then went on its way.

Lyons is a city with which we are well acquainted, and we were taking a brief holiday there at the time of Carnot's visit. The population comprised then, as it does now, a small but very bigoted Clericalist party, and a rather larger body of moderate Republicans; but the majority was compounded of Radicals, often of extreme views' and Socialists of various schools, there being, moreover, a certain number of Anarchists scattered among the working classes. The reader will remember the case in which Prince Kropotkin figured. The Lyons workmen, generally, have often given serious trouble to the authorities, notably in connection with strikes, but, as a rule, the Lyonnese have a *frank, open, cordial disposition. The race there, however, is by no means a pure one. Folk flock to Lyons from several provinces, notably Dauphine and Savoy, there being likewise a foreign element composed chiefly of Swiss and Piedmontese. To many of these Lyons is like a half- way house, where they sojourn awhile before going northward to Paris.

Of whatever elements, however, the population of Lyons might be composed, the reception which it accorded the President on his arrival on the evening of Saturday June 23, was, by reason of his personal popularity, quite enthusiastic. On the morrow, Sunday, he held a series of receptions, visited the Colonial Exhibition, and, in the evening, dined as the city's guest at the stately Palais du Commerce, where the Lyons Bourse is held. His health was proposed by Dr Gailleton, the Radical mayor of the city; and in response to the toast Carnot delivered a brief but impressive speech, which, as his term of office was expiring, and he had already signified that he did not wish to be re- elected was generally regarded as his presidential vale, though nobody imagined that it was almost the last utterance of his life. It was an eloquent appeal for concord among Frenchmen in the name of the country which needed that all her children should remain united, in order that there might be no pause in her march towards progress and justice, of which it was fit she should set an example to the world.

The banquet over, the Presidential party and the guests made ready to repair to the Grand Theatre, where there was to be a gala performance. The distance thither was short, not more than a couple of furlongs, and as it was a beautiful June evening Carnot had originally proposed to go on foot. But some member of his family, it appears, told the mayor privately that the exertions of the day had somewhat tired the President; and, accordingly, Dr Gailleton had provided a landau. Carnot seated himself in this carriage with the mayor and Generals Borius and Voisin, the former being the chief of his military household and the latter the commander of the Lyons garrison. A detachment of Cuirassiers rode in front, and in this order the party turned out of the Place des Cordeliers into the Rue de la Republique.

That fine, broad thoroughfare, originally called the Rue Imperiale, for it was one of the improvements effected in Lyons under the Second Empire, was crowded with people of all classes of society, waiting to acclaim the President on his way to the theatre. There were folk at every window, and from the broad side- walks where men, women, and children were packed almost as closely as sardines, many had flowed into the roadway, the police and the soldiers who were greatly outnumbered being powerless to keep them back. In the space left free between those seething masses, the Cuirassiers of Carnot's escort could only walk their horses, and it was at the same pace that the carriage followed.

As it turned into the Rue de la Republique at a little past nine o'clock, loud shouts of " Vive Carnot ! Vive la Republique ! Vive le President ! " rang out from thousands of enthusiastic spectators. Smiling genially, Carnot' who was seated on the right- hand side of the landau , respond vociferous . outburtst by raising his hat and waving his hand. And anxious, so it seemed to be in closer touch with that exuberant cheering throng he told a Cuirassier who was riding beside him to draw back so that he might see and be seen the better. Unhappily' that order sealed his fate.

All at once a young man sprang to the landau, holding in his raised right hand a paper which was supposed to be a petition. The carriage- steps closed automatically, directly the doors were shut, but the vehicle was a low built- one, and the young fellow, resting his left hand on the top of the right hand door, raised himself and struck the President a terrific blow. Within the paper which he carried a poignard was concealed, and leaving this in the terrible wound which he had inflicted, the assassin sprang down, dived between the horses of the landau and those of the last row of Cuirassiers preceding it, and rushed across the street towards the spot where the present writer and one of his wife's brothers were standing in the crowd.

There was a pretty servant girl of eighteen or twenty near us, and she, like others, on seeing this young man with the excited face come rushing across the road, imagined that he had done something wrong, stolen a watch or a purse perhaps, for at this moment, on our side of the way, at all events, nobody knew exactly what had happened So she pluckily caught hold of his sleeve in order to detain him, whereupon, after wrenching himself free, he struck her in the breast. As she reeled backward towards us and we caught hold of her to prevent her from falling, there arose a loud shout of indignation at the fellow's cowardly act. He was seized by two or three policemen, and at virtually the same moment an officier- de- paix or some such official, ran up shouting " Hold him tight ! He has just assassinated the President ! "

Then the cries of indignation ended in a gasp of amazement meet, promptly followed, however, by a perfect clamour of horror and fury. Ugly was the rush which ensued' sweeping many of us off our feet, and it seemed for a moment as if the assassin would there and then be lynched. But policemen and soldiers fought their way to the spot, closed round him, drove back the crowd, and finally carried him away.

"I am wounded!" Carnot exclaimed at the moment he was struck. He had just sufficient strength to draw the poignard from his wound and drop it into the road, where it was afterwards found by the police; then, however, he sank back in the carriage and lost consciousness. Everything had taken place so suddenly, so rapidly, that it had been impossible for either Dr Gailleton, or General Borius or General Voisin to intervene. In that connection it will be remembered that when Benedetto Cairoli interposed between King Humbert and Passanante he was only able to do so after the latter had struck a first and ineffectual blow, and was about to attempt a second. Unfortunately there was no need for the assassin of Carnot to strike a second time; the one wound which he had inflicted was mortal. Afterwards, Dr Gailleton, being a medical man, did all he could for the unfortunate President, and on Dr Poncet, Professor of Surgery at the Lyons Faculty of Medicine, coming up, he also got into the carriage and rendered assistance, whilst the Cuirassiers drove the crowd to right and left, and the landau made its way to the Prefecture as speedily as possible.

We have said that the wound was mortal. Such, indeed, had been the force of the assassin's blow that his weapon had penetrated to a depth of about four and a half inches, perforating the liver and opening the vena porta Nothing could stop hemorrhage under such conditions, and thus all efforts made by the medical men proved unavailing. Nevertheless some three hours elapsed before Carnot expired. Cardinal Couillee, Archbishop deg.of Lyons, had previously administered extreme unction and among those who were with the unfortunate president, or in attendance at the Prefecture during his last hours, were his cousin, M. Simeon Carnot, and the latter's sister, the Prime Minister (who returned to Paris by special train that same night, and the representatives of Lyons in the Chamber and the Senate.

Late in the evening, before the President was dead, it became known that the crime had been perpetrated by an Italian, whereupon there was a perfect outburst of popular fury, directed against the entire Italian colony in the city. Some accounts in the English newspapers of that time says that the excesses which occurred were due to " roughs." That is not quite correct, for at the first moment, at all events, all sorts and conditions of people, carried away by the indignation which stirred their impetuous southern blood, joined in wrecking cafes, taverns, and provision- stores kept by Italians. The sight of any Italian name over a shop or an office provoked window- smashing, and, at times, pillage, in which last, of course, only the more disreputable people joined. At the same time there was many a pitched fight between French and Italian workmen. The present writer even found himself in a somewhat awkward predicament by reason of his surname, which, although not written nowadays as it was originally, still suggests an Italian name when it is pronounced, particularly by a Frenchman; and so concerned did his wife's relatives become lest he should meet with some unpleasant experience on this account that they cautioned all friends who knew him to address him by his Christian name only, during the remainder of his stay at Lyons. Fortunately, the actual excesses were checked before long by the police and the military, and as the circumstances of the assassination of Carnot became known, not a few people felt ashamed of the violence which, in the first outburst of indignation' they had offered to various law- abiding Italian tradesmen domiciled in their midst.

In Italy itself the sensation caused by the crime was profound. At Rome only eight days previously an Anarchist named Fega had fired on the septuagenarian statesman, Francesco Crispi, slightly wounding him, an affair which somewhat revived Crispi's waning popularity but ended for Fega in a sentence of twenty years imprisonment. The news of the assassination of Carnot arriving, as it were, atop of that attempt, impelled King Humbert's Government to vigorous action. Hundreds of Italian Anarchists were arrested. The times were even thought favourable for proceedings against the Italian Socialists, but the latter offered a vigorous resistance to the authorities. The Anarchists themselves did not appear intimidated. More than one outrage was perpetrated by those who remained at large, the worst being the murder of Signor Bandi, an old friend of Garibaldi's, who was stabbed to death in his office by a fanatical Anarchist, because he had issued in his journal " La Gazetta Livornese" an article condemning the assassination of Carnot. King Humbert, recalling his experience with Passanante, and knowing, moreover, that he himself was menaced by the Anarchist sect, hastened to express his sympathy With the Carnot family and France. As is usual, indeed, under such circumstances telegrams of condolence arrived, from every sovereign or chef d'etat. Among the most characteristic were those of Queen Victoria and the German Kaiser. The former told Mme. Carnot that her widow s heart bled for her; the latter declared that Carnot had been worthy of his great name and had died like a soldier. Wishing, moreover, to emphasise his sympathy the Kaiser ordered the release of two French officers (MM. Degouy and Delquey- Malavas) who had been committed to a German fortress for espionaage.

Meantime, the Prime Minister having returned to Paris, the Chambers met and resolved that national obsequies should be accorded to the deceased President. The remains reached Paris on June 26, and lay in state at the Elysee Palace. On July I, came the funeral when, after a religious service at Notre Dame where the Archbishop of Paris officiated, Sadi Carnot was laid to rest beside his illustrious grandfather under the dome of the Pantheon. Before then, that is on June 27, the Chamber and the Senate met in Congress at Versailles, and by 451 votes against 367--apportioned between Henri Brisson (195), Charles Dupuy (97), General Fevrier (53) and Emmanuel Arago (22)--Casimir- Perier was elected President of the Republic.

At Lyons the judicial and police authorities were busy inquiring into the circumstances of the crime and the antecedents of the prisoner. His correct name was Santo- Geronimo Caserio, and he was one of the half- dozen sons of a bargeman, plying his calling on the Po, and residing at Motta Visconti in Lombardy. Born there on 8th September 1873, Caserio when but thirteen years of age was apprenticed to a baker at Milan, where, listening to the chatter of sundry journeymen of his calling, he was soon won over to Anarchist ideas. At the age of eighteen he was sentenced to a term of imprison. for distributing Anarchist tracts to soldiers, after which, as he desired to avoid serving in the army himself he fled to Lugano in Switzerland. Thence he made his way to Geneva, and a little later came on to Lyons. He failed to obtain a situation there, it seems, but was recommended to go to Vienne, some nineteen miles further south, and he remained at work there until about the middle of October, 1893, when, hearing from Some acquaintance that an Italian baker named Vialla, in business at Cette, wished to secure the services of a joureyman of the same nationality as himself, he repaired to that town and obtained the situation.

The reader may be reminded that Cette is on the Mediterranean, south of Montpellier, and is the chief port of the wine region of the Midi. It has also a curious specialty: the manufacture of imitation wines, in regard to the variety if not the quantity of which it altogether surpasses Hamburg. You may obtain virtually every known " vintage " at Cette, and if it is not in stock, it will be supplied to you at a few days' notice. We once sampled at Cette all sorts of red wines, from Port full or tawny, rich or dry, to Hermitage and Margaux, and all sorts of white ones, from Sauternes and Chablis to Johannisberg and Imperial Tokay, and not a single specimen was genuine, though many were considerably like the real thing. It is claimed that these counterfeit wines are at least perfectly innocuous, but the manufacturers candidly admit that they themselves never drink them. Let us add that the products of Cette seldom come to this country. There are two special markets for them: the near East and South America, so it is as well to be careful when ordering wine at constantinople and Alexandria, or at Rio and Buenos Ayres.

But all that is en passant. Cette, one of France's dirtiest and most disagreeable towns, exports and imports many other things besides wine, and it has a working- class population which has often shown very Revolutionary proclivities. In the 80's and go's of the last century Socialist and Anarchist Congresses met at Cette, and, by reason of the port's intercourse with Barcelona, a certain number of Catalan Anarchists settled there. Caserio fell among the local members of the fraternity to which he already belonged. He was at Cette at the time when Vaillant threw his bomb in the Chamber of Deputies, and he heard and participated in all the talk which that deed inspired among a little knot of Anarchists who met now and again at an establishment called the Cafe du Gard. When the attempts to obtain a reprieve for Vaillant failed and he was executed, there came more than one threat to avenge him. How far Caserio may have been incited, how far he acted on his own initiative, will never be exactly known; but it may be said at once that all the stories which have frequently appeared in print to the effect that the assassination of the French President was planned in London are false from beginning to end. We have before us, also, a cir cumstantial narrative setting forth how lots were drawn at Antwerp to determine who should do the deed, and how, many names having been eliminated in successive " castings,,, there remained at last only four, one of a German, one of an Austrian, one of a French, and one of an Italian Anarchist. Pieces of paper, each bearing one deg.of those four names. were tossed, we are told, into a hat in presence of a party of Anarchists assembled on board a boat on the Scheldt, and the paper which was drawn bore, so the story runs, the Italian name--Caserio But the whole of that narrative, which does credit to the imaginative powers of the person who prepared it, is romance. Caserio, whom it represents as having been at Antwerp at the time, was never there in his life, nor was he ever in London. His crime was planned at Cette' and at Cette only.

We have indicated that he may have been incited to it, incited that is in a more or less indirect manner, by the perusal of Anarchist prints and the conversation of com races. But certainly he was not directly assisted to commit the crime. Had it been deliberately planned by him in conjunction with others, he would have secured adequate means to commit it, whereas he had to rely on his own slender pecuniary resources. After he had been more or less " wound up," as the saying goes, by all he heard and read of Vaillant's case, his narrow and very imperfectly educated mind appears to have brooded over it until he at last decided to avenge Vaillant's death by striking the President who had refused to grant a reprieve. Paris, however, was far away from Cette, and Caserio lacked the means to repair thither. Had there been a positive plot he would have been helped in that respect, but again we say there was no plot.

At last, the news that M. Carnot intended to visit Lyons was circulated by the whole French press, and Lyons being much nearer than Paris, and therefore easier of access, Caserio resolved to carry his design into effect there. On the morning of June 23 (the very day when the President left Paris) he deliberately picked a quarrel with his employer in order to secure instant dismissed and the payment of the wages due to him. He then found himself in possession of about 25 francs, a sovereign, provided with which he repaired to the shop of a cutler named Vaux, from whom he purchased a couteau- poignard in a case, for four shillings. The blade was marked " Toledo," but it was as counterfeit as were the wines of Cette, having really been made at Thiers in Auvergne.

There is, or at any rate there was, no absolutely direct railway service between Cette and Lyons, and Caserio had to proceed by successive stages, going first to Montpelier and thence to Tarascon. His resources were very slender, as we have shown and when on arriving at Tarascon he discovered that the most suitable train to Lyons only took first and second class passengers he was confronted by the fact that he had not sufficient money for a second class fare. Still he had enough to carry him as far as Vienne where he had worked the previous year, so he resolved to repair thither, hoping that he might be able to borrow from one of his former associates in that town, where he had known several Anarchists, the wherewithal to complete his journey. Thus he travelled by rail to Vienne; but he there failed to find the persons he wished to see, and now having but very little money left him was reduced to the necessity of proceeding to Lyons on foot. The distance is about nineteen miles but it did not frighten Caserio, who was young and active. He set out early in the afternoon (Sunday, June 24), obtained a lift on the road for a few miles, and reached Lyons a little after sunset, that is at about 8 P.M.

During his journey from Cette there had been abundant time for him to reflect on the deed which he contemplated. Many another man might have weakened in his purpose dur~ng that interval, but Caserio was as determined at the finish as at the start. One of the first things he did on arriving at Lyons was to purchase a newspaper in order to ascertain the Presidential programme. Then he followed the crowd to the Rue de la Republique and waited for his opportunity, with what result we know. At his trial, which took place early in August' his demeanour was generally placid. He had almost completed his twenty- first year, and certainly looked no older. but his calling had given him strong arms and shoulders A slight moustache shaded his upper lip, and at times a sly expression gleamed stealthily in his shifty, deep set eyes. There could be no doubt, however, that his intelligence was limited. He admitted that he had neglected his lessons when at school, adding: " If I had learnt more I should have been cleverer and better,, In regard to his crime he declared that it had been his object to avenge Vaillant, who had killed nobody and had therefore been unjustly put to death, and he steadily denied that he had had any accomplices or had taken anybody into his confidence. His parents, he said, had tried to dissuade him from Anarchist ideas, but he had preferred to go his own way. He asserted also that he had exclaimed: " Vive la Revolution ! " at the moment when he stabbed the President, and that he had shouted " Vive l'Anarchie ! " as he rushed across the Rue de la Republique. Though we did not hear those cries it is possible that Caserio raised them, and that they were lost amidst the many acclamations with which the President was being greeted. Until he was sentenced to death the prisoner retained his composure in court, but he then turned perceptibly pale and began to tremble. At his execution on August 16 he broke down completely. When he was awakened by the officials and told that his last hour had come he burst into convulsive sobs, and he was only with difficulty got ready for the guillotine. Henri had shrunk from the sight of the apparatus of death Caserio virtually had to be dragged to it, held on either side by the executioner's assistants. It was said in some of the reports of the time that he gasped " ViVe l'Anarchie ! " before being cast upon the bascule, but reality, he simply ejaculated, " I won't go ! I won't go ! " in the Lombardian dialect, much after the fashion of Some whimpering boy threatened with a flogging.

The reader will have observed that the crimes of both Emile Henry and Santo- Geronimo Caserio were fully premeditated and carried out with much determination. In one case we have seen Henry going from cafe to cafe until he at last found an establishment where, in his opinion' there was a sufficiently large number of customers to warrant the throwing of his bomb. In the other case we have seen Caserio, reduced to a few coppers, and yet trudging nearly twenty miles in order to commit a murder. When, however, the hour of expiation came they both collapsed, overcome by sheer physical dread. At the same time one was a young bourgeois of education and culture and the other a bargeman's son, able to read and write but knowing little else. Of the pair Henry was undoubtedly the worse character. With deliberate perversity he employed his intellectual gifts, his knowledge, for a criminal purpose; whereas Caserio's crime was largely the outcome of his ignorance, his narrow intellect which could not distinguish between what might be morally right and what might be morally wrong in all that he heard and read. We will leave sociologists to determine whether, and how, it is possible to prevent such cases as those of these young men. Quite apart from Anarchism, recent years have witnessed, so all the authorities tell us, a great increase of what is called adolescent crime. Education, as practiced, has not proved a preventative, for never was general knowledge more widely diffused among the young than it is nowadays. Perhaps the best remedy lies in the development of the moral side of education even though it be at the cost of some other part of the curriculum. We do not merely require able men. It is necessary that a better, fuller sense of right and wrong should permeate the community.

CHAPTER 9: Barcelona Outrages - The Empress Elizabeth and Luccheni (1894- 1898)

The French Anarchists after Carnot's Assassination--The Anarchist Press--Attempts on the French Rothschilds--The Calle Cambios Outrage at Barcelona--Stern Repression--The Horrors of Monjuich--Canovas del Castillo and his Policy--He is assassinated --Course of Events in Spain--The Position in Italy--Marriage of the Prmce of Naples--King Humbert and the Anarchists-- Acciarito's Attempt on King Humbert--Disturbances in Rome-- Outrages in Paris--Francis Joseph of Austria, and his early Career--Libenyi attempts his Life--The Emperor's Marriage--The House of Bavaria and Insanity--The Empress Elizabeth--Her Differences with her Husband--Her Friendship for Ludwig II. of Bavaria--She denies that Ludwig is insane--Was she privy to his Attempt at Escape ?--The Tragedy of Crown Prince Rudolph-- The Empress's later Years--She is assassinated--Luigi Luccheni, his Trial and Sentence.

IMMEDIATELY after Carnot, M. Charles Premiership in Casimir- Perier, the assassination of Sadi Dupuy, who retained the France under the new President proposed to the Chamber of Deputies a number of stringent enactments which virtually placed every individual reputed to be an Anarchist beyond the pale of the common law. It was laid down that trial by jury should be abolished in all cases of Anarchist propaganda either by public speeches or writings, or by private conversation or letters, and that anybody charged with any such offence should be amenable to the judges of the Correctional tribunals whose powers of punishment were considerably increased. The definitions as to what should be deemed Anarchist propaganda were drafted so loosely that conviction and sentence might ensue in instances when the speaker or writer might really have no Anarchist leanings at all, and naturally a good many Radical and Socialist deputies protested against such enactments. But Dupuy would make no concessions he would not even consent that a time limit should be stipulated for the proposed lois d'exception, he demanded that they should be permanent, and, with a few unimportant amendments, they were eventually voted by large silent majorities.

The result was a most serious rupture in the Republican ranks. The Radicals abandoned the Government, which had to lean more and more on those Clericalists who professed to have rallied to the Republic, and who from this moment started on that campaign to destroy it which reached its apogee during the Dreyfus case. In the departmental General Councils there were many protests against Dupuy's panic legislation which was held to destroy almost all right of speech; and greatly to the annoyance of official circles, in Casimir-Perier's con I stituency, which had been faithful to him for many years, a Socialist candidate was now elected to fill the vacancy created by his elevation to the Presidency of the Republic. Nor was that all; for a sharp rebuff was administered to the Government when in a hasty and blundering fashion it summarily indicted some thirty persons on a charge of conspiring to diffuse subversive ideas and practices. Among them were Sebastien Faure and Jean Grave, with a number of other writers, often mere idealists, or else psychologists who had merely frequented the Anarchists in order to study them. The accused also included four married women, their husbands' alleged accomplices, and a trio of burglars who professed to be Anarchists. The lois d'exception not having actually come into force at this moment, the prisoners were tried by jury, and while the three burglars were rightly con victed of offences against the Common Law, all the others, including even Grave and Faure, were acquitted. The prosecution had reproached the former with newspaper articles which he had written as far back as 1883, whereas according to the law, prescription for press offences begins at the expiration of three years. Briefly, the prosecution was in itself a foolish one, and was carried into effect in a yet more foolish manner, in such wise that the jury resisted the pressure which the bench and the Procureur de la Republique tried to exercise upon it, and allowed all the accused, excepting the burglars, to go scot free. It must be said that the majority of those indicted were merely half- witted idealogues and crazy poetasters. worthy in some instances of being consigned to lunatic asylums, but by no means deserving of the galleys.

