Bookbinder who led the Paris International, ran the Commune’s finances and was shot on the last day of Bloody Week
A peasant’s son who became a bookbinder in Paris, he led the bookbinders’ strike of 1864 and founded mutual-aid societies and the cooperative restaurant La Marmite. The central figure of the International’s Paris section, he was tried twice in 1868 and organised a federation of trade unions. In 1871 he joined the Central Committee of the National Guard and, as a member of the Commune, handled finance and supplies; he belonged to the minority that opposed the Committee of Public Safety. Captured on 28 May, he was dragged to Montmartre, beaten by a crowd and shot.