Context {{CSS crop|Description=Location of the main hotspots during the demonstration - the points without label are the bakeries ransacked by Michel's group|bSize=1000|cWidth=250|cHeight=250|oLeft=450|oTop=100|Content={{Location map many|Paris|width=800|border=infobox In the 19th century,
anarchism emerged and took shape in Europe before spreading. Anarchists advocate a struggle against all forms of domination perceived as unjust including economic domination brought forth by
capitalism. They are particularly opposed to the
State, seen as the organization that legitimizes a good number of these dominations through its police, army and propaganda. Following the
Paris Commune, many former
Communards joined this movement—which mostly formed from the 1870s onwards and was established, starting in 1872 with the
Hague Congress and the founding of the
Jura Federation, also called the Anti-Authoritarian International, in clear opposition to the
Marxists. Among these Communards who became anarchists were
Constant Martin,
Constant Marie,
André Léo,
Louise Pioger,
Antoine Perrare,
Émile Digeon, and especially
Louise Michel, who joined the anarchist movement upon her return from deportation to the penal colony of New Caledonia at the end of the 1870s. Michel began to speak at numerous far-left conferences and gatherings starting in 1880 and quickly became close to the anarchists, whom she joined—being notably convinced of the necessity to abolish the state and lead the Social Revolution. Alongside Louise Michel's ideological evolution and the fact that her past as a Communard, a deportee, and her activism offered her a certain prestige and a privileged place within the movement, state repression targeting anarchists intensified as their numbers grew in France. Numerous trials began to target them, their press was banned, and articles of law to criminalise the movement were passed. For example, in 1881, the
new law on the freedom of the press allowed the Minister of the Interior to prohibit the publication of any press title simply by his choice, without a court decision. From the beginning of the 1880s, the
Black Band, workers' organisations of miners whose name maybe came from the
Mano Negra - though it's uncertain,
began carrying out attacks in Saône-et-Loire, targeting both Catholic leaders and symbols and the employers or bourgeoisie of the region. around 2 p.m.,
Le Monde illustré (17 March 1883)In 1883, the
Trial of the 66 impacted the movement, when dozens of anarchists were arrested and tried in a political trial aimed at them.
Peter Kropotkin, a major anarchist theorist, was among the accused and was sentenced to five years of hard prison time. Michel left the courtroom arm-in-arm with
Sophie Kropotkin, his wife and, that very evening, called for the people's vengeance for this treatment.
Premices At the end of February 1883, about a hundred members of the building carpenters' union—
carpenters often being anarchists or sympathisers, particularly because their profession was being made precarious by the
Industrial Revolution and the evolution of
capitalism—launched a call to demonstrate against hunger and poverty. Several declared anarchists were signatories to this appeal. ,
Le Monde illustré (17 March 1883) The French authorities took the measure of such a call in this context; with the capital city having over 80,000 unemployed workers, the situation seemed alarming enough for numerous police and army troops to be deployed. The barracks near Les Invalides were reinforced, and the cavalry from the École Militaire was made available. On 6 March 1883, Michel participated in the launch of the newspaper
La Vengeance Anarchiste. Two days later, on the eve of the demonstration, she reportedly declared to a conservative journalist that the responsibility for any blood that might be spilled the next day would fall upon the 'Versaillais' (a term referring to the government forces who suppressed the Paris Commune in 1871).
Protest On 9 March 1883, around midday, numerous groups began to flock towards
Les Invalides. The police pushed them back, guarding the main avenues leading to the
Esplanade des Invalides. These initial groups, numbering four to six thousand people, reformed further away after being turned back. The number of demonstrators continued to grow in the following hours—around 2 P.M., they numbered approximately 15,000. Michel then arrived via a side alley—dressed in black as was her custom—accompanied by
anarchist companions. She then declared that the people should be allowed to gather in the square and that if the police charged them, the crowd would know how to respond to their attacks. Among the people in the demonstration, there were many noted anarchists, including
Émile Digeon, a former Communard, leader of the
Narbonne Commune, who had become an anarchist since. Police officers were urgently dispatched to the scene to push her beyond the security cordon where she was trying to enter with about a hundred people. Ironically, according to the historian
Marie-Hélène Baylac, this refusal to let the demonstrators gather at Les Invalides provoked two crowd movements—first, a part crossed the
Pont des Invalides ('Invalides' Bridge') and began heading towards the
Élysée Palace, catching the police off guard. The Prefect had to gather a hundred breathless police officers to protect the Élysée, managed to commandeer three omnibuses, and
began driving them in the direction of the demonstrators—numerous blows and arrests then occurred, and the assembled crowd flowed back towards Les Invalides. The President of the Republic,
Jules Grévy, reportedly nearly fainted upon learning of the demonstrators' proximity to the Élysée.
Paule Mink—a former Communard close to the anarchist movement—was at the head of a column emerging onto
Place Beauvau, the location of the French
Ministry of the Interior. The army intervened in the high school to 'restore order', and hundreds of students were expelled.Michel, who was staying with
Ernest Vaughan, a former Communard who had become an anarchist, decided to turn herself in, possibly because she was worried about her mother's health and wished to visit her. When she surrendered, the Prefect arranged to be absent because he found it humiliating that this 'woman' had escaped the police searches and surrendered of her own accord; he would have her arrested the next day according to normal procedure. During the raid at Pouget's home, the police found a six-shot revolver, various containers of explosive materials, and 600 copies of the pamphlet ''À l'armée'' ('To the Army'), written by
Émile Digeon. The anarchists were brought to trial between 22 and 24 June 1883, and their group, which also included Mareuil, an anarchist who had participated in their actions in Paris, was combined with another group of anarchists, the authors of the manifesto ''À l'armée'' found at Pouget's residence. Michel was sentenced to six years of prison, Pouget to eight, and Mareuil was acquitted. == Legacy ==