So far as public opinion was concerned, this affair considerably discredited the authorities, but they obtained more than one revanche in respect to the numerous prosecutions which they instituted in the Correctional Courts, where there were no juries. The judges showed no leniency whatever, and though it was only right that real apologists of Caserio's crime should be punished, the public was often surprised at the extremely severe sentences passed on foolish fellows who had made one or another stupid remark after imbibing too freely. Another feature of the moment was the official encouragement of deletion, and the constant presence of police spies in cafes and wine- shops, where they were ever listening to the conversations which went on around them. In that respect one seemed to have reverted to the dark hours which followed Orsini's plot against Napoleon III., when no two or three Parisians could meet and converse in any public place without immediately awakening suspicion. On the other hand, it must be admitted that the authorities were face to face with a difficult situation, and although it is quite impossible to say how many Anarchists there were in France at this time, 1894, it is certain that there were considerably more than at the time of the famous trial at Lyons in I882, for the number Of groups scattered through the country had largely increased These groups, however, often ceased to exist as suddenly and as mysteriously as they sprang into being. There was still no real organisation of any kind among the Anarchists; the earlier attempts at federation had entirely ceased; and the vigilance of the authorities prevented the holding of any Congress, in France, at all events. Such a Congress certainly contrived to assemble at Chicago in 1893, when the delegates, it seems, represented seven different languages and a larger number of nationalities. The subjects discussed, however, were mainly connected with the heterogeneous mass of workers in the United States, and the promotion of strikes among them; it being agreed that a general strike should be engineered in the event of any war.

In France at this time one found more or less numerous Anarchist groups in such cities and towns as Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Lille, Bordeaux, Le Havre, Reims, Nantes, Nancy, Roubaix, Toulon, Agen, Beaune, La Reole, Armentieres, Charleville and Sedan, as well as in a larger number of smaller localities. In Paris alone there were perhaps a score of groups, among the chief of which were Le Groupe Libertaire, L'Avant Garde, Les Enfants de la Nature, La Jeunesse anti- patriotique, Le Cercle international, Le Drapeau Noir, Les Gonzes poilus of Billancourt, and La Panthere of Batignolles. Suburbs like Saint Denis and Saint Ouen also had groups of their own. Two, three and even four groups might be found, too, in one or another of the larger provincial cities, among the principal ones known to the police being Les Forcat of Lille, Les Sans Patrie of Charleville, Les Indomptables and Terre et Independance of Armentieres, Le Pilori Of Sedan, and Les Parias picards, who, as their name implies also belonged to the north of France. Then came Les Toujours ours Prets of Blois, Les Sangliers of Chalons sur Marne, Le Groupe des Etudes sociales of Cherbourg, Les anti- Travailleurs of Bordeaux, Les Nivelleurs of Beaune La Dynamite of Lyons, Le Yataghan of Terrenoir, Les Amis de Ravachol of Saint Chamond, Les Quand- meme of Vienne, Les Vengeurs and Les Affames of Marseilles, La Revolte of Toulon, Les Paysans revoltes of Saint Pierre- les- Martigues, Les Resolus of Beziers, and Les Cceurs de Chene of Cette, which last Caserio may have frequented. We may also mention that one or two groups were to be found in Algeria.

These groups were formed for purposes of discussion and propaganda, two or three companions, or comrades as they called themselves, combining to gather a few friends of the cause together on one or another day of the week, at some given address, which might be that of one of themselves. Brief notices of these gatherings were written out and passed surreptitiously to friends or others who showed a disposition to adopt Anarchist views. For instance, such a notice might run: " The Anarchists of Batignolles inform their comrades that they are establishing a group which will be called The Panther of Batignolles, and will meet every Sunday at--. Comrades are invited to come and to bring with them reliable friends to hear and take part in the discussions."

We have previously said something about the Anarchist press, but may here give some further particulars of its position in 1894, the year of Caserio's crime. " Le Revolt," originally founded in Switzerland and transferred to Paris in 1885, was still in existence, though it bore the slightly different name of " La Revolte," which it had assumed after a condemnation in 1888. At the date we have reached it was the oldest of all the French Anarchist prints, many others having been killed by prosecutions or by the lack of funds. " La Revolte " called itself an " Organe Communiste- Anarchiste," and was published every Saturday at 140 Rue Mouffetard, its price being a sou per number. A much more scurrilous journal was " Le Pere Peinard," which issued a great number of roughly drawn caricatures in which Baron Alphonse de Rothschild was repeatedly represented as an enormous pig--the animal which is anathema to the Jew. Prosecutions rained on " Le Pere Peinard " to such an extent that at last, early in 1894, several months before the assassination of Carnot, it ceased to appear. Among other journals which were issued in Paris about this time, but none of which we think was long lived, one may mention " L'Idee libre," " L'Attaque," " La Revue Libertaire " (originally " La Revue Anarchiste "), and " Le Conscrit," the last, as its name implied, being especially devoted to anti- militarism. There was also the review called " L'En Dehors," to which and its more or less eminent contributors we have previously referred.] Then, too, a rather notorious Anarchist journal appeared at Marseilles under the misleading title of " L'Harmonie," and organs of the party might be found in other provincial centres. Their titles constantly changed owing to the legal proceedings which were instituted against them.

Perhaps the most violent periodical of all was one called " L'International," which bore no imprint whatever, but was currently said to be printed in London, though we doubt if such was the case. At all events, judging the type employed by its face, it appears to be either French or Belgian, and the paper also seems to be of continental make. It will be remembered that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries many French works were issued with the imprints of Amsterdam, Cologne, London, and other foreign cities, when, in reality, they were surrep titiously printed in France, and this may have been the case with regard to " L!International At all events it had its chief circulation in France. It appeared inter_ mittently, at no fixed dates, but as a rule about twice a month, being composed of either eight or twelve octavo pages, some of which were devoted to attacks on Prince Kropotkin and Jean Grave of " La Revolte," whom it denounced as being mere doctrinaire Anarchists. The writers of " L'International " favoured much more militant methods, and ended by producing an Anarchist guide (" L'Indicateur Anarchiste ") in which appeared recipes and instructions for the compounding of explosives and the construction of bombs. At an earlier date a Lyons journal, called " La Lutte " (which for a while took the place of " L'Etendard Revolutionnaire " had given somewhat similar recipes and instructions assembling them together under the significant title of " Anti- Bourgeois Products."

We have said that " L'International " bore no imprint, and such was also the case with respect to many of the pamphlets and placards which were issued; while in other instances merely a fictitious imprint was given. One pamphlet might bear the name and address of some eminent firm which would not have printed Anarchist " literature " at any price; another declared in jocular fashion that it was " Printed by Casimir- Perier at the Ministry of the Interior," while on a third appeared some such mention as " The Deliverance Printing Works, Revolution Street." Those jests, as we may perhaps call them for lack of a better word, often figured on the numerous Anarchist placards and broadsides of the period, or on the many party songs which issued from the more or less secret Anarchist presses. Several of these songs were written by a woman, a certain Louise Quitrine, who, believing in free- love, celebrated it in verse, and also penned some Anarchist plays, none of which, however (if we remember rightly), was ever staged, even at Montmartre Another prominent lady Anarchist was a Mme. Moreau, a bootmaker's wife, who was given to oratory, in which she imitated the style of the unfortunate Louise Michel. They were somewhat like each other physically. There were also a few Austrian or German women associated with the French Anarchists at this same period.

In London, during the early nineties, the Anarchists were represented by three journals printed in the English language--" Freedom," " The Commonweal " and " The Torch." There was also a periodical called " The Worker's Friend," printed in Hebrew characters, and a German organ with the title of " Der Lampen proletarier." In Germany itself one found " Der Sozialist " of Berlin, which, in spite of its title, had marked Anarchist tendencies; whilst in Austria there was " Die Zukunft " of Vienna, to which we have previously referred.] Switzerland had " L'Avenir " of Geneva; and Belgium " La Societe nouvelle," " Le Libertaire " and " Le XXe Siecle." In Italy and Sicily there were several Anarchist organs, such as the " Sempre Avanti " of Leghorn, " L'Ordine " of Turin, " La Favilla " (spark) of Mantua, ' I1 Pensiero " of Chieti, " L'Articolo 248 " of Ancona,

" I1 Riscatto " (redemption, deliverance) of Messina and "L'Uguaglianza sociale " (social equality) of Mazsala. For the Anarchists of Spain there were such publications as " El Rebelde " of Saragossa, " Tierra y Libertad " and " La Conquista del Pan " of Barcelona, " El Corsario " of Corunna, " La Revancha " of Reus, " El Oprimido" of Algeciras, and " La Controversia of Valencia Portugal already had an Anarchist organ in " A Revolta " of Lisbon; Holland possessed one also. In the United States one found quite a variety of journals for Anarchists, whether they were American- born or of foreign extraction. " Liberty " and " Solidarity " were as their titles imply, in the English language; but Anarchists of German origin had at their disposal such periodicals as " Freiheit," " Der Anarchist " and " Der Brandfackel," all issued at New York, where also German Jews belonging to the cause were provided with " Die Freie Arbeiter Stimme," printed in Hebrew characters. Then Chicago had the " Verbote " and Detroit " Der arme Teufel " and somewhere in the States there appeared an Anarchist organ in the French language, " Le Reveil des Mineurs." For Italian Anarchists New York supplied " I1 Grido degli Oppressi "; for Spanish ones, " El Despertar," and for those of Bohemian origin, the " Volne Lista," which, by the way, was also the title of a journal issued in Austria. To finish with the subject we will add that one found in the South American States such Spanish and Italian journals as " E1 Oprimido," " E1 Perseguido," " E1 Derecho a la Vida," "La Riscossa," " L'Asino umano," " La Tribuna operaria," and " Demoliamo." There was also the French journal, with which, as we previously related, Vaillant had some connection while he was residing at Buenos Ayres. The list we have given is probably incomplete, but it will serve to show that the Anarchists had numerous organs in many parts of the world. Some of them, doubtless, were very short lived, but when they succumbed to prosecutions it often happened that others were started in their place.

Let us now return to our narrative. About the time of the execution of Caserio (August 1894) there was an alerte at Berlin where the discovery of some explosives led to the arrest of a large number of Anarchists; and in November that year a doctor of Liege and his wife were injured by an explosion on their doorstep. But that affair may have been inspired by private animosity. In parts' in January 1895, a bomb was found on the windowsill of a house near the Parc Montceau, and on being cast into the street exploded there, doing considerable damage. It was surmised at the time that an Anarchist outrage had been intended, but the affair may have been Of the same character as that at Liege. It was partly Anarchism but also partly anti- Semitism (which was soon to become rampant in Paris) that inspired two outrages there in the ensuing month of August. On the first occasion when a packet addressed to Baron Alphonse de Rothschild was opened by his confidential secretary, it exploded, injuring the secretary most severely. Several arrests ensued, but the sender of the package was not discovered. Less than a fortnight afterwards, however, a bomb was thrown into the doorway of the Rothschild banking- house in the Rue Lafitte, luckily without bursting, and on this occasion the culprit was caught and sent to prison. Towards the end of the year the members of the Chamber of Deputies experienced some momentary alarm on hearing two revolver shots which were fired just as the Chamber was about to rise for the day. It appeared, however, that only blank cartridges had been used, so there were no ill effects, though the delinquent, a young fellow named Lenoir, whose head had been turned, it was said, by the perusal of Anarchist literature, was arrested and sentenced to imprisonment.

In the following year, 1896, the Spanish Anarchists were again to the front. In February some bombs were exploded near the royal palace at Madrid, but nobody was injured by them, and very little damage was done. In June, however, there came a horrible outrage at Barcelona. On the evening of the Sunday following Corpus Christi day the ecclesiastical, military and civil authorities of the city set out in procession to offer their devotions at the ancient church of Santa Maria del Mar The Bishop of Barcelona and his clergy headed this pro cession, prominent in which was General Despuyols commander of the 7th Army Corps, who had already made himself very unpopular among the Barcelona Anarchists. The cortege had reached the Calle Cambios nuevos, when all at once somebody threw a bomb, or possibly two bombs, with the most deadly effect. It has been surmised that the explosives were flung from a window; in any case they were not thrown until al the chief dignitaries had passed by, in such wise that none of them were injured. On the other hand, the havoc was terrible among the people following in the wake of the procession, and those who were watching it. Eight persons were killed on the spot, four others subsequently died, and about forty- five were more or less severely injured, among them being several children and also a few soldiers.

General Despuyols interpreted this dreadful outrage as an attack on the army, and military law was at once put into force. It may be, however, that an attempt on the Bishop and the clergy had been chiefly intended, though, as we have already indicated, the bombs were thrown under such circumstances that one can hardly say what was the actual purpose of the crime. The most plausible conjecture seems to be that the author-- or perhaps it is best to say the authors of the deed were from some cause or other unable to throw the explosives at the very moment when the authorities passed, or else hesitated to do so until it was too late. Some Revolutionary writers have put forward the theory that good care was taken in order that no high official should be injured, and that the only victims should be mere citizens They assert indeed that the outrage was not an Anarchist one at all, but was engineered by the Barcelona Clericalists, for the express purpose of giving the authorities an opportunity to proceed against all who were in any way opposed to Clericalist ascendancy. In support of that view it is pointed out that the Clericalists alone profited by the crime. That is true, but as there is no evidence of any such Clericalist conspiracy it is difficult to adopt the views of the Revolutionary writers.

On the other hand it is only too certain that the Clerical party turned the outrage to account. Some four hundred arrests ensued, arrests often of the most unjustifiable description, for among those who were lodged in one or another prison of the city, or on board a man- of- war which was then in the port--prior, in most instances, to being removed to the fortress of Monjuich--were many people who had no connection whatever with Anarchism even of a theoretical kind. General Despuyols and his acolytes became, indeed, the mere agents of the Bishop and his clergy, and lawyers, professors, civil engineers, schoolmasters and respectable tradesmen, whose only crime was that they were not submissive sons of Holy Church, were arbritarily consigned to durance. It was as if the Inquisition had suddenly been restored.

Don Antonio Canovas del Castillo, who was then Prime Minister, hastened to lay before the Cortes a bill punishing Anarchist propaganda with death, and any attempt to defend or shield Anarchists with penal servitude for life; and this measure was speedily adopted, with the proviso that it should remain in force for four years. Meantime, the Premier made no attempt to check or repair the blunders which were being committed by the authorities at Barcelona. He even helped to make them worse by demanding of France the extradition of one and another "suspected person " who, on being tried., was acquitted. And although the horrible treatment which was meted out to the prisoners at Monjuich was repeatedly denounced to him, he did not even con descend to inquire into it.

We should hesitate to believe most of the statements which were subsequently made by a number of prisoners if we had not ourselves seen, a few years previously how even the inmates of ordinary Spanish prisons were treated. Now and again, perhaps, there may have been some exaggeration, but if only a quarter of the stories told of the horrors of Monjuich were true, the government which permitted such things deserved the reprobation of mankind. Nothing worse was ever done in any dungeon of King Bomba, nothing worse in any dungeon of any Czar. And yet the de facto sovereign of Spain was at that time a woman, Queen Christina, Regent for her young son, the present King. To be fed on salt cod and denied water, to be whipped continually, to be fettered and ordered to pace your cell for thirty, forty hours and longer at a stretch, with the whip again in readiness should you dare to halt, those things were nothing compared with some of the treatment which was inflicted on the unhappy prisoners in order to force them to confess or to make so- called revelations.! One prisoner, a Revolutionist certainly, for he had edited the journal called " Tierra y Libertad," committed suicide in order to escape further torture.

But what made the affair so particularly abominable was that many of the prisoners were perfectly innocent men. When they were arraigned before the military court which tried them, several related how they had been tortured, and formally withdrew the " confessions " or " denunciations " which they had made under such terrible pressure. The judges were amazed, some of them quite ashamed, on hearing these revelations, and shrank from Obeying the behests of the prosecution which demanded that out of eighty- seven prisoners who were arraigned, twenty- eight should be sentenced to death and fifty- nine to hard labour for life. The Court's decision was that only eight should be executed, and as for the others it sentenced forty to twenty years hard labour apiece, and twenty- seven to various periods of solitary confinement' the remaining twelve securing acquittal. But, fortunately for the convicted men, those decisions were liable to revision by the High Court of War and Marine, which increased the number of acquittals to sixty- one sending only a score of prisoners to penal servitude or imprisonment, and reducing the number of those designated for execution from eight to five ! Those figures are very significant. The prosecution had begun by demanding twenty- eight lives, it had to be content with five; and it is very doubtful whether any one of the five men sentenced to the capital penalty deserved it, for to this day it has never been fully ascertained by whom the bombs of the Calle Cambios nuevos were thrown. Some Spanish writers assert that the outrage was really the work of a foreigner, and it is certain that foreign Anarchists were suspected by the authorities, for they issued warrants against three Italians, two Russians and a Frenchman, all of whom, however, contrived to escape, whereas scores of people, whose only crime was that they were agnostics, Republicans or merely Liberals, endured the tortures of Monjuich.

There can be no doubt that the final and more lenient decision of the High Court of War and Marine was due to the outcry which had arisen in other countries, particularly France, with respect to the treatment of the prisoners. But although sixty of them were acquitted and ought therefore to have been allowed all constitutional rights and liberties, Canovas del Castillo would not tolerate their presence in Spain. He regarded them as dangerous characters, or rather he feared that they would be for ever testifying against the regime under which they had been persecuted if they should be allowed to remain in their native country. So, availing himself of the state of siege, he resolved to deport them to Rio de Oro. But again protests arose abroad, and the minister thereupon graciously allowed these acquitted men to choose between Rio de Oro and England. They naturally preferred to repair to this country, and it seems to us that we were morally bound to grant asylum.

Spain was in a very unhappy position at that time The Carlists were again showing activity, and over yonder in Cuba, where rebellion had long been rife, affairs were going rapidly from bad to worse. Martinez Campos had been replaced there by General Weyler, whose treatment of the insurgents provoked a loud outcry in Europe as well as in the United States. In the autumn, when Queen Christina and her young son returned to the capital from San Sebastian, there appears to have been a plot to blow up the royal train with dynamite while it was passing through the province of Guipuzcoa. The affair was discovered in time to prevent the design from being put to execution, but it naturally increased the severity of the authorities towards the Anarchists and other Revolutionaries. At the end of the year, however, matters were worse than ever, owing to the great unrest which was provoked by the failure to stamp out the Cuban rebellion, in respect to which the attitude of the United States towards Spain was becoming more and more threatening It is just possible that matters might not have come to a crisis between the two countries, for there were undoubtedly a good many Spaniards who disapproved of the Cuban policy of their Government, but they could not make their voices heard effectively until it was too late to hope for a pacific solution; for, early in 1897, Canovas, angered by the attempts to criticise his administration, began to suppress the newspapers which were hostile to it, provoking in that respect a collision with the judges of the Supreme Court, who claimed jurisdiction in the matter But nothing could restrain him. He even threatened the imposition of military rule throughout the country by proclaiming it to be in a state of war. Quos vult Jupiter perdere dementat prius.

Amidst all this the Clericalists of Catalonia, whom the Prime Minister had striven to propitiate by his severity towards the Republicans and Free Thinkers as well as the Anarchists of Barcelona, gave proof of their Carlist proclivities, and a rising was even attempted. It was speedily quelled by General Augustin, but Canovas, confronted by increasing difficulties on all sides, now thought of retiring. He tendered his resignation to the Queen- regent, who refused it, however, unwilling as she was to depart from a strictly conservative policy and to summon to office the so- called Liberals who were ready and willing to assume authority in the hope--a vain one, perhaps--of being able to pacify Cuba. The increased taxation, due to the many costly attempts to quell the insurrection there, and to the necessity of providing in some degree, at all events, for contingencies foreshadowed by the evergrowing hostility of the United States, now led to still greater unrest throughout Spain. There were strikes, riots, and demonstrations in many cities, including the capital, the situation becoming worse and worse while the summer of 1897 went by.

In the month of August the Prime Minister was staying at the baths of Santa Agueda, between Vergara and Mondragon, in the Basque Provinces. These baths, which have been known,. for more than three centuries, are efficacious in cases of partial paralysis, chronic catarrh, and herpetic affections, to one of which last Senor Canova was subject. Born at Malaga and therefore an Andalusian he was at this date about sixty- nine years of age, and i was well known that for some time past his health had beer greatly tried by the innumerable difficultie of his position Still, so far as his physical condition was concerned nothing indicated that his end was near. But in broad daylight on Sunday, August 8, he was shot dead at Santa Agueda by an Italian Anarchist, who fired on him three times with a revolver. The name of the assassin was Michele Angiolillo, and his motive for com mitting the crime was, said he, to avenge the tortured prisoners of Monjuich. We have no desire whatever to defend assassination, but it is allowable to say that even as President Carnot became virtually a doomed man after the execution of Vaillant, so Don Antonio Canovas del Castillo retained but a precarious tenure of life from the time of the Monjuich excesses. An exceptionally clever man, of modest parentage, he had begun life as a journalist and an historian, and owed his rise to political eminence almost entirely to his great abilities. It has been claimed for him that if he did not save Spain from great disasters he at least saved the junior branch (as it is) of the Bourbon dynasty, and that is largely true; though the point might be put in another way--for instance: that he too often placed the interests of that dynasty before those of his country.

The news that he had been assassinated caused a deep impression but no surprise in Spain. People were shocked, but it was as though the inevitable had come to pass. The Liberals, who now hoped to secure office were again disappointed, for the Queen- regent requested the War Minister, General Azcarraga, to assume temporarily the premiership of the existing Conservative Administration The General set about his task with all the arbitrary vigour of a soldier. The press was immediately muzzled, the telegrams of foreign correspondents were subject to a stringent censorship, and for days and days world scarcely knew what was happening in Spain deceased Prime Minister was buried with great pomp at Madrid, while the trial of his assassin, who had been removed to Vergara--the scene of the famous Convent between the Carlists and the Constitutionalists Espartero's time - was hurried on, in such wise that the eleventh day after his crime Angiolillo was garroted in the courtyard of Vergara prison.

