Raoul Vilain
|
|
Raoul Vilain (1885-1936) assassinated the French socialist leader Jean Jaurès on August 31, 1914 in Montmartre, Paris.
Lassassination_de_Jean_Jaures_-_Lithograph_by_Camille_Ravot_(1915).jpg
Vilain was a member of the Ligue des jeunes amis de l'Alsace-Lorraine (League of Young Friends of Alsace-Lorraine), a nationalist student group opposed to the pacifist policies of Jaurès. At about 21:40 on the evening of Friday August 31, 1914 Vilain fired two fatal bullets through a window into Jaurès' head while his victim was at a meeting in "Le café du croissant" on the junction of rue Montmartre and rue du croissant. Next day posters went up all over France announcing the general mobilization for what would be the First World War.
Incarcerated for the duration of the war, Vilain was brought to trial in 1919. Controversially acquitted on March 29, 1919, he fled to Ibiza in the Balearic Islands, where he was assassinated on March 19, 1936 during the Spanish Civil War by Republicans or by Jean Coryn1.
Notes
- Isabelle Vilain mentions that Coryn was the assassin "according to one theory", which she does not identify.
- Ecole Jean Jaurès students created web pages about Jaurès that include a portrait photograph of Vilain, which may not yet be in the public domain.
External links
- Isabelle Vilain's brief note on three Vilains (http://isabelle.vilain.free.fr/vilain.html)
- Jean Jaurès School project (http://ecolejeanjaures.va.free.fr/Jaures/Paix/Paix.htm)
Sources
- A. Combes, 'Casimir Combes (la guerre de 1914)', <http:\\www.chez.com/acombes/casimir.htm>
- Isabelle Vilain, 'Les Vilain célèbres', <http://isabelle.vilain.free.fr/vilain.html>, (3 Jan 2002)