Before long the irrepressible city of Barcelona age evinced rebellious tendencies. An Anarchist named Barril fired on the Chief of Police there and wounded him and there were several conflicts between the military and the working classes. Amidst these occurences General Azcarraga thought that he might improve the; situation by deporting all characters whom he regarded as obnoxious, but he found other countries unwilling to become " dumping grounds " for Spanish Anarchists an/ Socialists. At last, in October, Queen Christina was com pelled to transfer authority to the Liberals, who, in spit' of their name, held in many respects precisely the same views as those of the Conservative party. Still, Don Praxedes Mateo Sagasta, who now became Prime Minister was a shrewder man than his predecessor, and did what he could to pacify Catalonia by restoring the liberty of the press, raising the state of siege at Barcelona, and releasing from Monjuich many untried prisoners who had been confined there since the previous year. For a time then, the ebullient and resentful Catalan capital was quieted; and Sagasta even imagined that he might also save Cuba for Spain by an offer of self- government. With that object General Blanco was sent out to the island but the change of policy came too late.

In 1896, the year of the outrage in the Calle Cambios nuevos at Barcelona, there was no great activity among the militant Anarchists in France, where Felix Faure was now President of the Republic. It is true that he was fired at whilst he was on his way to a review at Longchamp on July 14, the day of the National Fete, but the culprit, a young man named Eugene Francois, was a lunatic. Meantime, the Franco- Russian alliance was being concluded, and when, late in the year the Emperor Nicholas II. and his consort paid a visit to Paris, the greatest possible precautions were taken to prevent any revolutionary outrage. Thanks to the unremitting vigilance of the authorities none occurred.

Very unsatisfactory at this period was the condition of Italy, which had passed through a great crisis since we last referred to it. Crispi had resorted to the most drastic measures after the assassination of Carnot, dis solving no fewer than 271 working- class, unions or societies, fifty- five of these being in Milan, a city which had always given the Government considerable trouble. We have already mentioned the assassination of the editor of the " Leghorn Gazette " for condemning Caserio's crime; and we may add that another person of note was murdered about the same period, this being Count Luigi Ferrari, deputy for Rimini, who had repeatedly de nounced the Anarchists and their propaganda. Before then (we ought to have mentioned this earlier) Crispi had experienced the greatest difficulty in checking the persistent agitation carried on by the Sicilian " Fasci del Lavatori," which were distinctly revolutionary organisations. He decided at last to prosecute their chief organisers and leaders, notably a deputy of the island named De Felice, and on the very day (March, 1894) when an application was made to the Chamber for leave to institute proceedings against this demagogue a bomb was exploded outside the Parliament House on Monte Citorio. Two persons, who were passing, were killed' and others were wounded by this explosion. The perpetrator of the outrage was never discovered, and some time later, when De Felice was sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment two more bombs were thrown at the Camera dei Deputati. The author of the deed again managed to escape; but on this occasion the explosions had no serious result.

Some scandals connected with the Banco Romanc proved damaging to Crispi's reputation towards the end of 1894; nevertheless he and his officials continued to rule the country in a very high- handed manner. This often tended to increase the general discontent. Some years previously, as we related in an earlier chapter circumstances had drawn Italy into the Triple Alliance, to which, however, a considerable number of Italians, particularly in the north of the Peninsula, remained violently opposed on account of the " Italia irredenta " question. These headstrong patriots--with whom one can in a measure sympathise--gave Crispi incessant trouble, and he was for ever exerting himself to keep. It was however, an unjustifiable proceeding to strike their names off the electoral lists, a course which was successfully adopted in numerous instances when these lists were revised in view of a general election appointed to take place in May 1895. Moreover the officials and partisans of the Government were not content with adopting this course with respect to known Irredentists; in several localities they acted in the same manner towards all whom they regarded as enemies of the existing Administration. Great agitation and grave excesses ensued in some parts of northern Italy However, the result of the elections enabled Crispi to retain office, and, in fact, he seemed secure in his position as the virtual dictator of the country.

But Italy had embarked in a hazardous adventure on the African coast washed by the Red Sea, where it had acquired a strip of territory called Erythrea, and in December 1895 the hostilities which had broken out there between the Italians and the Abyssinians resulted in the former being surprised and worsted at Ambo Alaghi. The national pride was deeply hurt by this affair, but matters became infinitely worse, for at the end of February in the ensuing year, at a moment when the economic situation was so bad in Italy that bread- riots had broken out in various regions, the Shoan tribesmen gained a complete victory over General Baratieri, who, in a sanguinary battle at Adowa, lost several thousand men, apart from 1500 who were taken prisoners. Italy reeled under the blow, and no wonder: An Italian army had been cut to pieces by savages !

Crispi could not resist the storm which swept through the country, but resigned, and was replaced as Prime Minister by the Marquis Antonio Starabba di Rudini, whose cabinet set itself the double task of ending the Abyssinian war in an honourable fashion, and of pacifying parties at home. With the latter object amnesties for political offences were granted, and the state of siege which Crispi had decreed in Sicily was raised. These measures and others certainly had a good effect, but economic conditions remained unsatisfactory. At one moment Rudini had to reconstitute his cabinet owing to a parliamentary defeat, and considerable unrest still prevailed among the working classes.

The question of the succession to the throne had long offered matter for discussion. King Humbert had married his cousin Margherita, daughter of the Duke of Genoa' in 1868, and in 1896 their eldest son, the Prince of Naples (now Victor Emmanuel III.), was in his twenty seventh year. Repeated attempts had been made to induce him to marry, but had proved unsuccessful, and it was currently asserted that his refusals were due to a fear lest he should be the means of perpetuating a misfortune which had been hereditary in his house for several centuries At every two or three generations, indeed, a Prince or Princess of Savoy had come into the world hunchbacked That had not happened in the case either of Victor Emmanuel II. or his son, King Humbert, but it had occurred in that of the Duke of Genoa, father of the beautiful Queen Margherita, and it was generally held that the Prince of Naples feared lest this misfortune of his race should be perpetuated in his offspring. However, in 1896, his scruples were finally overcome, and he espoused the Princess Helen of Montenegro. In the previous year his cousin, Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Aosta, had married the Princess Helene d'Orleans, and thus there seemed every prospect that the succession of the House of Savoy would be ensured.

Meantime King Humbert, now fifty- two years old, continued very hale and vigorous. Giovanni Passanante's attempt on his life in 1878 may have marred the poetry of the House of Savoy, even as Queen Margherita remarked at the time, but it had made no difference in the King's habits. His tastes were very simple, and he delighted in going about unattended. When he was enjoying his favourite villeggiaturs at Monza he would often drive over to Milan in a phaeton, attended merely by an aide- de- camp; and those who were solicitous for his safety could only in some measure provide for it by telegraphing to the Carabinieri that the King was on his way to the city, where, indeed, it was possible he might run some risk, there being revolutionary tendencies among many of the Milanese.

However, from the time when Passanante had tried to stab the King at Naples to the date we have now reached, 1897, there had been no attempt on his life, for it seems that we must dismiss as a fable an alleged plot to blow up a special train in which he was travelling from San Rossore to Rome on the night of February 16, 1884 According to a statement then made by a Carabiniere named Varicchio, who was guarding the railway line near a river between the stations of Corneto- Tarquinia and Montalto, he was attacked about 2.30 A.M. by four men, one of whom fired upon him, a bullet passing through his cloak, and another through his cap. If one were to believe his own account, he returned the fire, and drove off the men who, as they hurried away, dropped a glass jar containing chemicals. When this story at first became known, the authorities highly praised the courage of Carabiniere Varicchio, who was congratulated on having saved the King's life, but after various inquiries one of the ministers of the time declared that Varicchio was merely a visionary, and that the bullet holes in his cloak and headgear had probably been made by himself. For our part we should scarcely have called the man a " visionary." Assuming his story to be false, it might be better to set him down as an " artful dodger," intent on gaining promotion for something he had never done.

Dismissing that affair then, it follows that King Humbert had enjoyed some nineteen years of immunity from regidical designs when the spring of 1897 came round. April 22 was the anniversary of his marriage, and as usual there was a family lunch- party at the Quirinal Palace. Races were to be held during the afternoon on the Capannelle course, south- east of Rome, and it had been arranged that the royal family should attend them, the more especially as the principal " event " on the card was a so- called " Royal Derby," the winner of which was to receive 24,000 lire nearly [[sterling]]1000, given by the King. The first of the royal personages to start for the course were the Duke and Duchess of Aosta, and then the King set out, leaving Queen Margherita and others to follow. The carriage used by the King on this occasion was a pair- horse victoria, with coachman and footman in plain liveries; and the sovereign was accompanied by the minister of his household, General Ponzio Vaglia. Leaving Rome by the Porta San Giovanni the carriage proceeded at a moderate pace along the Vicolo della Marrana and the Careggiato dei Vallona, and it had gone about a mile and a quarter beyond the city gate when a young fellow, after hastily quitting a group of four or five suspicious looking individuals, darted forward and sprang on the carriage step, at the same time raising his right hand in which was a dagger partially concealed by a red rag. With great presence of mind King Humbert sprang up, and the carriage cushion received the thrust which had been intended for him. Realising the failure of the attempt, his would- be assassin jumped into the road again, dropping his dagger, and seeking safety in flight. Little, however, as the King liked to be attended by police officers, a detective inspector named Galeazzi was following the royal carriage in a hired vehicle, which being at no great distance at the moment of the attempt was within call; there was also a mounted Carabiniere named Gerla, patrolling the road, in such wise that the King's assailant was speedily pursued and arrested.

Meantime King Humbert, after remarking to General Ponzio Vaglia: Sono gli incerli del mestiere!--''Those are the risks of the calling ! "--imperturbably ordered his coachman to drive on. Something of the affair had been witnessed, however, by a young bicyclist who reached Capannelle a few minutes in advance of the royal carriage, it thus happening that on the latter s arrival a rumour of the attack was already spreading among the race- goers. When the monarch appeared he received a most enthusiastic greeting which plainly touched him. Scarcely had he informed the Duke of Aosta and the Marquis di Rudini of the circumstances of the case when Queen Margherita also arrived, whereupon he hastened towards her and told her what had happened, at the same time kissing her on the brow in the presence of all the cheering spectators. That same evening there were demonstrations of loyalty throughout royal--we do not say papal--Rome.

The King's assailant was named Pietro Acciarito, and his calling, at least nominally, was that of a blacksmith. At this time twenty- six years of age, he had come into the world at Artena in the Roman Campagna, an ancient spot mentioned by Livy in connection with the wars of the AEgui and the Latins, and not far from Velletri and Sequi. The folk of the region are quick tempered, and crimes of violence are frequent among them. It was, we think, the King's coachman or footman who informed the authorities that Acciarito had been conversing with other men a moment before jumping on to the carriage - step, and this circumstance seemed to indicate that he might not be the only party guilty in the affair. The police therefore made a number of arrests, going as far afield as Ancona and Ravenna in their search for Acciarito's alleged accomplices. But they found it impossible to prove any connection between the crime and the persons whom they apprehended. As for Acciarito he at one time tried to make the magistrates think that he had acted simply on the spur of the moment, having been angered by the sight of all the well- dressed gentlefolk driving to the races in smart equipages, when he was out of work and penniless. Then, changing his System of defence, he admitted that he had assailed the King intentionally, well knowing who he was, but that he had done so with the design of striking a blow at the institution of monarchy which King Humbert represented and not with that of injuring him as an individual. Finally, still freely acknowledging premeditation, Acciarto declared that he would just as soon have " stuck that old monkey the Pope (Leo XIII.) " but that, as the latter hid himself away in the Vatican, he had been obliged to confine himself to the King. He was tried at the Rome Assizes on May 28 and 29, and on being convicted, was sentenced to imprisonment for life. He was certainly both an Anarchist and an atheist, but whether he had accomplices or acted solely on his own initiative is doubtful. Some time after his arrest he made sundry denunciations to the Governor of the Ergastolo di Santo Stefano, where he was imprisoned, with the result that several men were arraigned at the Rome Assizes in June in which the proceedings had been conducted, and the case was transferred to Teramo where it was tried during the following year. Acciarito, who was brought up to give evidence, then withdrew some of his allegations against the prisoners and was unable to substantiate others, and they were thereupon acquitted. The truth appears to be that he had indulged in denunciations with the object of making his own guilt appear less great and thereby securing more lenient treatment.

During the autumn of the year which witnessed Acciarito attack on King Humbert a very unfortunate affair occurred at Rome, where increased taxation pro yoked great discontent. The Ministers at last Consented to receive some delegates of the commercial class at the Palazzo Braschi, where the Minister of the Interior is installed, but a number of Socialists and Anarchists joined the procession and disorder ensued. It was said that stones were thrown at some troops on guard Outside the Ministry, at all events the soldiers fired on the procession and the attendant crowd, killing three people and wounding several others. This affair aroused general indignation. The Government, in its alarm, ordered the tax- gatherers to proceed with the greatest moderation, and the King, who, of course, was in no wise responsible for what had happened, contributed [[sterling]]6000 towards relieving the distress which prevailed in the capital.

In this same year, 1897, there were various outrages in France. About the middle of June a bomb was thrown at President Faure's carriage, fortunately without effect, and a few days later there was an explosion near the statue of Strasburg on the Place de la Concorde in Paris. Again, in August, when the President left for Russia to return the Czar's visit of the previous year' a bomb exploded near the Gare du Nord. This occurred, however, a quarter of an hour after the train by which Faure travelled had quitted the station. No arrest was effected in connection with any of the above cases. On the first occasion the culprit fled and made good his escape, while in the other instances the police had no clue whatever as to the identity of the guilty parties.

In the following year, 1898, there was plenty of agitation in France, but it was due to the famous Dreyfus case, in which real militant Anarchists were well pleased to see so many bourgeois of conflicting views trying to devour one another. That was a spectacle which gladdened their hearts, and they were content to give the " Propaganda by Deed " a rest, feeling, perhaps, that they could not improve on the work which others were doing. To some extent they sympathised with the partisans of Dreyfus, for, like the Socialists, they naturally approved of an attack on military men; and here and there, indeed, one found writers and speakers with Anarchist proclivities exerting themselves to transform the campaign into one against the whole army, whereas the original Dreyfusards were in no wise antagonistic to the army itself, but were only concerned respecting the doings of a certain clique of officers. Unfortunately an excessive esprit de corps was displayed on the military side. Most officers regarded any charge brought against a few foolish, prejudiced, incompetent, unveracious or unscrupulous colleagues, as being directed against themselves. Moreover, the anti- Republicanism of a good many officers, particularly those educated by the Jesuits, became manifest, and thus the situation was greatly envenomed, much to the delight of both Socialist and Anarchist scribes, who never wearied of expounding their Anti- Militarist doctrines. On the other hand, they regarded the Jews with almost as much hatred as they regarded the army, for Jewry was only too often synonymous with Capital. As we have already said, however, the Anarchist Propaganda by Deed ceased for the time being, and one might have thought one would hear nothing more of it when, all at once, in the month of September, the world was shocked by the news that the Empress of Austria had been assassinated by an Anarchist at Geneva.

Francis Joseph of Hapsburg- Lorraine became Emperor of Austria on December I, 1848, when he was in his nineteenth year. The revolutionary turmoil of that period had led to the abdication of his uncle, the Emperor Ferdinand; and his father, the Archduke Francis Charles, had refused to assume the imperial dignity. The youthful Kaiser was faced by a stupendous task. Sedition was rife in many parts of the Austrian dominions, and for several months past Hungary had been in an open state of rebellion, which was not quelled until the autumn of 1849, after Russia had come to Austria's assistance The reign began with a solemn pledge on the young Emperor part that he would give free constitutional government to all his subjects, but nothing of the kind was accorded and after the subjection of Hungary and the Italian provinces of the Empire, certain Edicts were issued from Schoenbrunn by which it was declared that all the Ministers of State would henceforth be responsible to one authority only--that of the throne (September 1851 Many organic changes ensued. The government of the heterogeneous Austrian States was centralised at Vienna, and a series of fiscal and commercial reforms was undertaken, these often being good in their way, and rallying to the throne the support of many of the middle- classes, on whom Prince Schwarzenberg, then principal Minister, earnestly counselled his Sovereign to rely for his chief support. This view was so far adopted that the power of the Austrian aristocracy was crippled, if not entirely destroyed. Schwarzenberg, however, died suddenly in April 1852, when in mid- career, and Count Buol succeeded to his post, though only to a portion of his authority, for the Emperor, who was now two and twenty, had become conscious of his strength, and from month to month, so to say, took a larger and more direct part in the government.

Unrest was again evident in Hungary, which had suffered so cruelly during the suppression of the rebellion, when in February 1853, a young Magyar, named Joseph Libenyi, made an attempt to assassinate the Emperor whilst the latter was walking on the fortifications which encircled the old city or central part of Vienna. Approaching Francis Joseph from behind, Libenyi stabbed him with a dagger in the back of the neck. The young monarch was in uniform, however, and the thick collar of his military cloak mitigated the effect of the blow. Nevertheless a nasty wound was inflicted, and some time elapsed before it healed. By way Of commemorating the Emperor's lucky escape from death, a sum of 1,300,000 florins was raised by public subscription for the building of what is known as the Votive Church, dedicated to St Salvator.

One effect of Libenyi's attempt was to hasten the Emperor's marriage, with the object of ensuring the direct succession of the throne. The young autocrat was fairly good- looking, vigorous, extremely manly, and more than one beautiful woman had thrown herself at his head. According to la chronique scandaleuse he had already had several mistresses, but there had been as yet no serious attempt to marry him. His mother, the Archduchess Sophia, now conceived, however, the idea of providing him with a consort in the person of a member of her own house, which was that of Bavaria.

She was a daughter of King Maximilian Joseph I. of that country; and a step- sister of hers, named Ludovica, had married another Maximilian Joseph, who represented a junior branch of the House of Wittelsbach, and bore simply the title of " Duke in Bavaria." This couple had three sons, the eldest of whom became infatuated with an actress named Henrietta Mendel, and renounced all his rights in order to marry her. The second one, named Charles Theodore, became a distinguished oculist, and the third married a Saxe- Cobourg Princess, sister of the present ruler of Bulgaria. The girls were five in number, and were named respectively, Helen, Elizabeth, Maria, Matilda and Sophia. Only the two elder ones, Helen and Eliza. teeth, were of a marriageable age at the date we have reached, 1853, and, indeed, the second was very young for matrimony, having not yet completed her sixteenth year. It was therefore decided by the mother of these girls and the mother of the young Austrian Emperor that he should marry Helen, the eldest one; and in order to bring about the alliance it was planned that there should be a meeting at Ischl in August 1853.

Here let us open a parenthesis. It is a melancholy fact that since the latter part of the eighteenth century more than twenty members of the House of Bavaria have become more or less insane. It has been contended that there was no insanity in the younger branch in which the Emperor Francis Joseph was to choose his bride, but that is an absurd error. The father of Duke Maximilian Joseph, and therefore the grandfather of the girls we have enumerated, was a certain Duke Pius Augustus, whose reason was overclouded for many years. Duke Maximilian Joseph, moreover, had married a Princess of the elder branch in which there had been numerous instances of insanity. Further, the Austrian Emperor's mother belonged to that same elder branch, and thus his marriage with a Bavarian Princess was assuredly attended by serious risks.

At the same time it may be pointed out that the prepotency of the blood of the Hapsburgs has been conspicuous in all their matrimonial alliances. We know that the present King of Spain is physically far more of a Hapsburg than a Bourbon, and that in like way Napoleon's son by Marie Louise was far more of a Hapsburg than a Bonaparte. If the " Pretender" Naundorf had been the real Louis XVII. he, also, would probably have been a man of the Hapsburg type. Some of the latter's hereditary traits were apparent in Louis XVI in spite of the grossness of his physique, and they were most marked in Marie Antoinette. Her daughter, who became Duchesse d'Angouleme, was essentially a Hapsburg; and had Naundorf been her son one would have expected to find in him similar characteristics, which, however, he did not possess. On the same basis it has been argued that the famous Don John of Austria, the reputed illegitimate son of the Emperor Charles V. (whom he in no wise resembled), was simply palmed off as such by his dissolute mother, Barba Blomberg. Briefly, several eminent biologists hold that whenever a Hapsburg of either sex has contracted a matrimonial alliance with another family, the Hapsburg heredity, even when represented on the female side, has always proved the more powerful; whence it has resulted that other Princes, in espousing Austrian Archduchesses for the purpose of perpetuating their own race, have in reality more particularly perpetuated the race of the Hapsburgs.

At the same time it would probably be excessive to say that the Hapsburg prepotency must always triumph over any flaws occurring in those with whom the Austrian house might become allied. Outward physical characteristics may still be repeated from generation to generation, but mental characteristics may well become modified by frequent marriage with a house in which insanity has existed to more or less extent for several generations. Such houses are those of Bavaria and Hesse- Darmstadt which have infected one another by their alliances. At the same time the repeated marriages between Hapsburgs and Wittelsbachs have already imparted marked eccentricity to many members of the former family. Indeed, one can no longer count the eccentricities of Austrian Archdukes and Archduchesses. In the Bavarian house insanity has been more or less intermittent, skipping a generation here, a generation there, then at times reappearing with greater intensity than before. In the intervals there has generally been eccentricity of one or another kind, allied with a pre disposition to the romantic and a florescence of the artistic temperament. Substitute great talent for genius--for we do not think that any Wittelsbach has been exactly a genius--and one will find this house exemplifying the close relationship that exists between high intellectual gifts and insanity. The father of Duke Maximilian Joseph (one of whose daughters Francis Joseph of Austria was to marry) had become, as we already mentioned insane; Maximilian Joseph himself, however, was merely an eccentric, with a strongly developed artistic nature A first- rate musician, expert as a player on the zither, he also set up a private circus, travelled widely, wrote poems and tales' as well as an attractive record of his wanderings in Asia and Africa.

It was, of course, possible that his offspring might escape the hereditary taint, and also possible that they might not. In any case the young Austrian Emperor betook himself to Ischl in August 1853, for the purpose of meeting the Princess Helen whom it was desired that he should marry. But it so chanced that he first set eyes on her younger sister, the almost juvenile Elizabeth, fell in love with her on the spot, and decided that she, and not her elder sister, should be his wife. He intimated this to her parents, and in spite of the slight which was thus cast upon their daughter Helen, they assented to the match, unwilling as they were to decline so high an alliance. When Elizabeth was told of the young Emperor's choice she was seized with amazement, it is said. " It is impossible ! " she exclaimed, " I am only a child."

According to most accounts Elizabeth was born on December 24, 1837, at her father s favourite estate of possenhofen, on the west bank of that Lake of Starnberg in which her cousin, the unfortunate Ludwig II. of Bavaria, was afterwards drowned; but she really came into the world at Maximilian Joseph's palace in the Ludwigs- strasse at Munich, where the family always took up their quarters in the winter. Much of the Princess's girlhood was undoubtedly spent, however, in the vicinity of the Starnberg See, and she became known as the young Rose of Possenhofen. She delighted in an outdoor life, free from restraint, went hunting and shooting and boating with her brothers, and was by nature unsuited to the station to which her marriage called her. But how could a girl of sixteen resist such an offer ? The marriage may have been a mistake, but if so, the mistake was assuredly not hers.

History tells us what a triumphal progress the Archduchess Marie Antoinette made through Germany and France when she repaired to Versailles to become the wife of the future Louis XVI. Quite as triumphal was the progress of the young Princess Elizabeth through the Bavarian and Austrian dominions when in the spring of 1854 she betook herself to Vienna to marry Francis Joseph. The ceremony took place with great splendour at the church of St Augustin on April 24 and there seemed at first every prospect that the union would be a happy one. Many people rejoiced at it, for it was attended by the pardon of hundreds of political offenders, and followed by the abolition of flogging in the army and some notable hospital reforms all of which were attributed to the influence of the young Empress. On July 12 1856, a first child was born, the Archduchess Gisela; and in the first months of 1857 the Emperor and Empress made a long tour through the Austrian possessions in Italy, this being signalised by an amnesty for all political offences, a measure which certainly produced a good momentary effect, though, not unnaturally, it failed to check the Italian aspirations for independence. In a letter we possess which was written from Milan at that period, we find it stated: " The young Empress of Austria is as beautiful as any Virgin painted by any artist of the Italian schools. She has an abundance of brown hair which gleams here and there like gold. I am told that when it is unbound it falls almost to her knees. But if she is as beautiful as a creation of Raphael's, she is also as mute. She is said to be well educated; but she does not speak Italian, though she took lessons from Signor Bolza for a considerable time. She speaks, too, but little French. She evinces little interest in any ceremony. She looks on, but remains impassive to the compliments which are addressed to her. It appears that she lives solely in the love of her husband, who, on his part, seems to be passionately devoted to her."

After the Italian visit the Emperor and Empress repaired to Hungary where the latter was well received. In the following year, 1858, she gave birth to a son the unfortunate Crown Prince Rudolph. It might be thought that such an event as the birth of an heir to the empire would have drawn husband and wife yet more closely together. But on the contrary there now came increasing coldness between them. All accounts agree in asserting that this was due to the Emperor's im pressionable nature in regard to women. There were many beautiful ones at the Austrian Court, and even as some had flung themselves at his head prior to his marriage, so others did the same now that he had a wife.

At last, in 1860, an incident occurred, which the Empress deeply resented. Abruptly quitting Vienna she repaired to Trieste and sailed thence in her yacht to the Ionian Islands. Francis Joseph started in pursuit, but Elizabeth was unwilling to be reconciled to him. She repaired to Minorca and then into the Atlantic, visited Norway, fell ill' and finally, under medical advice, betook herself to Madeira, touching at Southampton on her way (1861). Some years were given up almost entirely to roaming. On a few occasions the Empress was compelled to return to Austria by some important official requirements, but her sojourns at Court were extremely brief. There can be no question that she cordially detested Court life. A wilding in her youth, she remained one in her womanhood. But whilst she was going hither and thither her children were left without the maternal supervision which she should have bestowed on them. In 1865 the young Crown Prince fell ill, and the Empress, being summoned at once, returned home. In January the following year we find her accompanying the Emperor to Buda- pesth . then, in the autumn, came the memorable war between Austria and Prussia, and the disasters which then befell the Austrian arms tended to bring Elizabeth closer to her husband once more. In the ensuing month of June (1867) they again returned to Hungary, this time to be crowned as King and Queen at Presburg. Early in July Francis Joseph lost his youngest and favourite brother Maximilian, who was shot at Queretaro by the Mexican Republicans, after a brief space of so- called imperial rule. This misfortune brought about a complete reconciliation between the Kaiser and his consort, and on April 22, 1868, the latter gave birth to the Archduchess Maria Valeria.

Nevertheless, before long she again began to travel about, confining herself for a while, however, to the Austrian dominions, exploring Carinthia, roaming over the Hungarian Puszta, or else secluding herself in her handsome chateau at Lainz. She and her husband still met fairly frequently, but she seldom attended the Court festivities at Vienna. In the first years of her married life the Empress had participated in the MaundyThursday function of the foot- washing of the poor, and had also walked in the Holy Sepulchre and Corpus Christi Processions; but she had afterwards altogether ceased to appear at any such ceremonies which, although she was a Catholic, did not appeal to her, perhaps by reason of their pomp and vanity mingled with a mock humility. She was even but little at Vienna in 1873, that year of the great International Exhibition held in the Prater. It was then that we first saw her : right beautiful in the maturity of her six and thirty summers, imperial in her bearing, and effulgent like an idol with all the glitter of the diamonds and emeralds which she wore in such profusion. That, however, was but a fugitive vision, granted to the Court in deference to high requirements. Beside the Empress stood a tall, commanding, soldierly figure, at which one gazed with equal interest, for it was that of Alexander, Czar of all the Russias. We remembered how Berezowski the Pole had fired on him in the Bois de Boulogne six years previously; we knew that he had come to Vienna closely guarded in his ironclad railway train, and that day by day he ran the risk of assassination. But who could have imagined that the beautiful and resplendent woman who entered the great Rittersaal of the Hofburg by his side was threatened, or similar fate ?

In the following year, 1874, the Empress's health again began to decline, and she once more took to foreign travel. Repairing to England she visited Queen Victoria at Windsor and afterwards stayed for a time on the Isle of Wight. She was an expert horsewoman, and being much attracted by foxhunting she subsequently came to this country on several occasions for the express purpose of indulging in that sport. In 1879 and 1880 she was in Ireland, and in the following year in Cheshire, where she rode to hounds. There were also many journeys to other countries, the Empress becoming more and more restless under the nervous disorders which gradually fixed their hold upon her. When she was in Austria she still usually secluded herself in her castle of Lainz, south of Vienna, which was beautifully decorated in the Renaissance style. She had artistic leanings like her cousin Ludwig II. of Bavaria--Wagner's patron-- and after acquiring the Villa Braila in Corfu she turned it into a sumptuous palace profusely decorated with paintings and statuary. Among the principal features were a Pompeian dining- hall and a Byzantine chapel.

In connection with King Ludwig it should be mentioned that the Empress Elizabeth always refused to believe in his insanity, and regarded his dethronement and sequestration as positive crimes, carried out in order to gratify the ambition of Prince Luitpold, who was appointed Regent as soon as the King's person had been secured. It is certain that when Ludwig was drowned in Lake Starnberg, the Empress was sojourning in the neighbourhood, and although, according to the official account, she had no knowledge of the tragic affair until the following morning, when the news filled her with the utmost grief, there are many in that part of Bavaria who hold that she was privy to the unfortunate monarch's desperate and fatal attempt to escape from his custodians. There are even those who aver that on the night when he and his medical attendant, Dr von Gudden, perished in the lake, she was seen waiting in a posting- carriage in the near vicinity of the spot where the fatality occurred. There are, to our thinking, some elements of plausibility in the story. The official account of King Ludwig's death has always seemed to us un- - satisfactory in various respects. It appears certain that the King's object on that fatal night was to effect his escape, and if that view be adopted it is not unlikely that Elizabeth, who sympathised with him so keenly, had arranged to give him some assistance.

Time sped on while she flitted hither and thither, her health gradually becoming worse and worse. At last on January 30, 1889 she experienced another great shock--the suicide of her son, Crown Prince Rudolph. He had espoused the Princess Stephanie, one of the daughters of the second Leopold of Belgium, but the marriage had proved very unsatisfactory. At last, in 1888, the Prince met Marie Vetsera, a very beautiful girl, whose mother, a Baltazzi, was of Greek origin. An entanglement ensued, and was brought to the knowledge of Princess Stephanie by a certain Countess Larisch, the daughter of the Empress Elizabeth's eldest brother by his marriage with Fraulein Mendel the actress. Great trouble ensued, and in the end the lovers died together at Prince Rudolph's hunting lodge at Mayerling, a beautiful sylvan spot not far from the famous monastery of Heiligenkreuz, at no great distance from Vienna.

There are so many contradictory versions of the affair that it is difficult to disentangle the most probable from the others. But we cannot agree with a statement made in that anonymous work " The Martyrdom of an Empress," to the effect that the tragedy was brought about by a revelation which the Emperor Francis Joseph made to his son on the very eve of the tragedy's occurrence. The Emperor, it is asserted, told Prince Rudolph that Marie Vetsera was really his (Francis Joseph's) illegitimate child, whereupon the Prince rushed off in absolute despair to Mayerling. But it so happens that he spent the evening in question at the Vienna Opera house, where he was seen by all the spectators, and where we cannot imagine him to have been, had he only just quitted his father with the revelation which had been made to him still ringing in his ears. When the performance was over he certainly betook himself to Mayerling, travelling in a posting- carriage which he entered outside the theatre. This was a not uncommon practice of his whenever he went off for a few days' shooting, but as we all know, it was on this occcasion followed within four and twenty hours by the death of the Prince and that of his mistress. He appears to have shot himself, whilst Marie Vetsera took poison--strychnine according to the more probable reports. One account says that Rudolph's friend, Count Hoyos, who was staying at Mayerling at the time, was also found dead, but that assertion is ridiculous, for it was precisely Count Hoyos who hurried to Vienna with the terrible tidings that the heir apparent to the Austrian Empire had committed suicide. It is said that the news was first conveyed to the Empress Elizabeth, and that she communicated it to her husband. Certain it is that she stood staunchly by him in that hour of mourning in spite of the great shock which her son's death gave her. A few more years elapsed, and another blow was dealt at her heart when in 1897 her sister, the Duchess d Alencon, perished in the flames which consumed the Paris Charity Bazaar Two other sisters then remained to her, the ex- Queen of Naples and the Countess of Trani, and during her frequent roamings she was often in their company, particularly in that of the latter, whose general disposition corresponded with her own.

The Empress spent her last Christmas, that of 1897, with them both. At that time her health had quite given way. Rheumatism, sciatica, neuritis, were in turn bringing her to the grave. Her sufferings seldom ceased and were often intense. Early in 1898 she was at San Remo, following the treatment of Dr Nothnagel, but at the end of February she betook herself with the Countess of Trani to Territet in Switzerland where they separated. Six weeks later the Empress repaired to Kissingen where she met the Emperor whilst undergoing fresh treatment there. Two months later we find her in Vienna, still suffering from sciatica and neuralgia which soon compel her to shut herself up at Lainz. A course of treatment at Nauheim in Hesse is then recommended, and in July she set out for that spa, first travelling, however to Ischl with the Emperor and her daughter Valeria.

At Nauheim her health improves very much, indeed; and at the end of August she departs for Switzerland, deciding to instal herself at Mont de Caux. Here she continues in such fair health that she is able to rise early, walk out, and even take part in some little climbing. Not far from Geneva, on the slopes overlooking the lake, stands the chateau of Pregny once the property Of Joseph Bonaparte, and subsequently that of Baron and Baroness Adolphe de Rothschild, by whom it was greatly beautified. Baron Adolphe had at one time established a banking- house at Naples, but on the fall of the Neapolitan monarchy he removed to Paris, where, no further troubling about business, he led the life of a grand seigneur showing himself a lavish entertainer and a liberal patron of the arts. He and his wife greatly befriended the exiled King and Queen of Naples, for which reason we have always considered the picture of the latter's financial straits given in Alphonse Daudet's " Kings in Exile," to be extremely exaggerated. The services in question (the Queen of Naples being her sister) had drawn the Austrian Empress towards this branch of the Rothschilds, and whilst she was at Mont de Caux she resolved to pay the Baroness Adolphe a visit at Pregny. She did so on September 9 (1898) and afterwards left for Geneva intending to spend the night at the Hotel Beaurivage, where Dr Kromar, one of her attendants, had engaged rooms for her.

On her travels the Empress usually assumed the name of Countess of Hohenembs, but she was so well known that this practice quite failed to conceal her identity. Wherever she went the police had orders to watch over her, but she repeatedly objected to the presence of plainclothes officers, and owing to her frequent remonstrances in that respect a surveillance which might well have prevented her from coming to any harm, became extremely perfunctory and at times, indeed, ceased altogether. Geneva having long been the abode of many Revolutionaries of various categories, often dangerous men, the Empress was strongly advised not to repair thither without taking adequate precautions. We doubt, however, if anybody in her entourage imagined that she ran a risk of assassination; the thought was rather that she might be insulted, and perhaps grossly, as had happened once or twice during her travels.

Those readers who are superstitiously inclined may note the following. A day or two before the Empress's visit to Pregny, while she was out of doors in the company of Mr Barker, her English reader, a raven (bird of ill- omen) suddenly swooped down and struck out of her hands a peach which she was peeling. Further, when she reached the Hotel Beaurivage, bringing with her a number of choice orchids the gift of Baroness Adolphe de Roths child, she found her rooms decorated with mauve and white asters, which in many continental countries are regarded as " flowers of death."

It was early in the evening of Friday, September 9, when the Empress arrived at Geneva. She afterwards took a short stroll along the quay, beside the lake, and early on the following day, attended by the Countess Sztaray, her lady- in- waiting, she went into the city to do some shopping. On her return to the hotel she dismissed her women- servants who were to take the train to Territet, she herself having arranged to return to Mont de Caux by the lake steamboat- service. The time for her departure having arrived, a valet quitted the hotel in advance, carrying a cloak and a travelling case towards the steamer, " The Geneva." After him, and slightly in advance of her mistress, went the Countess Sztaray, and as the Empress followed, entirely by herself, a man who had been seated on one of the benches of the Quai du Mont Blanc, where a short time previously he had been conversing with an elderly individual, who may have been a confederate, suddenly rose up, went swiftly towards her, and dealt her a blow which brought her to her knees. She was, however, almost at once on her feet again, and the Countess Sztaray, turning back, threw her arms about her to give her support, and at the same time raised a cry in order that the assailant, who was already hurrying off along the Rue des Alpes, might be arrested. At that moment neither the Empress nor the Countess imagined the man to be an assassin. They thought him a common thief whose aim had been to steal the Empress s watch. He was pursued, however, by a couple of cabdrivers and a boatman; and an electrician named Saint Martin, who saw the chase and barred the way, was able to secure the miscreant and hand him over to a police- officer.

Meantime, in reply to the anxious inquiries of her lady- in- waiting, Elizabeth declared that she was not hurt, or at least only slightly. She had no notion at that moment that she had actually been stabbed, but imagined that her assailant had merely struck her with his fist. She walked firmly towards the steamer and crossed the gangway, but, that accomplished, she suddenly fell on the deck, fainting. She was at once carried into the captain's room, and laid on some cushions there; and smelling salts, water and vinegar were employed to revive her, there still being no idea that she was dangerously--nay mortally--injured. At the same time the captain of the steamer, well knowing who his passenger was, did not wish to start, but the Empress, who had just recovered consciousness, sent word for him to do so, and thereupon the boat slowly quitted its moorings.

A moment afterwards, in order that her mistress might breathe more freely, the Countess Sztaray unfastened her corsage, and it was then that she discovered, near the left breast, a small puncture from which a few drops of blood had exuded. This alarmed her, and there being no medical man on board she at once requested the captain to turn back. A stretcher was formed with the help of some rugs and cushions, the former being secured to a pair of oars, and by this means the Empress was removed from the boat to the Hotel Beaurivage and carried to the room which she had lately quitted. On the way across the Quai du Mont Blanc a tremor passed over her face, she raised her arms towards the heavens and gave a little sigh. Doctors were speedily in attendance and exerted themselves to save her, but the Wound she had received was mortal, and though she 1ingered for a while and was able to take the last Sacrament, at ten minutes past two o'clock her spirit departed.

It was afterwards ascertained that the weapon with which she had been stabbed was triangular, tapering to a fine point, with a circumference in its thicker part of only 2.5 millimeters It had penetrated to a depth of 8 .5 centimetres, entering above the fourth rib (which was broken by the violence of the assassin's blow), passing through the pericardium, and then reaching the left ventricle of the heart. So small, however, was the puncture, that the blood flowed very slowly into the pericardium, and for this reason the Empress survived for a few hours. She was sixty- one years old at the time of her assassination.

The news of her tragic end aroused feelings of pity and sympathy throughout the world. It seemed monstrous that so inoffensive a woman as the Empress Elizabeth should have been struck down by a murderer. The Countess Sztaray telegraphed the terrible news to Count Paar, chief aide- de- camp to the Emperor Francis Joseph, and four days later the Empress's remains were removed to Vienna. They lay in state there for forty eight hours, and on the I7th, a dark stormy September day, came the obsequies, at which the stricken Emperor was supported by his daughters, Valeria and Gisela, and all the Archdukes and Archduchesses of his house. The German Kaiser came specially from Berlin, and the Kings of Saxony, Roumania, and Servia, and the Regent of Bavaria were also among those who went in the solemn funeral train through the crowded streets of Vienna, where rose and laurel and palm were mingled with sable drapery, and where the bright national colours were generally replaced by black flags. And thus the E:mpress's remains were borne to the Church of the Capuchins and deposited in that mortuary vault where Napoleon's son, the King of Rome, reposes near Maria Theresa.

And what of the assassin ? His name was Luigi Luccheni, and he was born in Paris on April 2 1873, so that at the time of his crime he was twenty- five years and five months old. He was an illegitimate child, and it is not known whether his father was an Italian or a Frenchman. In the entry of his birth in the register of the Second Arrondissement of Paris he is described as the son of Luigia Luccheni, daughter of Giovanni Luccheni and Maria Macelli of Albaceto, unmarried, and following the calling of a laundress. Not long after her boy's birth Luigia quitted France, and on August 9, 1874, she placed him in the poorhouse of Parma, where he was registered as number 29,239 Thrown on the world at an early age he became a labourer, then served a term of military service, chiefly at Naples, his company being commanded by Captain Prince Vera d'Arazona, who, when the time of his discharge arrived, engaged him as a servant. Three months later, however, Luccheni took himself off to lead henceforth a roving and somewhat haphazard life. He had become infected with Anarchist ideas through reading all the " literature " advocating Anarchism or Nihilism that he could lay his hands on. In 1894 his wanderings carried him to Buda- pesth where he for the first time set eyes on the Empress Elizabeth. He did not then conceive the idea of assassinating her, but after his crime, he declared freely to M. Auberty, the investigating magistrate who dealt with his case, that he had come to Switzerland for the express purpose of striking down some important personage of royal blood. For instance, he had thought of attacking the French Pretender, the Duke of Orleans, but had missed him; and afterwards some report had reached his ears to the effect that an English Prince, the Duke of York (now King George V.) would be visiting Baroness de Rothschild at Pregny that autumn, even as he had done several years previously in the company of his brother the Duke of Clarence. That rumour was false however, and in the end Luccheni resolved to satisfy his hatred of royalty by assassinating the Austrian Empress.

He denied that he was affiliated to any secret societies, but it is certain that his intentions were known to others, notably to two Anarchists, his compatriots, named Pozzio and Barbotti, and to the former's mistress, a certain Lina Zahler. This woman, indeed, purchased at Lausanne a knife such as Luccheni said he required for his purpose. But it cost twelve francs which was thought an extravagant price to pay for a weapon which would serve once only. Accordingly, on some pretext or other, the cutler was induced to take it back; and for less than a franc Luccheni obtained a long slender file which he set in a wooden handle and sharpened like a stiletto.

He did not hesitate to glory in his deed. At the time of his arrest he exclaimed: " I dealt her a good blow. I hope I have killed her. It will be [Kingl Humbert's turn next. All the other sovereigns will follow. Long live Anarchy ! Long live the Revolution ! " Again, while denying to the investigating magistrate that he had any accomplices, he repeatedly declared that he had taken every possible step to ensure the success of his attempt. From the prison of Saint Antoine, near the Palais de Justice of Geneva, where he was incarcerated pending his trial, he wrote a letter to the Federal Council at Berne asking that he might be tried at Lausanne where capital punishment was still in force, whereas it was abolished in the canton of Geneva. That request was not granted, however, and he appeared before the Geneva court. Strongly built and inclined to be rather good- looking, in a coarse kind of way, his demeanour at his trial was for the most part self- satisfied and impertinent, and he treated Maitre Moriaud, the counsel assigned to him by the authorities, with no little disdain. It came out during the proceedings that he was of fairly industrious habits, and that during his wandering life he had constantly obtained work as a navvy or something similar. This drew from the judge a remark that he had never really known want and the sufferings which it entailed. " What ! I have never known suffering ? " Luccheni retorted. " My mother deserted me when I was an infant. Was not that suffering enough to wreck all my life ? "

The jury found him guilty of premeditated murder without any extenuating circumstances, and he was thereupon sentenced to solitary imprisonment for life. " Long live Anarchy ! Down with all the aristocrats ! If there were only two hundred brave men like myself all the thrones would soon be vacant ! " he cried as he was led from the court. Transferred to the Prison de l'Eveche, where he became merely " Number 1144," he was there lodged in an underground cell, reached by a flight of twenty steps. There was no window to it, only a port- hole, as it were, in the upper part of the barred door, to allow of a little light and ventilation. And by way of " furniture " there was, we are told, merely a sack filled with some straw, to serve as a seat in the daytime and as a bed at night. The rules provided that the prisoner should be taken from his cell for an airing within the prison precincts once a fortnight. Every week he would be visited by the chaplain, and four times a year he might receive relatives. Such then was the fate to which Luigi Luccheni was consigned and which he has ever since endured in expiation of his senseless crime. It will be noted that he had no personal greivance against the Empress Elizabeth. If she fell a victim to his improvised stiletto it was because she happened to cross his path at a moment when, carried away by his Anarchist ideas, he was bent on assassinating as a matter of principle any royal personage whom he might conveniently meet.

About a month after Luccheni's crime there was a plot against the German Kaiser, while he was travelling in the East, and nine Anarchists, who were found in possession of bombs, and all of whom were Italians, were arrested at Alexandria. This affair--following the assassination of the Empress Elizabeth and Acciarito's attempt on King Humbert--induced the Italian Government to propose an International Conference respecting the best means to be employed to prevent or punish Anarchist outrages. The invitations to this conference were very generally accepted by the powers, and Great Britain appointed as her delegates Sir Philip Currie, then Ambassador to the Quirinal, Sir Godirey Lushington of the Home Office, and Sir Howard Vincent of the Criminal Investigation Department. The proceedings, over which Admiral Canevaro presided, lasted from November 24 to December 21 but proved abortive; and although they were held in camera it became known that their failure was due to the attitude taken up by Great Britain, Belgium, and Switzerland, whose Governments refused to accept a proposal urged by the great Continental States that all Anarchists should be surrendered on demand to the authorities of their respective countries, to be dealt with as might seem fit. This proposal clashed, of course, with the so- called Right of Asylum, it meant the surrender of refugees who might merely be suspected--and erroneously suspected--and it included no guarantees of a fair and open trial. Doubtless pressure might have been brought to bear on Belgium and Switzerland, had they alone resisted the proposal, but the opposition of Great Britain was an obstacle not to be overcome.

CHAPTER 10: King Humbert -- Bresci -- President McKinley – Czolgosz (1898- 1901)

Attempt on King George of Greece--Unrest in Italy- KIng Humbert and Queen Margherita--Their Life at Monza--Gymnastic Competition there--The King presents the Prizes--He is assassinated-- Grief and Indignation of Queen Margherita~aetano Bresci, the Assassin--The Anarchists of Paterson, U.S.A.--The Plot to assassinate King Humbert--Bresci offers to commit the Crime and repairs to Italy--He practices with a Revolver--Remissness of the Italian Police--Bresci's mysterious Friend " II Biondino" --Proclamation of the new King--The Vatican and Queen Margherita's Prayer for her Husband--Trial of Bresci--His Sentence to Life Imprisonment--Repressive Measures in Italy-- Death of Crispi--President McKinley's Career--The Pan- American " Exposition" at Buffalo--Public Reception by the President-- He is shot twice by a Young Man--One Bullet removed but the Second not located--The President Lingers and Dies--Identity of the Assassin--Age and Appearance of Czolgosz--His Anarchist Opinions--He is medically examined for signs of Insanity--His Trial and Conviction--He is sentenced to be Electrocuted--His last Statements--The Process of Electrocution--The Body destroyed by Acid--Sentence on Johann Most for Incitement to Murder--Law excluding Anarchists from the Right to enter the United States.

During the same year when the Empress Elizabeth was assassinated there was an attempt on the life of the King of Greece while he was driving with his daughter in the Phalerum near Athens. Two men named Karditzi and Kyriakos, both of them ax- soldiers, discharged six shots at the royal party, fortunately missing the King and the Princess, but wounding a groom in the leg and also one of the horses. These men were speedily arrested tried, and put to death. It does not appear that they professed Anarchist opinions. They belonged to one of the anti-dynastic societies aiming at the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a Greek Republic.

During the spring of 1898 Italy became the scene of tumultuous disturbances in which Socialists, Anarchists and Revolutionaries of all categories, took part. From Milan the rioting spread to Florence, Leghorn, and Pavia, and thence southward to Naples. The latter province and Tuscany were both declared in a state of siege. The economic situation of Italy was largely responsible for this trouble which greatly affected the King. He granted an indulto towards the end of the year, and in 1899 economic conditions began to improve slightly, and the country generally became quieter. Nevertheless the Anarchists gave some trouble in Tuscany, and numerous arrests took place at Leghorn; whilst in Sicily affairs assumed a very serious aspect owing to the doings of the Mafia, at the instigation of which society Deputy Notarbartolo of Palermo was assassinated. There were reports of various highly placed personages being implicated in this affair, which was certainly allowed to drag on in a very mysterious manner. Charles Malato, the Italian Anarchist, writing in the Paris journal " L'Aurore," repeatedly accused certain members of the Government of having been privy to the assassination of Notarbartolo and of favouring the escape of the principal culprits.

In June 1900 general elections took place in Italy, and a very incompetent Ministry, presided over by Signor Saracco, came into office. This year there was an international expedition to China, and Italy participated in it; and in July King Humbert repaired to Naples to witness the departure of some of the Italian contingent. He then went northward to stay at his favourite villa at Monza, the ancient capital of the Lombards, near Milan. The Prince of Naples (now Victor Emmanuel III.) was then cruising in the Eastern Mediterranean, but with the King went his consort, Queen Margherita, long admired for her beauty--she was in her younger days a delicate blonde with deep blue eyes--and her qualities of heart and mind. It had first been intended that Humbert should marry a daughter of Archduke Albert of Austria 1 but his destined bride was accidentally burnt to death through her carelessness in dropping a lighted cigarette, and the marriage with his cousin Margherita was subsequently arranged. She was the daughter of Ferdinand, Duke of Genoa (brother of Victor Emmanuel II.) by the Princess Elizabeth of Saxony, and was married to Humbert, then called Prince of Piedmont, at Florence in April 1868. We have already related that she was seated beside her husband when his life was attempted by Passanante at Naples, and we have seen also how great was her concern when Acciarito attacked the King on the road to the race- course near Rome. Now, at Monza, both were threatened with a decisive irreparable blow.

Enough has been said of King Humbert to show that he was very brave. During the earthquakes, the inundations, the outbreaks of cholera which afflicted Italy in his time he never spared himself. On succeeding to the throne he had found it necessary to pay off heavy debts contracted by his father, and in order to do so he had for a time practiced strict economy; but his nature was a generous one and, in the presence of repeated public calamities, he ended by casting financial prudence to the winds, in such wise that when he died he left his private affairs in as unsat~sfactory a state as his father's had been. There was no personal extravagance on his part. He delighted to throw the pomp of royalty aside, and lead a simple life, spending much of his time in the open air. An early riser, he was temperate in regard to food and drink, fond of hunting in the Alps, and partial to the breeding of horses and cattle. At Monza he usually rode in the park from an early hour until about ten o'clock, when he returned to his villa and busied himself until lunch- time with all sort of public affairs, applications for assistance and so forth. Later in the day he would perhaps drive out with the Queen, and in the evening there might be a little family party or a series of audiences.

On Sunday, July 29 (1900) the King and his consort heard mass in the chapel of the royal villa, where a limited number of the public were also allowed to worship. Among those who attended the service that day was a certain Gaetano Bresci, who had come expressly from America to assassinate the King, and of whom we shall soon have to speak at length. Bresci must have been a mere spectator of the ceremony in the chapel. He can hardly have taken any part in it, for one cannot imagine a man praying to the Deity whilst harbouring murderous designs.

It had been arranged that during the evening the King should distribute the prizes won at an athletic competition organised by a gymnastic society of Monza calling itself Forti e Liberi. These prizes included a gold medal given by himself. The scene of the gathering was only some three hundred yards distant from a side- gate of the royal park and at the appointed time the King, who was in civilian dress, drove off in an open carriage drawn by two horses d la demi- daumont. In the rear sat a couple of footmen in red liveries,] beside the King and on his left hand was General Ponzio Vaglia, and in front of them General Avogadro di Quinto--both these officers being in mufti like the monarch.

On the King's arrival on the ground the royal march sounded, and there was some scattered applause--by no means such as would have greeted an English sovereign, but it should be remembered that, although Monza was the favourite royal residence, the townsfolk were largely infected by the subversive ideas which had long made the neighbouring city of Milan a hotbed of revolutionism. There were only a few police agents and Carabinieri on the ground. A couple of the latter mounted guard at the gate of the royal park, and the King's carriage had passed a few more on the road, but no special precautions had been taken for the monarch's safety. Having been received by the Syndic of Monza and the town's deputy, Signor Pennati, an advanced Radical, he repaired to the royal box or tribune and engaged a few officers who had lately returned from Erythrea in conversation, then witnessed the conclusion of the gymnastic display, and began to distribute the prizes. The first was gained by the Societa Monzese, and the second by some gymnasts from Trento, with all of whom the King shook hands.

The distribution over, Humbert descended the steps of the tribune to return to his carriage. A great many people had now pressed forward, and he had some little difficulty in reaching it. Recognising Colonel Masoni among the throng, he said to him: " Don't you ride now, Colonel ? I never see you doing so." " I ride every morning in the park, your Majesty," was the reply. " Indeed. Then we shall meet there. Good- bye, colonel, good- bye." That said, the King got into his carriage, followed by Ponzio Vaglia and Avogadro. He did not immediately sit down, however, but remained standing, hat in hand, and waving it towards some of the gymnasts who had begun to acclaim him. " Thank you, young men ! " [Grazie, giovanotti] he said once or twice; and then, as the municipal band again struck up the Royal March, and the horses were about to start, he prepared to sit down. But at that same instant four shots were fired at him in rapid succession. The first bullet wounded him in the left clavicle near the neck, the second in the chest, and the third between the fifth and sixth ribs, whilst the fourth went wide of its mark, the assassin's arm having suddenly been struck down by a spectator named Giuseppe Salvadori.

The King had strength enough to put on his hat, and sat down, gazing reproachfully, so it seemed to others, at the man who had shot him. Then addressing the postillion, he exclaimed: " Avanti ! " and, turning to Ponzio Vaglia, remarked: " I felt a blow, but I do not think I am wounded." But immediately afterwards he added: " Yes, I am wounded," and falling sideways against his aide- de- camp's shoulder, became unconscious. For a moment the two generals who were with him hoped that his injuries were not mortal, but the last agony set in, and as the carriage passed through the gate of the royal park, the King expired.

When the villa was reached it became necessary to break the terrible news to Queen Margherita. The first intimation was that the King had been seized with indisposition. Then, however, Ponzio Vaglio intimated that he had been attacked, but was only wounded. The Queen did not wait to hear more, but bounded down the staircase into the hall, where the royal physicians had already recognised that King Humbert was dead, and that their services could be of no avail. Hurrying to the corpse, Margherita gazed at it with mingled grief and indignation. The latter feeling, in particular, carried her away: " What a crime ! What a crime ! " she exclaimed: " It is the crime of the age ! " Meantime the assassin had been apprehended by a sergeant of Carabinieri and a couple of police agents. His name was Gaetano Bresci, and he was born on November II, 1869 (the same day as the present King of Italy), at Cojano, a hamlet of the commune of Prato in Tuscany his parents being Gaspare Bresci (died October 1895) and Maddalena Godi (died July 1889), who had been small land owners and had also practiced silk- weaving. Gaetano had two brothers, Lorenzo, a bootmaker, Angelo, a lieutenant in the artillery service, and a sister, Teresa, married to a certain Marocci, a man of private means. After receiving a little education at an elementary school, Gaetano had engaged in the calling of a silk weaver. Later, however, he quarrelled with his relations, separated from them, and incurred a short sentence of imprisonment for participation in some Anarchist disturbance. On his release he emigrated to America, and taking up his residence, at first, at New Hoboken, he there met a girl of Irish origin named Sophy Niell, whom he married in 1897, and who presented him two years later with a daughter. Before that occurred Bresci had moved to the manufacturing city of Paterson, some sixteen miles north- west of New York, where a large Italian colony was assembled, many of its members holding Anarchist opinions. Bresci associated with them, and was gradually drawn into their schemes, the chief of which was the assassination of King Humbert, whom they held responsible for those economic conditions which caused so much suffering in Italy, and impelled so many Italians to seek new homes across the Atlantic.

The story runs that the principal Anarchists of Paterson met in solemn conclave for the express purpose of carrying their designs against King Humbert into effect. A hundred and thirty- two names were inscribed on tickets, which were shuffled and thrown into a box The name then drawn from among all the others was that of a certain Luigi Bianchi, called " Sperandio Carbone," who was then without work, but had been in the employment of a manufacturer named Pessina. Bianchi shrank from the duty assigned to him, and offered, as a compromise, to dispatch anybody who was inimical to the Anarchists at Paterson. That offer being accepted, he was ordered to kill his former employer, Pessina. Such a mission seemed to him even worse than the other one, and in the end he committed suicide, leaving behind him a letter which stated his motives for doing so. It is urged in Italian works respecting the assassination of King Humbert that if the American authorities of New Jersey, who secured possession of Bianchi- Carbone's farewell letter, had only communicated it to the Italian Ambassador or Consul, the crime of Monza would never have been committed.

Bresci, however, had offered to take Bianchi's place with respect to the attempt on King Humbert; and under the auspices, it is alleged, of an Anarchist group of Paterson, called " The Right to Existence," he embarked at New York on board the French liner La Gascogne (May 17, 1900) for the purpose of carrying his horrible design into effect. A fund having been raised by his confederates, he was fairly well provided with money and clothes; he wore a gold watch and chain and a diamond ring, and would have been taken by most people for an inoffensive member of the middle class. Landing at Le Havre, he first repaired to Paris, and then made his way to Italy, where he wrote to the keeper of a saloon at Paterson, where some of the Anarchists frequently met, apprizing him of his safe arrival. On June 4 he was at his native place, where he met some of his relations and began to indulge in revolver practice. Finding, however, that he could not carry a revolver without police permission, he applied for it, whereupon the matter was referred by the local police to the superior authority at Florence. An answer came back, refusing the desired permission, on the ground that the applicant was an Anarchist, and had undergone a sentence as such some years previously. Nevertheless no further action was taken by the Italian police; Bresci was suffered to retain possession of his weapon, and to go undisturbed to Castel San Pietro in the Emilia, where he stayed with a relative, an innkeeper, in whose yard he practiced revolver shooting without let or hindrance. On July 8 he repaired to Bologna to witness the inauguration of a monument to Garibaldi; but on the very day (July ZI) when the King arrived at Monza, he received a telegram in consequence of which he hurriedly departed for Milan.

He there hired a room by the day, of some people named Ramella, living Via S. Pietro all' Orto, where he was visited by a man named Luigi Granotti di Biella, familiarly known as " I1 Biondino." On July 26 Bresci and Biella quitted Milan for Monza, and rented rooms there, at 4 Via Cairoli, which was tenanted by a widow named Angela Cambiaghi, formerly Rossi. During the next few days he studied the King's habits and watched his movements. On Sunday, the 29th, he reconnoitred the royal park, and, as we previously mentioned, attended mass at the chapel. Then, in the evening, he repaired to the gymnastic gathering and committed his crime. At this time Biella, alias " I1 Biondino," suddenly disappeared, and the police were unable to find him. On November 25, 1901, however, the Assize Court of Milan sentenced him by default to imprisonment for life.

The assassination of King Humbert was followed by< indignation meetings in various parts of Italy. The Prince of Naples, who now became King, and who, as we previously mentioned, was cruising in the Mediterranean at the time of his father's death, immediately hurried home. When he passed through Milan on his way to Monza, the Socialist Municipal Council refused to wait on him. He made himself momentarily popular with the great majority of his subjects by issuing a vigorous proclamation in which Rome was declared to be untouchable (intangibile); but naturally enough this greatly incensed the Clericalist party. Queen Margherita had prepared a beautiful prayer in commemoration of her husband, which she asked her sympathisers to repeat in church. But the Vatican, angered by the new King's proclamation, expressly forbade even the temporary introduction of this prayer into the liturgy; and on August 24 the Holy See formally renewed its solemn protest against the " usurpation " of the King of Italy.

Meantime, after a preliminary service at Monza, King Humbert's remains had been removed to Rome, where, amid a great display of pomp and power and pride, they were laid to rest, beside his father's, in the Pantheon. Then, on August 29, Bresci appeared before the Milan Assizes, carrying himself with the jaunty impudence of his kind. An advocate named Martelli had been assigned to him by the court, but he preferred to entrust his interests to a Socialist agitator named Merlino, who compared his crime with Orsini's attempt on Napoleon III., expatiated on the deplorable condition of the country, and imputed all the responsibility for it to the late King, who, in the eyes of the people, said he, had exercised an absolute sway. This was altogether incorrect, for Humbert's chief fault was that he had been too constitutionally inclined, accepting the decisions of his parliaments and ministers without regard to the corrupt motives which sometimes lay behind them. He thus fell under the domineering influence of one and another politician, and was unable to shake it off. Merlino's address certainly did Bresci no service; Martelli, the other advocate, was better inspired in urging that the prisoner had received but an extremely rudimentary education, and that his mental powers were very limited. Nothing, however, could save Bresci from the extreme penalty of the law, which, the death sentence being abolished, was imprisonment for life, the first seven years to be spent in secret cellular confinement.

The general elections having taken place so recently, the Saracco Ministry, which they had brought into office, was retained by young King Victor Emmanuel III. As is usual with all weak administrations, it decided on a policy of strict severity. There were arrests, often quite unjustifiable ones, all over the country, and turmoil soon prevailed. It was only early in the following year, 1901, that the new monarch got rid of Signor Saracco and called Zanardelli to the head of affairs. There was great want throughout Italy at this time, and the new Government did something to remedy it by considerably reducing the taxes. It also passed several fairly liberal measures, and the aspect of affairs had considerably improved by the time when the King's consort, Helen of Montenegro, presented him with a first child, the Princess Yolanda. A little later, in August, the veteran statesman Crispi passed away, and with him a whole period of Italian history may be said to have ended. Although Crispi had not held office for a considerable time, his powerful personality overshadowed the field of politics to his last day. As soon as he was gone, but not till then, the King was able to shake off the bonds which had fettered him since his accession.

Let us now cross the Atlantic to the United States, where the year 1901 was made memorable by the assassination of the Republic's twenty- fifth President, William McKinley.

The first United States President to be attacked by an assassin was Jackson, whose life was attempted by a man named Richard Lawrence in January 1835. Thirty years later, on the evening of April 14, Booth, the actor, assassinated Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre at Washington. Then, at the expiration of another sixteen years, President Garfield was shot by Guiteau, as we previously recorded. There was no connection between Anarchism and any of those crimes. But it was different with respect to the assassination of President McKinley, which was the outcome of the propaganda carried on by Johann Most, Emma Goldman, and others, and the examples successfully set in Europe by Luccheni and Bresci.

Born at Niles in Ohio, on January 29, 1843, McKinley was of mingled Scotch and Irish ancestry. His great grandfather, a native of Pennsylvania, had fought in the War of Independence. His father, named William McKinley like himself, married a Miss Nancy Allison, and the future President was their seventh child. The majority of the family were engaged in the iron industry, but young McKinley was doing duty as a school teacher when, in 1861, the War of Secession began. He at once enlisted on the Federal side, and ultimately rose to be brevet- major or, each step in rank being gained by his bravery in the field. The war over, he applied himself to the study of law, and ended by joining the bar of Canton, Ohio. He was afterwards gradually led towards a political career, and in 1876 was elected as a Republican member of Congress, in which he retained a seat for seven terms. By 1890 his name had become widely known as that of the chief advocate of a high tariff policy. He lost his seat in Congress, but was elected Governor of Ohio in 1891 and again in 1893, and still remained the leading exponent of Protectionism in the United States. Men began to talk of him as a candidate for the Presidency, and in 1896 the Republican party officially adopted him as its nominee. Opposed by William J. Bryan of Nebraska, the zealous advocate of a silver versus a gold standard, McKinley was elected, and four of the most eventful years in the history of the United States ensued. War broke out with Spain, which ended by surrendering Cuba and the Philippines, and extreme Protectionism became one of the chief tenets of the Republic's policy, and led for a time to acrimonious relations with more than one foreign country. In 1900 McKinley secured re- election, and on this occasion the Vice- Presidency of the States was secured by Mr Theodore Roosevelt, who had figured prominently in the war with Spam.

During the followiing year a so- called Pan- American " Exposition " was held at Buffalo (N.Y.), and early in September the President repaired thither. At his first visit he made a great speech on the prosperity of the country, and advocated peace and goodwill among all nations. Then, on the afternoon of Friday the 6th, it was arranged that he should hold a public reception in a building, somewhat pompously styled the " Temple of Music." Naturally enough some thousands of people assembled to defile before the President and shake hands with him, according to the usual practice. He stood in front of a kind of palm bower, with Mr Milburn, the President of the Exhibition, on his right hand, and his secretary, Mr Cortelyou, on his left. Quite near were two secret- service men named Foster and Ireland. Amid the strains of the organ which played Bach's Sonata in F, the crowd, which included many women and children, approached along a kind of aisle which was lined with police officers attached to the exhibition, and with men of the 73rd Sea- Coast Artillery.

The secret- service men, who were on the look- out for any persons of particularly suspicious appearance noticed a short, heavily built individual with a brown face, a heavy black moustache, and glistening black eyes, whom they judged to be an Italian. Whether he was a confederate of McKinley's assassin is uncertain, but at any rate the assassin walked immediately behind him. Whatever reason the secret- service officers may have had to suspect the swarthy- looking individual whom we have mentioned, there was not much to attract their attention to the one who followed. He was about 5 feet 7 inches high, beardless, with light brown hair and of extremely youthful appearance, looking indeed very much younger than he really was. Clad in a striped suit, he had the air of a respectable mechanic, and the only thing really noticeable about him was that a handkerchief covered his right hand, which he carried raised and close to the back of the man who preceded him. The detectives imagined, not unnaturally, that the young man's right hand had been injured, a surmise which seemed to be confirmed by the circumstance that he offered the left one to the President when he at last confronted him. McKinley, smiling, was about to take it, when from under the young fellow's handkerchief there suddenly appeared the muzzle of a revolver, and two shots rang out sharply above all the buzz of conversation and the tramping and shuffling of feet.

The President drew his hand to his chest, threw back his head, staggered, and fell, half- fainting, into the arms of his secretary, Mr Cortelyou. At the same time a coloured waiter named James P. Parker, who was just behind the assassin, attempted to seize him; and with the assistance of the detectives Ireland and Foster he was secured. The crowd wished to lynch him on the spot, and before he could be conveyed to an office in the Temple of Music he was badly cuffed, kicked, and struck in the face. Ultimately, under the guard of a number of police and marines, he was removed in a hired carriage to the police headquarters at Buffalo.

Meantime the Sea- Coast Artillerymen drove the crowd out of the Temple of Music, fixing bayonets and using great violence, in such wise that there were several casualties. The President's friends, on their side, tore down bunting and overturned plants in order to convey him to a seat where they fanned him vigorously He was very faint and in great pain. Before long, however it was possible to remove him to the emergency hospital in the Exhibition grounds, and there one of the bullets was easily extracted, the wound which it had inflicted in the chest being little more than superficial. But the doctors were unable to locate the position of the second bullet, and matters remained serious, although during the first few days all the bulletins were distinctly favourable, so favourable, indeed, that Theodore Roosevelt, then in the West on one of his hunting expeditions, was advised that it would be unnecessary for him to return. On the ensuing Friday, however--that is exactly a week after the crime--the President's condition suddenly became alarming. The doctors could do nothing further for him. He sank rapidly, and at a quarter past two o'clock on the following morning (September 14) he expired. His last words were, " Good- bye. God's will be done. It is His way."

It was ascertained at the ensuing post- mortem examination that the bullet which the doctors had been unable to locate was lodged in the abdominal wall behind the stomach. It had damaged the abdominal cavity, and gangrene had supervened. McKinley's remains lay in state, first at the City Hall of Buffalo and secondly at the Capitol at Washington. Then they were transferred to Canton for the last funeral rites and interment (September 25). Mr Roosevelt now became President of the United States, and travelled to Washington with all possible dispatch.

When the assassin was first interrogated he declared his name to be Frederick Nieman, asserted that his home was at Toledo, and that he had arrived about a week previously at Buffalo, where he had engaged a lodging in the Broadway. A certain Walter Nowak of Cleveland, however, identified him as Leon F. Czolgosz, an iron- worker, and mentioned that he had relatives living at Cleveland-- notably his father, Paul Czolgosz, a brother named Waldeck, and a sister, Victoria. These relations repaired to Buffalo soon after the crime, but the prisoner refused to see them; and, in a measure for their own protection, they were placed under detention by the police.

Leon Czolgosz was born at Detroit in 1873, and was therefore twenty- eight years old at the time of his crime. His appearance, however, suggested that he was barely twenty, and judging by the medical report of the postmortem examination of his remains, we do not think that he was ever much of a worker. His body was described, indeed, as resembling that of a young man of leisure, the arms being far from muscular, but smooth, round, and fair. He was of Polish extraction, as his name indicates, and had been brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, which he had renounced, however, on attaining manhood. He could read and write, but apart from that he had very little education. His Anarchist ideas were beyond question, some Anarchist literature was found on him or at his lodgings after his arrest, and he admitted that he had belonged to a little unnamed " group " at Cleveland At the same time he strenuously denied that his crime was the result of any scheme preconcerted with others. It was his idea, however, that the actual form of government of the United States was extremely unjust, and that the most effective manner of remedying it would be to kill the President. For that purpose, on the day preceding his crime, he had followed Mr McKinley on an excursion to the Falls, and would have shot him then had he been able to get near enough. Briefly, his demeanour after his arrest was alternately callous and defiant; he failed to exhibit the slightest sign of remorse. At first he refused the assistance of counsel, but, ultimately, two lawyers, ex- Judge Loran L. Lewis and Mr Robert Titus, were selected to defend him. At the instigation of the authorities, who desired to treat Czolgosz with the utmost fairness, he was medically examined prior to his trial in order that it might be ascertained whether he was mentally deficient, in which case he would simply have been consigned to an asylum. But he spoke quite rationally, and nothing in his appearance suggested any degree of insanity.

His trial before the State Supreme Court of Buffalo took place towards the end of September and lasted only a few hours. There were no such frantic efforts to save him from his fate as were made in later years on behalf of the young " millionaire " Thaw. In fact, his counsel did virtually nothing for him. At the outset of the pro ceedings he pleaded guilty, but this was overruled by Justice Truman White, who conducted the trial, and who ordered a plea of not guilty to be entered on the record. The evidence of the secret- service men who had arrested Czolgosz and of a few other witnesses of his crime was then taken. No witnesses were called for the defence. Ex- Judge Lewis simply made a brief speech, saying nothing about the prisoner but lamenting the death of so eminent and good a man as McKinley. The other counsel--Mr Titus--did not speak at all, except to remark that he thought it unnecessary to add anything to what his colleague had said. As for the prisoner, he merely decleared, " I am an Anarchist and have done my duty." The jury retired, and at the expiration of about half an hour returned with a verdict of guilty. This occurred on September 24 and two days later the prisoner was again arraigned and received his sentence, which was that he should be executed according to the forms of law during the week beginning October 28.

The method of inflicting the capital penalty was electrocution, which was carried out at the penitentiary of Auburn (N.Y.), whither Czolgosz was removed under the guard of twenty deputy- sheriffs. He collapsed on his arrival, and for the first and only time expressed regret for his deed and sympathy with Mrs McKinley.

The execution took place about seven o'clock on the morning of October 29, after the prisoner had partaken of a hearty breakfast of coffee, toast, eggs, and bacon. He was brought into the death chamber by a couple of warders, one of whom supported him on each side. Davies, the official electrician, was in attendance, and the operations were directed by Drs Macdonald and Gerin, five other medical men also being present. When Czolgosz had been seated in the chair, and while the warders were strapping him, he said: "I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people--the working people. I am not sorry I did so, but I am sorry now that I did not see my father." The strapping being finished, electrical contact was established, the electromotive pressure being maintained at 1800 volts during the first seven seconds, after which it was reduced to 300. At first the body was thrown against the straps, which creaked perceptibly. The hands clinched, and the whole attitude became one of extreme tension. But on the pressure being reduced to 300 volts the body suddenly collapsed. At the expiration of 23 seconds Dr Macdonald ordered the pressure to be increased to 1800 volts again; and 4 seconds later it was once more reduced to 300 volts for a space of 26 seconds, after which the contact was broken. Dr Macdonald then examined the prisoner and noticed no pulsation, but as a precautionary measure, so to say, he ordered a pressure of 1800 volts to be reapplied for the space of five seconds. Czolgosz was then pronounced to be dead. From the moment of the first contact the operation had lasted exactly one minute and five seconds.

The prisoner's brother Waldeck, who had amazed the authorities by asking permission to witness the electrocution, had originally intended to have the remains cremated, but yielded to the proposal of the officials that they should be interred in the prison cemetery and practically destroyed by acid. This was carried out after the postmortem examination, and at the same time all the deceased's clothes and personal effects were burnt, much to the mortification of those souvenir seekers who abound in the United States. It should be added that prior to the execution of Czolgosz, proceedings had been taken for one or another reason against several - prominent Anarchists, and notably the notorious Johann Most, who was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for having published in his organ, a short time before the assassination of McKinley, an article inciting his readers to murder the heads of States. Early in the following year, moreover, Congress passed a law excluding Anarchists from the classes allowed to enter the country. Those resident there have since been subjected to strict supervision.

CHAPTER 11: France -- Spain -- Protuga L -- Japan -- Great Britain and Other Countries (1899--1911)

An Attempt in Paris on the Persian Shah--Another on the King of Spain--Another on President Fallieres--Anti- Militarism in France --Bebel's View of Anti- Militarism--French Strikes and Demonstrations--Riots at Trieste--Attempt on K'ng Leopold of Belgium-- Anarchism and Strikes in Germany--Food Riots in Italy and Spain --Switzerland, Anti- Milita rism a and the Right of Asylum--The Great Croatian Trial--Spain, Taxation and the Religious Communities-- Barcelona Strikes--Attempts on Senor Maura--Military Rule at Barcelona--Attempt on the King and Queen of Spain after their Wedding--Mateo Morral--Francisco Ferrer--Morral and Ferrer parted by Rivalry in Love--Morral and Jose Nakens--Fate of Morral--Ferrer's Trial and Acquittal--Anti- Clericalist Policy in Spain--Maura's Rule of Iron--The Great Barcelona Rising of 1909 --Ferrer's alleged Participation--His Arrest, Trial and Execution-- Recent Times in Spain--Growth of Republicanism in Portugal-- The Royal Civil List--Joao Franco's Dictatorship--Assassination of the King and the Crown Prince- King Manoel's Brief Reign-- The Revolution and the Republic--Glorification of the Regicides-- Rise of Socialism and Anarchism in Japan--Denjiro Kotoku his Principles and Adherents--A Plot against the Life of the Mikado --Trial and Execution of Kotoku and Others--Great Britain and the Anarchists--The Tottenham, Houndsditch, and Sidney Street Affairs--The Aliens Act and its Administration--Concluding Remarks.

OUR narrative has now been brought down to comparatively recent times, and it remains for us to chronicle the chief incidents occurring in the history of Anarchism during the last ten or twelve years. Let us first turn to France. Felix Faure, President of the Republic, died suddenly in 1899, and there came a foolish attempt on the part of M. Paul Deroulede and others to effect a Nationalist coup d'etat. It absolutely failed, and during the earlier period of the next presidency, that is M. Loubet's, the Dreyfus Case continued to absorb public attention. In 1900, a few days after Bresci assassinated King Humbert, the life of the then Shah of Persia, at that moment on a visit to Paris, was threatened by a workman, who pointed a revolver at his oriental majesty, exclaiming as he did so: " Death to all the sovereigns ! " Before the man could fire, however, he was arrested, and he afterwards escaped with a comparatively short term of imprisonment, though he made no secret of his Anarchist opinions. In the following year the Socialists were responsible for strikes which occurred at Marseilles and Montceau- les- Mines, but some of the acts of violence which marked those movements were probably due to the Anarchist element which had for many years made itself felt on such occasions in France.

Outrages that might be positively and exclusively ascribed to the French Anarchists were at the period we refer to very few in number. As we previously indicated,] many partisans of the Propaganda by Deed had already renounced bomb- throwing as an inefficacious practice, and had rallied to the Anti- Militarist policy propounded by Gustave Herve, and supported, to some extent at all events, by the Socialist Jean Jaures. When, one night in the early summer of 1905, a bomb was thrown at the carriage in which young King Alfonso of Spain and President Loubet were driving--they had just quitted the Paris Opera- house--the outrage was not the work of French, but of Spanish Anarchists. Several men were arrested on suspicion of being implicated in it, but the case against them broke down and they were acquitted, the real culprits having successfully evaded the vigilance of the French police. That same year, however, an Anarchist element was again at work in the serious Labour demonstrations at Toulon, Limoges, and other localities. Such was likewise the case in the more widespread troubles which occurred in France during the two following years, 1906 and 1907.

On the National Fete Day of 1907, while President Fallieres was returning from the military review held in the Bois de Boulogne, two shots were fired at him by a man named Maille, who had previously served in the French mercantile marine and also in the State navy; but although the Anti- Militarist party--composed partly of Socialists and partly of Anarchists--had arranged to make a demonstration that day, Maille's attempt had no real connexion with it, the man being, indeed, simply a lunatic, as was subsequently ascertained. The demonstration itself was a complete failure, as Herve the Anti- Militarist leader admitted with considerable chagrin. He had been promised, said he, the support of the General Labour Federation (otherwise the Confederation generale des Travailleurs), but it had left him and his friends in the lurch. Nevertheless, the diffusion of anti- militarist theories throughout the country and in particular among the rank and file of the army was now giving the Government serious concern, and whenever it was possible to prosecute an offender that course was vigorously adopted and a sharp sentence generally ensued.

In connection with this matter we should mention that in August of the year to which we are referring, 1907, an International Socialist Congress was held at Stuttgart, where Herr Bebel took occasion to protest against the spirit of militarism and imperialism, saying that whenever a war seemed to be imminent the working classes ought to do their utmost to prevent it, and that if their efforts to attain that object failed, that they ought to exert themselves to bring the war to an end as speedily as possible. But at the same time he rejected and denounced Herve's proposition that soldiers ought to desert and even rebel in the event of war. Propaganda to that effect was, in Bebel's opinion, fraught with very great danger. It was engaging the attention of the German military authorities, and was in existing conditions distinctly harmful to the diffusion of Socialism. It may be added that at the general elections for a new Reichstag some time previously the number of successful Socialist candidates had fallen from seventy- nine to forty- three.

As we have seen, except in the course of strikes and other Labour disturbances, the manifestations of the more militant Anarchism had greatly abated in France. Public attention had been largely absorbed by the great struggle between State and Church which ended in separation. There were some violent revolutionary features in the Labour disturbances of 1908; and in the autumn of the following year the execution of the Spanish ax- Anarchist, Senor Ferrer at Barcelona (to which we shall presently refer), provoked serious rioting in Paris, where the Spanish embassy had to be protected by the military. This affair at least showed that there was considerable sympathy with Anarchism among certain sections of the Paris populace, although Anarchism might be less en evidence in France than formerly.

Several strikes and threats of even greater ones marked the course of 1909 in that country. In 1910, a year which opened with disastrous floods in Paris, Gustave Herve was at last sentenced to four years' imprisonment for his antimilitarist propaganda. Then, on May I, a formidable revolutionary Labour Demonstration was threatened by the Confederation generale des Travailleurs. But M. Briand, a former Socialist who was Prime Minister at the time, took such vigorous steps to prevent all disturbances thatat the last moment this demonstration was abandoned. In October, however, came a great Railway Strike, beginning with the men of the Northern Line and soon including those of the Western Railway, which had of recent years become State property. The energy of the Government again saved the situation. There were undoubtedly several distinctly revolutionary acts at this period. So- called " Sabotage "--the wilful destruction of property by strikers--occurred in more than one direction. More than one bomb was thrown, more than one attempt was made to displace the metals and impede or wreck trains, but the Army Reserves were called out, the military were stationed in force along the various lines, soldiers with a knowledge of railway work--among them being those strikers who were temporarily reincorporated in the army--were called upon to assist in ensuring the different services, and with few exceptions did their duty in that respect, while the ringleaders of the movement were arrested, and such a profound impression was produced generally that the men of the Eastern, the Orleans, the Lyons and Mediterranean and other Railway Companies, whose participation in the strike had been anticipated, refrained from joining their comrades. The workers of the Paris Electric Light and Motor Power service certainly tried to terrify the capital by holding up its Metropolitan train service and plunging it into darkness at night, as they had done once before, but that affair collapsed, and its promotor, a cynical vain- glorious individual named Pataud, fled for a time to Belgium, from fear of arrest and imprisonment. It may be said that in the cases of Sabotage which occurred during the Railway Strike the promptings of the Anarchist spirit were again apparent.

Let us now retrace our steps. In 1902 there were serious Labour disturbances of Trieste, the workers of the Stabilimento Technico and the Austrian Lloyd service, coming out on strike to enforce their demand for an eight hours day. The movement was engineered by Socialist leaders, but certain Anarchist practices, such as bomb throwing, found exponents, with the result that the troops being called out, a conflict and loss of life supervened. In the end the demand for an eight hours' day was granted. In November the same year an attempt was made on the life of that astute ruler and financier, but neglectful husband and callous father, Leopold II. of Belgium, by an Italian Anarchist named Rubino, who fired at him three times with a revolver while he was returning from a service for the repose of the soul of his consort Queen Marie Henriette who had passed away two months previously. In 1904 some German Anarchists were prosecuted at Konigsberg for participating in a plot against the Emperor of Russia. They were acquitted of the principal charges but convicted on some minor counts of the indictment against them. In that same year the life of the Russian Minister to Switzerland was attempted-- in fact he was seriously injured in the head by a revolver shot--but it does not appear that the culprit, a refugee Polish engineer, had any connection with Anarchism.

This period, it will be remembered, was that of the Russo- Japanese War. There were troubles in Poland, and many Nihilist outrages in Russia, as well as a naval revolt at Sebastopol in 1905, when unrest was widespread on the continent of Europe. The iron and engineering works of Westphalia and Rhemish Prussia were seriously affected by a great coal- miners' strike for an increase of wages; and at a Socialist Congress held at Jena somewhat later Bebel vigorously advocated general strikes, declaring them to be the best weapon at the disposal of the working classes.

Food riots took place in various parts of Italy whilst Calabria was suffering from the effects of a terrible earthquake; at the same time disturbances--likewise due to the scarcity of the means of subsistence and the heavy burden of taxation--broke out in Spain (quite irrespective of the chronic unrest at Barcelona and the authorities had to exert all their energy to restore a semblance of order at such different centres as Bilbao, Salamanca, Santander, Malaga and Seville, in which last- named city the bakers' shops were pillaged. Fortunately Spain was favoured that year by an abundant harvest, which ended by quieting the country. France, as we previously mentioned, was the scene of numerous strikes at this same period. Turn where one would, indeed, there was discontent and turmoil of one or another kind. The state of affairs in Morocco seemed likely to bring about a Franco- German war, and for a moment, too, it appeared as if the separation of Norway from Sweden might not be effected peaceably.

In 1906, when there were tumultuous strikes in a dozen departments of France and four or five provinces of Italy --where, however, material conditions were at last showing distinct signs of improvement--while in Russia the revolutionary agitation became yet more pronounced and Jew- baiting reached a climax, Spain and Portugal, moreover, being in the throes of economic and political turmoil, a few incidents pertaining to the history of Anarchism occurred in Switzerland. In the first place that most pacific of European States found it necessary to take steps against the anti- militarist propaganda which had spread from France to her own territory. In quoting Bebel against Herve we have shown the difference between the anti- militarism of the Socialist and that of the Anarchist. It was against the latter that the Swiss Federal Council found it necessary to take action. Two deputies were prosecuted for writing anti- militarist pamphlets and distributing them among the troops, and it was decided that any foreigner who might incite Swiss soldiers to refuse to serve or to disobey orders should be immediately expelled from the Confederation. Towards the end of the year, moreover, the Government prosecuted an Italian Anarchist named Bertoni for contributing to " Le Reveil " of Geneva an article in which he attempted to justify the assassination of King Humbert. He was convicted and sentenced to a month's imprisonment.

The next year brought with it the great Dockers' Strike at Antwerp, the dismissal of the first Russian Duma and fresh outbursts of Revolutionism in the great Eastern Empire, with further strikes, mostly of an agrarian character, in Italy where, however, in despite of disorders and the damage done by earthquakes, the economic position were still steadily if slowly improving. Rome witnessed some disturbances on May Day when there were also so- called Labour demonstrations at Copenhagen, Madrid, and Paris, the last- named city being strongly held by troops to check all revolutionary proceedings. In Switzerland in 1907 a curious case affecting the Right of Asylum was decided by fifteen judges sitting in the Federal Court at Lausanne. Russia had applied for the extradition of three Georgians who were accused of stealing public funds in the Caucasus. The judges held, however, that the defendants were Revolutionaries and that their offence had been committed with a political object. Extradition was therefore refused.

In 1908 we find the Moderate or Reforming element in the Italian Confederation of Labour separating from the Revolutionary and Anarchist elements. There were again several agrarian strikes in the Italian monarchy, where the year ended with the appalling earthquakes by which Messina and Reggio were destroyed.

In 1909 one may note the Revolutionary proceedings of the Greek Military League which for a time threatened the existence of the monarchy, and the trial of the Croatian Separatists at Agram when the chief evidence for the authorities was given by an informer named Nastitch, who had outwardly professed Anarchist opinions and assisted in the fabrication of bombs with which some Servian conspirators had proposed to assassinate Prince Nicholas of Montenegro. The object of the Croatian Separatists had been to detach Croatia, Slavonia, and Bosnia from Austrian rule and unite them to Servia to which they had once belonged. Some thirty of the prisoners were convicted after a very prolonged trial and sentenced to penal servitude, a score of others being acquitted.

We now propose to turn back once more, and deal successively with Spain and Portugal during the years at which we have been glancing. We shall afterwards have to say something respecting Socialism and Anarchism in Japan, and shall finally refer to the position in our own country.

Going back to 1899, when Senor Silvela succeeded Sagasta as Prime Minister of Spain, we find the financial policy of the Government, which carried with it excessive taxation, provoking numerous riots in Catalonia and Valencia. General Despujols, of whom we formerly wrote, made himself extremely unpopular by arresting hundreds of people who could not or would not pay the heavy imposts demanded by the authorities. His conduct was impugned in the Cortes, but when a motion to censure him was submitted to that assembly it failed to pass. In and round the city of Valencia the disturbances took more particularly the form of attacks on the religious Communities, whose property was exempt from the taxation levied upon others, and for this reason one finds the hostility to the Communities increasing persistently during succeeding years, throughout north- eastern Spain. Complaints were made of the excessive number of religions; and, further, the dignitaries of the Church were attacked for the high emoluments they secured whilst the greatest penury prevailed among the lower orders of the clergy. In 1900 the struggle between the Government and the commercial classes of Barcelona, over taxation questions, reached a climax. The general discontent led to Carlist demonstrations in one and another part of Catalonia, while on the other hand the separatist movement, which would have detached the province from Spain, grew apace.

So great was the enmity which the religious orders had aroused, particularly by often turning their conventual establishments into factories whilst still evading the taxation paid by other traders, that in many instances the monks deemed it advisable to arm themselves in order to resist aggression. They were not merely detested, be it noted, by folk of the working classes, Socialists, Anarchists, extremists of various kinds, but the mercantile community of Barcelona was largely ranged against them. In 1901 a series of strikes, all springing from the taxation trouble which tended to keep down the remuneration for labour, began in Barcelona, and continued at intervals until 1904, by which time the prosperity of the city was greatly affected.

A Conservative and Clericalist ministry, headed by Senor Maura, was then in office pursuing a most reactionary policy, and the young King seemed a mere puppet in its hands. On April 12, while Maura was returning from a memorial service for the King's grandmother, ex- Queen Isabella, he was attacked with a knife by an Italian Anarchist named Artal, whose weapon, however, coming in contact with some of the gold braid which lavishly bedizened the ministerial uniform, failed to penetrate it, in such wise that no harm was done. A short time afterwards, while the Premier was returning to Madrid, after a trip to the south, he was fired upon, but again escaped injury.

Many stormy debates provoked by the severity of Maura's rule occurred in the Cortes about this time. The Premier was bitter in his denunciations of Don Alejandro Lerroux, the Catalan Republican leader, who had done much to increase the unrest at Barcelona, and among those whom he prosecuted for opposing his reactionary policy, which tended more and more to the advancement of revolutionary designs, was the distinguished author Blasco Ibenez. No extremist policy, however, can be permanently successful. Maura's excess of zeal was followed by the desertion of many of his adherents, and in the course of 1904 he resigned office, General Azcarraga and Senor Montero Rios succeeding him in turn until, later in 1905, a Liberal administration under Senor Moret was at last called to office In the meantime the Separatist agitation at Barcelona had grown apace. Azcarraga had suspended the Constitutional guarantees there, placing the city under the rule of the military, who seized every newspaper inimical to their authority, raided offices, destroyed presses, arrested journalists and citizens galore. Nevertheless, the agitation in Barcelona continued even under the Moret ministry.

On May 31, in the following year, 1906, young King Alfonso espoused Princess Ena of Battenberg, who, on her conversion to Catholicism, had taken the Christian names of Victoria Eugenia. While the royal party was proceeding along the Calle Mayor of Madrid, on its we, back to the palace after the celebration of the marriage rites at the church of San Geronimo, a formidable bomb was flung at it, and although both the King and his bride escaped unhurt, fifteen persons, soldiers or civilians, were killed, and a score or so of others more or less severely injured. The perpetrator of this outrage was a certain Mateo Morral of Rocca, the son of a wealthy cotton spinner of Sabadell in Catalonia. In order that the reader may fully understand the circumstances of his crime, we must now introduce other personages into our pages, and notably one whose name has often been before the public of recent years, that is Senor Francisco Ferrer.

He was the younger son of a certain Jaime Ferrer by his wife Maria de los Angeles Guardia, and was born on January IO, 1859 at Alella, a little place at a distance of some twelve miles from Barcelona. In his early manhood, Ferrer attached himself to the fortunes of Ruiz Zorrilla, the Spanish Radical Republican Leader of the days of Isabella II. and the Revolutionary period which followed her downfall. Ferrer joined Zorrilla while the latter was in exile at Geneva, and afterwards became an intermediary between him and his partisans in Spain. Ferrer's Republican activity was discovered by the authorities, and in 1885 he sought refuge in Paris, where he earned a somewhat precarious livelihood as a professor of languages. He was, let us add, a very well educated man. He had previously married, and had two daughters, but the union was by no means a happy one, and, as the daughters subsequently stated, there were faults on both sides. Eventually Serlora Ferrer attempted to shoot her husband and was prosecuted for the offence.

In course of time Ferrer became intimate with a certain Mlle. Meunier' who possessed considerable means. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that there was anything immoral in their relations. They were attracted to one another by corresponding opinions in regard, notably, to educational work, and in the end Mlle. Meunier left Ferrer some house property in Paris to enable him to carry into effect certain educational plans which he had formed. Returning to Spain, he established at Barcelona an institution which he called the Escuela moderna, and where, to the horror of the Church and the Clericalist party generally, a system of Rationalist, Positivist, and one may add, from the standpoint of dogma though not from that of morals, anti- Christian education was put into practice. The Spanish authorities, who, unfortunately, are so neglectful of education (one of their country's greatest needs), had it in their power to suppress Ferrer's teaching, but they allowed it to continue undisturbed for a period of some five years.

The school exercised a certain amount of influence, though it appears that the total number of pupils who attended it during the period we have mentioned was only three hundred. Ferrer attached to it, however, a library and an educational publishing business, producing translations of French, German, and English scientists and sociologists of more or less advanced views, works which were regarded with disfavour by the authorities and with consternation by the clergy of Catalonia as they tended only too often to undermine the principles of Catholic dogma.

Now, Mateo Morral, who threw the bomb at the King's carriage on the occasion of the royal wedding, came into contact with Ferrer and ended by acting as librarian at the Escuela moderna. He was, we have said, the son of a rich man. Highly educated, partly in Germany, he had ended by adopting extremist social views, the undoubted grievances of his native province, Catalonia, making him at last an Anarchist of the type peculiar to Barcelona. Of a morose and brooding disposition, he was none the less susceptible to feminine beauty, and among the teachers at the Escuela moderna there was a particularly charming young woman named Soledad Villafranca with whom he fell in love.

His suit was rejected, however, for on her side the Senorita Villafranca had fallen in love with Ferrer, whose mistress she became. This naturally led to a breach between Ferrer and Morral. They could no longer work together, but were inevitably sundered. It was virtually the old story told by the fabulist: " Deux coqs vivaient en paix; survint une poule, et voile la guerre allumee." Morral quitted Ferrer. Was it his disappointment with respect to Soledad, was it his estrangement from his friend that impelled him to do something desperate ? In any case those matters may well have affected his mind, have inclined him to sombre views, to the idea of dedicating himself solely to the Anarchist principles which he had adopted, and carrying them to what he, like other fanatics, regarded as their logical conclusion. At all events he ended by hurling a bomb at the royal marriage procession.

We have before us what we wrote for a London evening newspaper when the first news of that outrage reached England. There was, as usual, a great deal of talk about the crime having been planned in London, about the young King of Spain having been sentenced to death at Anarchist gatherings in our metropolis, and so forth. " Enterprising " j ournalists hinted at all sorts of mysterious things which had come to their knowledge in London Anarchist haunts. Foolish things of that kind have been said and written every time an outrage has occurred on the Continent. But as we at once pointed out to the readers of " The Westminster Gazette," the state of Catalonia, during many years past, and the treatment meted out to Catalan Anarchists and others at Monjuich, sufficed to indicate the cause of the crime and the precise nationality of the culprit. We were not mistaken, for it was soon discovered that Morral, the Catalan, was the offender.

After committing his crime, he sought a refuge with Don Jose Nakens, the editor- proprietor of the Republ~can weekly journal, " E1 Motin," who induced another person to shelter him for the night and also sent him a change of clothes to enable him to effect his escape. On the evening of Saturday, June 2, however, Morral was identified at the railway station of Torrejon de Ardoz, some fourteen miles from Madrid. He shot a rural guard who tried to arrest him, and then turning his Browning pistol against himself, he again fired and fell dead.

Nakens was naturally arrested, and the Barcelona authorities, bearing Morral's past connection with Ferrer in mind, eagerly arrested the latter, to the great jubillation of all the representatives of Holy Church, who felt that they were at last rid of that schoolmaster whom the Devil had set up to assail their dogmas. Ferrer arrested and consigned to the so- called Model Prison at Madrid, the Escuela moderna was closed. A year elapsed before the prisoner was brought to trial, and when at last the authorities could no longer defer proceedings, they resulted in his acquittal on the charge of complicity in Morral's crime. On the other hand, Nakens who was certainly an accessory after the fact--he was generally accounted an estimable man and seems to have been led away at the time by a kind of good- natured weakness--received a sentence of nine years' imprisonment.

With reference to Ferrer's acquittal, it is quite certain that he had nothing to do with Morral's deed, though in earlier years the advanced Republicanism, which he had professed whilst associated with Ruiz Zorrilla, had beer temporarily abandoned by him for Anarchist opinions There is some documentary evidence to that effect. But Ferrer had soon renounced all idea of militant Anarchism in order to devote himself to his educational work, coming to the conclusion that the former could not effect any change in the social system, and that to bring about a better state of things in Spain, it was necessary to proceed progressively, and in the first instance to educate the young and free them from the domination of Clericalism. He was certainly not without his faults, and he went too far in a good deal of his teaching, being indeed as great a fanatic on the free- thought side as the most fervent disciple of St Dominic could be on the side of religious dogma. But, as we have said, he was blameless in the matter of Morral's crime. He and Morral had been parted by their love for the same beautiful woman, and we all know that the best of friends may drift apart from such a cause.

One result of the Calle Mayor outrage was the resignation of the Moret ministry, which was followed by one over which General Lopez Dominguez presided. But after a time Senor Moret returned to office, and some attempts mere made to check Clericalist domination in Spain However, the Church party indignantly opposed an Associations Bill regulating the status of the religious communities and a scheme of taxation reform by which those communities would have had to contribute on a proper basis to the national revenue. The Government wasted much time in attempting negotiations with Rome and when at last Senor Moret's colleague, Count de Romanones, asked the King to sign a decree which would render merely civil marriages between Catholics as valid as those celebrated by a priest, the whole Spanish hierarchy rose in wrath against such a sacrilegious proceeding. Young Kmg Alfonso was even denounced from the pulpit as a new Diocletian bent on persecuting Christianity ! Meantime there was a good deal of distress in central and southern Spain. Emigration to South America increased. Fresh Labour troubles broke out, particularly in Guipuzcoa where martial law was again proclaimed, and towards the end of the year some parliamentary squabbles between Moret and Lopez Dominguez led to the formation of a stop- gap ministry under the Marquis de la Vega Armijo, after which, towards the end of January 1907, Maura, the Conservative leader, returned to power.

The Liberals, whilst in office, had passed or adhered to some very illiberal measures, among which was notably a law by which insults to the army or the flag were to be judged and punished by military tribunals. They now asked for the repeal of that measure, but Maura refused his assent, and set himself to pursue his old policy of stern repression in respect to every manifestation of hostility to his rule. This succeeded so well in Catalonia that his heterogeneous opponents dropped all differences to band themselves together against him. Carlists, Republicans, Socialists, even Anarchists joined hands, and a so- called Solidarist party came into existence, and was led in the Cortes by Senor Salmeron. Maura's great weapon was the state of siege, which he confirmed in Catalonia and applied to Valencia also. Nevertheless he was unable to keep those provinces quiet. There were still frequent Anarchist outrages at Barcelona, where the police at last came under the suspicion of the authorities.] They were chiefly of Catalan nationality, and it is not surprising that some of them, at all events, should have sympathised with the aspirations of their province.

In 1908 the Government, becoming more and more disturbed by the frequent bomb- throwing at Barcelona, brought forward a drastic bill for the repression of Anarchist plots. Among other things it made the door porter of every house virtually responsible for every tenant occupying a flat in the house where he was stationed; and it further swept away every vestige of the liberty of the press. The Liberal party in the Cortes offered a strenuous opposition to this measure, submitting no fewer than 1200 amendments to it. While the matter was still in abeyance, an Austrian squadron visited Barcelona, and King Alfonso, in defiance of his ministers, instantly repaired to the city, and, in the course of the reception accorded to the Austrian seamen, repeatedly drove through the streets unattended. This created a favourable impression as regards the young King personally. The agitation was directed, indeed, much less against him than against his responsible advisers. For a few days (March IO- I3) no outrage was committed, but soon after the King had quitted Barcelona the bomb- throwing began once more.

The bill for the repression of Anarchism then passed through the Senate, but some of Maura's colleagues now became unwilling to follow him as far as he wished to go. The Minister of Finances, in particular, threatened to secede, and as Maura was at that moment very desirous of negotiating a State Loan, he gave way and offered to follow a policy of conciliation. Some bye- elections in Catalonia and Valencia resulted at this time in Republican successes, much to the chagrin of the authorities who seemed surprised at the result of their persistent endeavours to alienate Catalan and Valencian opinion.

At last came the year 1909 when matters reached a climax. Spain had engaged in an expedition to Morocco which aroused angry protests in the north- eastern provinces, where people became irate at the idea of sacrificing blood and treasure to further the claims of sundry financial jobbers interested in Moroccan mines. There were very serious riots at Barcelona, attempts being made to prevent Catalan and other regiments from embarking for Morocco. The taxation question also loomed up once more, and finally in July, the Solidaridad Obrera, otherwise the Labour Confederation, decided on a general strike. Great disturbances ensued. For three days, indeed, Barcelona was given over to desperate street- fighting. Various convents and the Jesuit college were attacked, and there were several cases of incendiarism. At the same time the earlier accounts of a massacre of priests and monks were quite untrue. One priest was suffocated in the crypt of his burning church, a nun also was killed, and two priests were shot, one of them being engaged at the time in firing on the rioters. On the other hand, several soldiers were killed or wounded, a much larger number of the insurgents experiencing similar fates.

Now Francisco Ferrer, ever since his acquittal on the charge of complicity in Morral's crime, had been trying to reorganise his Escuela moderna and educational publishing business. He resided at a house which he called the Mas Germinal and which was situated in the village of Mongat, a few miles from Barcelona. At the time of the outbreak in that city he had just returned home after an absence abroad of some duration. There is not a shred of evidence to show that he was at all privy to the Solidaridad Obrera's decision to organise a general strike, or that he headed (as the authorities afterwards asserted) the rising which supervened. Save for a few hours on the first day, when some business matters called him to the city, there is no proof that he was there during the rioting. It has been claimed that he at least initiated some disturbances in the neighbouring village of Premia, but even on that point the evidence is vague and shadowy.

Nevertheless, the authorities who, as usual, had decided on the arrest of all sorts and conditions of men, of everybody, indeed, noted for free- thinking and advanced political opinions, resolved to include Ferrer among them. He instinctively realised that such might prove the case, and remembering his former experiences in connection with Morral's affair, he quitted his home and sought an asylum with some friends. His disappearance enraged the authorities, who were greatly influenced by the Barcelona clergy in their work of repression and punishment, and after a perquisition at the Mas Germinal, all Ferrer's relatives, including his brother and his sister- inlaw, and his mistress, Senorita Villafranca, were deported to the town of Alcaniz and afterwards to Teruel, where they were long detained under conditions of great hardship.

Time went by and still Ferrer could not be found. But at last, on the night of August 31, he quitted his hiding place with the object of walking to a railway station whence he hoped to reach France. On his way, however, while he was near his birthplace he was accosted by a party of so~naten--volunteer citizen- guards for the protection of property--and one or another of them recognised him. His arrest speedily ensued.

Martial law still prevailed in Barcelona, and Ferrer was tried by a military court on the express charge that he had been the " author and chief " of the great rising in July. There was really no evidence to support that accusation. Even the evidence of complicity was of the flimiest character. It has been alleged, however, in a J esuitical spirit that although Ferrer may not have organised and directed the rising or even have actually participated in it, he was at least morally responsible for it by reason of the anti- clericalist teaching given at his Escuela moderna. Assuredly, however, it is very far fetched to suppose that this school, at which from first to last only some three hundred pupils were educated, and which was closed for nearly three years prior to the rising, was really the fons et origo thereof. In reality the rising was caused by a number of factors, primarily of an economic nature, with which political and religious questions became blended, and we feel certain that it would have come to pass even if no such individual as Francisco Ferrer had ever lived. There is not a particle of evidence to show that he incited the people of Barcelona to violence and incendiarism. The responsibility for the excesses rests largely with two Republican--not Anarchist--leaders, Don Alejandro Lerroux and Don Emiliano Iglesias, a member of the Cortes, whose newspaper " E1 Progreso " recalled with pride only forty- eight hours before the outburst, " the virile days of 1835," when the convents of Barcelona had been assailed and burnt !

Some old writings, dating from the prisoner's earlier Anarchist days, were raked up against him and applied to the Barcelona affair. The military counsel assigned to him made a gallant effort on his behalf, but the court, adhering to the arguments, not the evidence, for the prosecution, pronounced him to have been the " author and chief" of the rising, and sentenced him to death. We may strongly disapprove of Ferrer's anti- religious fanaticism, we may also condemn more than one feature of his teachings, but there can be no doubt that his trial and sentence constituted a gross miscarriage of justice. The condemned man was shot in a trench before the St Eulalia bastion of the fortress of Monjuich on the morning of October IZ--that is only twenty- four hours before the assembling of the Cortes. It seemed as if the authorities were anxious to put him out of the way in order that all appeals for leniency on his behalf might prove fruitless. Thus do governments make martyrs. However, the spirit of St Dominic must have been satisfied. The impious heretic who had dared to impugn Roman dogma was dead.

It is a question, perhaps, whether Senor Maura, the Conservative Premier, or Senor Moret, the Liberal leader, was the more responsible for the execution. Letters ascribed to those politicians have been printed, and, if genuine, show that the former consulted the latter on the question of clemency, and that the latter was in favour of the law taking its course. The execution was followed by indignation meetings, and in some instances by riots in a number of foreign cities; Maura had to resign office; and Moret once more succeeded him. The notorious General Weyler was then despatched to Barcelona to rule and overawe the stricken city.

In February 1910 a more advanced Liberal Administration under Senor Canalejas followed the Moret Ministry. Religious questions, by which we mean those affecting the privileges, emoluments and taxation of the Church in Spain, soon became acute once more. Labour questions likewise came to the front here and there, and strikes and demonstrations were not wanting. Barcelona, however, smarting under the wounds she had received the previous year, was on the whole much quieter than she had been during the previous decade, though it is true that on one occasion Senor Maura was assaulted there by a so- called Anarchist.

At the same time it must be said that the Ferrer affair still pursues the Spanish authorities. It is like an incubus which constantly asserts itself. It seems probable that the anniversary of the execution--for which many have sworn to take venegance--will long be regarded as a black day in Catalonia. Every now and again the affair crops up, under one or another pretext, in some debate in the Cortes, greatly to the confusion of ministers, however much they may strive to defend the military judges who officiated in this Spanish " Dreyfus case."

Let us now turn to Portugal. A Republican element arose in that country several years ago, but long remained in an insignificant minority. Under King Carlos the State was ruled in turn by a variety of parties, which often assumed very high- sounding appellations, but invariably pursued a policy of stagnation. The King, whose Civil List was comparatively small, though quite as much as the country could afford to pay, secured through various ministers several large advances from the State funds on the more or less valid security of certain Crown property. His mother, Queen Maria Pia, had been a notorious spendthrift, and had run up debts (which she was quite unable to pay) in several European capitals; but Dom Carlos, personally, does not appear to have been extravagantly inclined.

Nobody who knew Portugal in his time and that of his father, Dom Luis, ever observed any particular magnificence about the Portuguese Court. To us, indeed, it appeared to be run on economical lines. There were seldom any great festivities, the furniture and other appurtenances of the royal palaces were often quite shabby, while the salaries of the members of the royal household were on an average really small. The King may well have spent considerable sums on his somewhat frequent journeys abroad, but it is not easy to account for the large amounts which he obtained as advances from the State Treasury. Those advances were more or less illegal, and remembering the frequent corruption of Portuguese officialdom, we have some suspicion that the full amounts never reached the royal privy purse.

We do not know the amount of the dowry which the King's consort, Queen Amelie--daughter of the Comte de Paris--brought with her at her marriage. A handsome woman in her younger years, she may have expended considerable sums on dress, but Lisbon has never been the place for any excessive display of feminine finery. The King's personal habits were very simple--shooting being his particular hobby--and he certainly did not squander money on his appearance. Briefly, the question of the royal indebtedness to the Treasury remains somewhat of a mystery, though it undoubtedly helped to make the King unpopular, and tended, if not to his assassination, at least to the Revolution which drove his son, Dom Manoel, into exile. After some years of petty parliamentary squabbles, in which each party sought to feather its own nest, King Carlos at last entrusted the premiership to a certain Senhor Joao Franco, who was at the head of a political group styling themselves the " New Regenerators." This occurred in May 1906. A year later, after there had been numerous attacks in the Cortez and elsewhere, on the administration of the Civil List and its indebtedness, followed by indignation meetings of the gradually growing Repubhcan party in the larger towns, Franco, with the Kmg's assent, suddenly effected a coup d'etat, dissolving the Legislature and constituting himself Dictator. A Dictatorship may have been advisable in the interests of the monarchy, but it could only have been successfully exercised by a statesman of commanding influence and the highest ability--qualifications which Joao Franco did not possess. Moreover, he speedily abandoned all his earlier principles.

Numerous remonstrances followed his coup d'etat. The Monarchists of both branches of the Cortez waited on the King and pointed out, inter alia, that the suspension of Constitutional Government would seriously affect the national credit. Dom Carlos' only answer was that he would refer the matter to his minister, Senhor Franco. The latter, about this time, toured the country in order to assert his authority, and though he was hooted in some towns and received in others with the indignant protests of the municipalities, he blindly presevered in the course which he had adopted. He even alienated the House of Peers from the Crown by a drastic project of reform, which was his answer to the Peers' remonstrances against the suspension of the Constitution. For a while, however, Franco seemed to carry all before him, and when some attempts were made to throw up barricades in Lisbon (1907), they were promptly checked, and a large number of arrests were effected. Early in 1908 the Dictator regarded himself as triumphant. Portugal was apparently reduced to submission. There was still no Parliament, the press was more or less suppressed, suspended or muzzled, and a good many prominent malcontents had been lodged m prison. On February I, however, the King and his eldest son were assassinated. The royal family returned that day to Lisbon, after a stay at Villa Vicosa. The train in which they travelled having broken down near the station of Casa Branca they crossed by ferry- boat from Barriero to the Terreiro do Paco where carriages were waiting for them and their suite. It was in an open one drawn by two horses that the King, the Queen and their two sons took their seats. Quite a number of people were assembled on the line of route, but there were few marks of respect save on the part of fervent Royalists. Just as the royal carriage was about to turn the corner of the Praca do Commercio and enter the street of the Arsenal, on its way to the Necessidades Palace, a young man suddenly sprang forward and fired a revolver at the King, wounding him on the left side of the neck. The assassin was so close that the Queen was able to strike him in the face with a bouquet which had been presented to her on landing from the ferry- boat. Nevertheless, the young regicide fired again and this time wounded King Carlos mortally. But some police intervened and turned their revolverson the assassin who speedily fell to the ground dead. At almost the same moment, however, a black- bearded individual, who had been waiting under the arcades of the Ministry of the Interior, drew a carbine from under the cloak he wore and fired at the Crown Prince. In vain did Queen Amelie strive to save her son by interposing her own body. The Prince was hit in the breast by one bullet, and in the face by another, before the police were able to shoot this second assassin. Yet other shots were fired at the royal party, for the two regicides had confederates on the spot, and the younger Prince, Dom Manoel, was in his turn wounded in the arm in spite of his mother's attempts to shield him Again did the police retaliate, this time without effect so far as the conspirators were concerned though an unfortunate passer- by was brought to the ground. Meantime the royal carriage had been hastily driven into the Arsenal. On arriving there King Carlos was already dead and the Crown Prince was dying.

Europe was startled by the news of this crime which was promptly attributed to Anarchists. But there has never been any proof that the culprits belonged to the Anarchist sect. They appear, indeed, to have simply been Revolutionary Republicans, of the same type as Orsini and his confederates, who certainly never professed Anarchist theories. Of the two men who were shot the elder was named Manoel Buica, the younger Alfredo Costa. The former, after serving in the army as a sergeant of cavalry, had become a private teacher, the latter had been in the employ of a Lisbon ironmonger. There can be no doubt that their crime was inspired by Franco's tyrannical dictatorship. Whether it was in any way connived at by prominent Republicans, as some have asserted, is a question we cannot decisively answer; but the utterances of certain Republican public men in subsequent years and the glorification of the assassins at a Lisbon museum have certainly lent colour to the surmise.

As a result of the crime Franco immediately fell from power and hurried abroad, the Constitution was set in force again, and a ministry chosen from among members of all the monarchical parties and presided over by Vice- Admiral Ferriera do Amaral, assumed office. However, the new King, Dom Carlos' second son, Dom Manoel, had but a brief reign. The Cortez on reassembling reduced the Royal Civil List, but agreed that certain estates hitherto maintained by the Crown should be taken over by the Treasury. For a while there was much talk of other reforms. The old corrupt state of affairs gradually came back, however. Admiral Ferriera's ministry was followed by one under Senhor Campos Henriques, another under General Telles, another under Senhor Wenceslau de Lima, another under Senhor Beiras, and yet another under Senhor Teixeira de Sousa. But plus pa changeait, plus c'etait la meme chose. Thus there was much political unrest, particularly under the Lima administration, which made itself very unpopular.

Meantime the Republican idea spread and gathered strength with increasing speed, though this was not generally apparent. In fact, at the General Elections in August 1910 only fourteen Republican deputies were elected. It is true that this was twice the member that had sat on the previous Cortez, and that ten of the fourteen were returned by the city of Lisbon, which thus showed its detachment from the monarchy. In the provinces, no doubt, official pressure had prevented the election of several Republican candidates; but to those who did not take that circumstance into account, who looked at things only on the surface, the idea of a Republican Revolution may well have seemed ridiculous.

Yet scarcely five weeks elapsed after the general election we have mentioned, when that Revolution was brought to a successful issue. The Republicans had long carried on an active propaganda in the army and the navy. Most of the officers were loyal to the crown, but with the men who were the sons of the people, and did not follow the career of arms professionally, but merely served their time in accordance with the conscription laws, it was often very different. The navy in particular was largely won over to the cause of Revolution; and finally, on the evening of October 4, the storm burst, the young King was bombarded in his palace, dissuaded from putting himself "at the head of the Municipal Guards and other troops who were still loyal to him, and speedily fled the country with his mother Queen Amelie, his grandmother Queen Maria Pia, and his uncle the Duke of Oporto, the last named of whom had for a while gallantly endeavoured to stem the progress of the insurrection. The royal party repaired to Gibraltar, whence the King and his mother subsequently sailed for England which has since been their home.

One cannot impute the downfall of the Portuguese monarchy to Dom Manoel, he was too young and inexperienced to be able to direct the course of events; and we doubt, too, whether the responsibility rests, as some have asserted, with his mother. She certainly had clericalist leanings, but she does not appear to have interfered particularly with public business. The Revolution was rather the fatal outcome of a corrupt state of things dating back through numerous reigns, a long chronic policy of national stagnation in every possible respect. That could not last for ever; Revolution came at last as inevitably as the French Revolution came.

Whether the present Portuguese Republic will last is another question. We remember the attempts to establish a Republic in Spain, and there can be no doubt that the monarchical principle still retains many partisans in Portugal. The Provisional Government, established at the Revolution, certainly exercised its powers in a very high- handed manner, and it is only now, a year after the proclamation of the Republic, that parliamentary institutions have been revived. Even Joao Franco never exercised so stringent a dictatorship as that instituted by Provisional President Braga and his colleagues. One act of the Provisional Government calls for the sternest reprobation. It set up a Museum of the Revolut~on in a building appertaining to the old Guelhas College at Lisbon, and there it specially dedicated a room to the exhibition of " relics " of the assassination of King Carlos and his eldest son. Portraits of Buica and Costa, " the gIorious regicides," are displayed there, together with the former's cloak and the weapons with which the pair committed their crime. Four members of the Provisional I Government, and many other authorities attended the inauguration of this museum, thus officially linking the Revolution of 1910 with the assassinations of 1908. However, the Provisional Government has now been superseded, for as we write, we read that the new Chamber of Deputies has elected Dom Manoel Arriaga to the Presidency of the Republic (August 24, I9II). With respect to Anarchism in Portugal it has undoubtably counted adepts there during the last fifteen or sixteen years. According to one account a good many proselytes were made by a Spanish Anarchist known as " Cordoba " who at one period carried on a butcher's business at Lisbon Down to recent times, in any case, an Anarchist journal called ' La Vida " was issued at Oporto. It may, perhaps, still be m existence.

It is far from Portugal to Japan, but our chronicle now calls us to the so- called Land of the Rising Sun, where, in November 1910, a plot to assassinate the Mikado, while he was on his way to an inspection at the Military School of Okayama, was suddenly discovered. The affair profoundly impressed the Japanese, for it was the first recorded instance of a conspiracy against the life of the head of a dynasty which claims to have reigned for 2500 years. It would take us too long to retrace in any detail the rise and progress of Socialism and Revolutionism in Japan. We may mention, however, that the Socialist movement began in or about 1880, and was fostered in the first instance by such writers as Inagaki and Oi Kentaro, the latter of whom ended by establishing a Labour Association. After the war with China, the movement assumed greater proportions, and in 1898 there came the first Labour strike on European lines--one of the enginedrivers of the Northern Railway, who claimed an increase of wages. During the next ten years numerous Socialist sects or groups sprang up under the direction of d~fferent agitators. Among these was a certain Deni~ro Kotoku, a native of Tokyo, who, after receiving a fair education, started in life as a journalist. He at last established a print entitled the " Heimin Shimbun," which advocated Communistic- Socialism, and took to preaching the Antt- Militarism of the European Anarchists whilst Japan and Russia were in the midst of their deadly struggle in Manchuria.

In November 1904 Kotoku and a fellow- journalist named Nishikawa were prosecuted for their writings and sentenced to several months of imprisonment, at the expiration of which the former and some of his followers made their way to San Francisco, and establishing themselves on California Hill started a revolutionary journal in Japanese, which bore the title of " The Echo." A programme de combat was soon adopted. Mere AntiMilitarism no longer sufficed, the idea of Socialist pro paganda on constitutional lines was henceforth derided; it was laid down that the social edifice must be destroyed " from base to summit," and that this must be effected by fighting the principle of authority wherever it might display itself. One J apanese print,published at San Francisco, which adhered to these ideas, declared, moreover, that the Mikado must be overthrown as soon as possible and without any hesitation as to the means that might be em ployed. Briefly, the principles of the Kotoku faction may be described less as Socialistic than as pertaining to the school of revolutionary Communistic Anarchism.

Kotoku's journal ournal became at last so violent in its language that at the urgent request of the Japanese consul the Californian authorities suppressed it, and not long afterwards Kotoku himself drifted back to his native country. He and his comrades dwelt in the Tokio slums on the brink of noisome canals, and tried to put the Communistic life into practice, but it proved hard to do so, as they were all wretchedly poor, and by reason of their notorious opinions found it difficult, if not impossible, to secure any regular employment. Kotoku, for his part, lived with a woman who passed as his wife, but who was legally the wife of another person. Despite his narrow means he still contrived to issue prints from time to time, temporarily reviving the " Heimin Shimbun " in which, on February 20, 1908, he published a portrait of Gustave Herve, the French anti- militarist leader, with an article extolling Herve's career,and embracing numerous passages from his writings.

For some time past desertions from the Japanese army had been largely on the increase, and the military authorities denounced the propaganda carried on by Kotoku and his friends, declaring them responsible for the desertions in question. The others retorted, however, that insubordination in the army and desertion from its ranks were largely due to the fact that ever since the victorious campaigns of 1903- 1904, military discipline had become so stringent as to be unbearable. They quoted several instances of the injustice shown by officers to their men and the excessive punishments inflicted on the latter; and it must be said that the moderate Japanese press corroborated several of the assertions of the Revolutionaries.

These sectarians also strove to spread their doctrines by means of public speeches and demonstrations. More than once they held meetings in defiance of the police, or put the latter to ridicule by addressing street crowds from the roof of one or another house. They also organised little processions--little because their numbers were very limited; for instance, in June 1908, on the occasion of the release of one of their number, named Yomoguchi, from prison, they mustered but thirty- eight, all told, for the purpose of marching through Tokio, and among these thirty- eight there were two girls. Nevertheless, three red flags figured in the procession, one inscribed with the word " Anarchy," another in the word " Revolution," and a third with the words " Anarchical Communism." Not unnaturally the police interfered, the objectionable emblems were confiscated, and several of the demonstrators sent to prison.

After this affair, and a few similar ones, little was heard for a time about Kotoku and his adherents, and it was generally thought that their revolutionary fervour had abated. But, all at once, more than a score of them, including Kotoku and his mistress, were arrested on the charge of conspiring to assassinate the Emperor. The story runs that the plot was discovered in consequence of the chatter of some villagers, who talked of several explosions which they had noticed on the summit of Mount Kiso. The police resolved to investigate the affair, and came upon the conspirators while they were making preparations for fresh experiments with dynamite.

Kotoku and twenty- four others were tried on the charge of conspiring against their Sovereign's life. It is alleged that during the preliminary investigations into their case, several of them acknowledged their culpability. The actual trial, however, was conducted in semi- secrecy, only a certain number of lawyers and members of the foreign embassies and legations at Tokio being allowed in court. Journalists were rigorously excluded, and thus no such account of the proceedings as would enable one to judge of their fairness, the reliability of the evidence tendered for the prosecution, and the sincerity of the admissions or denials of the prisoners, is available. The Kotoku case differs, indeed, from the Ferrer case, respecting which the Spanish authorities at least published various reports and other documents, which enable one to see how flimsy was the evidence for the prosecution. We think, however, that if the Kotoku trial had been a miscarriage of justice some indications to that effect would have emanated, indirectly, of course, from one or another of the diplomatic representatives who attended it. We take it that the American, if not the British, representative would have had something to say on the subject had the proceedings been in his opinion unfair to the accused; but not a word of protest arose save from sundry European newspapers of advanced views, such as the Berlin " Vorwaerts," the Paris " Humanite," the Madrid " Pais," and the London " Daily News," none of which, we take it, knew anything of the evidence tendered for the prosecution. In the result, the twenty- five prisoners were convicted and sentenced to death, but only in twelve instances, which included Kotoku and his mistress, was the capital penalty enforced. In presence of the protests which arose in Europe it might have been well had the Japanese authorities issued a report of the proceedings. We are no partisans of secret or semi- secret trials. There is plenty of evidence that Kotoku, who began as an exponent of Marxism, and became a translator and disciple first of Tolstoi and then of Kropotkin, ended by professing Communistic Anarchism, and the anarchist form of Anti Militarism also. But he was not arraigned in connection with those matters; and in consequence of the silence and secrecy which have been observed, some doubt must remain as to whether he really plotted the death of the Mikado.

We now have to bring our long survey to an end with some mention of the position of Anarchism in our own country. We believe that very few natives of Great Britain profess Anarchist opinions, and that even fewer have ever been militant Anarchists, real partisans of the Propaganda by Deed. Here, however, as in Switzerland, and at times also in Belgium, there has long been a certain number of foreign Anarchist refugees. But it is difficult to assign to them any participation in the various outrages, notably the assassinations of rulers, which have taken place on the continent. All the chief crimes indeed, which have marked the so- called Propaganda by Deed, have been fully accounted for, and traced to men who never had any connection with Great Britain. Certainly, young Emile Henry, the bomb- thrower, sought a brief temporary refuge here, and there was also the mysterious case of Bourdin, who was killed in Greenwich Park, and who may have contemplated some terrible outrage either in this country or abroad. But these cases are, we think, the only exceptions to the proposition which we have laid down. Generally speaking, the Anarchists who have settled here, have belonged either to the more platonic school, or, having left their own countries in consequence of practicing militant methods there, have renounced those methods in England. We have previously given our opinion respecting the oft- repeated allegation that London has long been the headquarters of Anarchism, the centre whence orders for one and another terrible deed have emanated. We cannot find a shred of reliable evidence to that effect. Mere assertion is not proof, and we know of no instance in which proof has been forthcoming.

Nevertheless, the presence of a number of Anarchists in any community must give rise to some concern. We hold that the continental Anarchists generally have nowadays renounced the Propaganda by Deed in its original form, recognising it to be inefficacious. In France, we see it largely transformed into that Anti- Militarism which advocates insubordination and mutiny on the part of soldiers; and further we see French Anarchists participating in strikes and initiating the practice of " Sabotage." Example is often contagious, and men whose real ideas are by no means anarchical adopt practices introduced by Anarchist comrades. In like way the Anti- Militarist propaganda of the Anarchists infects others, makes proselytes in the ranks, and the discipline of an army becomes gradually undermined. For the most part the foreign Anarchists settled in London keep to themselves, but there are instances in which they associate with our own workers, and it is in such cases that danger arises. Our shipowners, moreover, largely employ foreign crews. Nothing would surprise us less than to find numerous Anarchists among them.

There is, however, a tendency nowadays to assume that every foreign criminal who appears in our police- courts must necessarily be an Anarchist. Nothing could be more absurd. In January 1909, a couple of Russians named Hefeld and Jacob, seized a bag containing [[sterling]]80 from a messenger outside a rubber- factory at Tottenham, and, on being chased by police and others, fired on them repeatedly and seized in turn a tramcar, a milk van, and another vehicle, in order to effect their escape. Hefeld, on being brought to bay, shot himself to avoid arrest, and Jacob took refuge in a cottage where he was shot by a police constable. During the chase the two desperadoes had used the firearms with which they were provided with deadly effect, a police- constable and a lad being killed by them, whilst three other constables and fourteen civilians were seriously injured, and six others slightly. Both Hefeld and Jacob were described at the time as Anarchists, but it was never established that they held any political opinions whatever. As they were Russians they may possibly have been Nihilists, but the name of Nihilist is sacred to the average English journalist, who has surrounded it with an aureole of glory. Anarchist, on the other hand, has become an everyday term of opprobrium, and to the journalistic mind it followed, of course, that Hefeld and Jacob must necessarily be Anarchists. A century ago, however, there was no lack of desperadoes like Hefeld and Jacob in this country--desperadoes of British birth--and nobody then thought of calling them either Anarchists or Nihilists. Our grandfathers were content with such good old terms as highwayman and footpad.

In December 1910 and January this present year there was a succession of sensational affairs in the East End of London. A party of foreigners contemplated a raid on a jeweller's shop, which they proposed to enter from the rear through premises of which they secured the tenancy. The police, on endeavouring to arrest them encountered an armed resistance, and loss of life ensued. One man, being badly injured, was carried off by some confederates, and for a short time the police were unable to ascertain his whereabouts. From information they obtained however, they finally resolved to raid a house in Sidney Street, Mile End, where some members of the band of burglars (in reality only two of them) were said to be concealed. Here again a sharp resistance was offered, and the authorities resorted to extraordinary measures to reduce the two desperate individuals who would not allow themselves to be arrested. Scots Guards from the Tower were called to the spot, in addition to numerous detachments of police, and half a battery of the Royal Horse Artillery, with three guns, was also requisitioned. To us, who witnessed the street fighting in Paris throughout the Bloody Week of 1871, the affair seemed extremely fantastical. In the end the beseiged house caught fire, and the two desperadoes, who, well- provided with weapons and ammunition, had long held the police and military in check, perished in the conflagration. Subsequently, in connection with the Houndsditch and Sidney Street affairs, several other men and two women were arrested. One of the latter was discharged however, and all the others ultimately secured acquittal.

Some of the persons implicated in these cases were Letts, and it is well known that there has been considerable unrest in Lithuania of recent years in consequence of the invasion of that Russian province by German settlers who have often dispossessed the natives of the soil, thereby fomenting an agrarian Revolutionary movement. How far the individuals concerned in the Houndsditch and Mile End affairs had been connected (if at all) with any such movement in their natve land, and what were their precise reasons for coming to England are matters which cannot be ascertained. These men were described, however, as Anarchists, on which point the principal evidence was that some of them had frequented a club in Jubilee Street, which the newspapers currently described as the " Anarchist Club," though it never actually bore any such name. It was, however, the resort of a certain number of Anarchists, as well as of many other foreigners having no connection with Anarchism. The individuals who proposed to raid the jeweller's shop were certainly possessed of explosives, and this again was regarded as proof that they must be Anarchists. Doubtless the Anarchist and the Irish Extremist of former times initiated the use of dynamite for criminal purposes, but the up- to- date criminal, who nowadays employs it to effect a burglary, is not necessarily either an Anarchist OI a Fenian. That the Sidney Street men and others were plentifully supplied with weapons and ammunition is certainly true, and this circumstance may be taken as some indication of their criminal propensities, but, again, it does not necessarily imply that they were Anarchists. Neither the man of the Camorra nor the man of the Mafia is an Anarchist, yet he is usually well armed. Briefly, in connection with the Tottenham, the Houndsditch and the Sidney Street affairs, it is fit to dismiss the question of Anarchism from our minds. It is sufficient to say that the men concerned in those affairs were foreigners of the criminal classes.

An Aliens Act is in force in this country. It was originally suggested far less on account of the presence of many foreign criminals in our midst than on account of the great increase in foreign immigration generally, the destitute state of many of the immigrants, the unfavourable conditions in which their competition placed many of our workers, and the over- crowding to which this influx of aliens led in the East End of our metropolis. A Report on these questions was submitted to Parliament in 1903, and in the following year Mr Akers Douglas, then Home Secretary, introduced a first Aliens Bill into the House of Commons. It was successfully obstructed by the Liberal Opposition, and failed to pass; but in 1905 a second bill proved successful, and became law on January I, the following year. In 1906 some of the regulations set up in connection with the Act were modified in a liberal spirit by the present Viscount Gladstone, who was then at the Home Office. The Act does not appear to have checked alien immigration to any appreciable degree; but some of its provisions have enabled the authorities to expel a certain number of alien criminals from this country. It is in respect to such criminals that the Act requires strengthening. Nobody wishes to deny the right of asylum to bona- fide political refugees, but the influx of foreign criminals must be checked, and the deportation of those who, once settled here, offend against our laws, must be rendered more effective. Over and over again we find individuals who have been deported from this country returning here after a time to resume their criminal courses. It is not easy to determine how this can be altogether prevented, but it might prove a deterrent if very severe sentences were enacted against those who might infringe one of deportation.

Further, the sale of fire- arms should be more strictly regulated than is now the case, and in the event of foreign immigrants bringing weapons and ammunition into this country without express permission to do so. severe penalties should be inflicted. We see no reason why the Customs Regulations should not be carried out more stringently. The persons as well as the luggage of many foreign immigrants should be searched, and in the event of these immigrants being found possessed of concealed weapons, deportation might well follow. It is notorious that in many if not most instances foreign immigrants bring weapons with them from abroad, a practice which should be checked by every available means. This, of course, would not entirely suffice to put down the free shooting which is becoming such a frequent practice. More stringent rules must be imposed on our own gunsmiths. In that event, no doubt, they will complain of " restrictions on trade," but the public safety is of far greater importance than free trade in death- dealing weapons.

In the newspaper articles and the parliamentary debates which followed the Sidney Street affair, a great deal was written or said on the subject of registering all foreigners in this country. The Government has hitherto refused to accede to this proposal, but we are fairly confident that it will ultimately be carried into effect, if not under this Administration, at all events under another, when the pendulum has once more swung round and restored the Conservative party to power. We see no reason whatever why there should not be some such registration of foreigners. It is practiced abroad-- in Republican France very stringently indeed, as all who merely repair to Paris for a few days must be aware. Not an Englishman ever spends a night at a French hotel, but his name is taken, and the bulletin bearing it, and other particulars respecting him, is collected by the police hotel- inspectors and lodged at the Prefecture. In this country nothing of that kind happens. England is the safest place of refuge that a foreign criminal can find, and this is one reason why there are so many foreign criminals in our midst. London and its suburbs swarm with houses where anybody can obtain lodgings without references, and merely on payment of a few shillings rent in advance. In France the arrival of any new lodger would be duly reported to the police. Allowance has to be made, no doubt, for the difference between some of our manners and customs and those of foreign nations, but we feel that it should be possible to devise a system by which account would be kept of the aliens in this country, and a means of tracing them, if necessary, provided. The question is a big one, no doubt, and those who object that the foreign element among us is too large to be adequately dealt with, have what is outwardly a very plausible case. However, though there may not be so many aliens in France as there are here, it should be remembered that some hundreds of thousands of Belgians, Swiss, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, English and others, are to be found on the territory of the Republic, and that with comparatively few exceptions their presence there is duly recorded.

We have little to add to our narrative of the deeds of the Anarchist sect. The best that can be said for their creed is that it represents a perverted form of Individualism and indicates a revolt against both Governmental oppression and authoritarian Socialism. There are some features in the Anarchist faith with which one can in a measure sympathise, but there are many others which one can only condemn. At one and another period it has undoubtedly recruited a very considerable number of proselytes; but it is manifest that Socialism has outpaced Anarchism, which of recent years has entered on a declining course. Its excesses foredoomed it to an unsuccessful ending, which has not yet altogether arrived, perhaps, but which is not far off. All history shows us that extremist theories never secure a triumph of any permanency. Moreover, the bomb- throwing of the Anarchists and their assassinations of rulers were as futile as were the victories of Napoleon. " Sabotage " has since ensued, but will prove quite as unavailing to advance the cause of the masses. That the bases of society will be ultimately modified seems certain, but we take it that the Anarchists, in spite of all the noise they have made in the world, will have no share in devising the new order of things which progress must eventually bring in its train.