Jean-Baptiste Millière

Socialist journalist and deputy who exposed Jules Favre's forgeries and was shot before the Panthéon in the Bloody Week

Born at Lamarche-sur-Saône in 1817, the son of a cooper, he took a doctorate in law at Dijon. A socialist, after the revolution of 1848 he edited papers in Clermont-Ferrand until he had to flee in 1850, and for opposing the coup of 1851 he was sentenced to deportation to Algeria. Back under the amnesty of 1859, he became editor and manager of La Marseillaise in 1869. During the siege of Paris he commanded a National Guard battalion and took part in the rising of 31 October 1870. On 8 February 1871 he published in Le Vengeur proof of the forgeries Jules Favre had committed to obtain an inheritance, and the same day was elected deputy for the Seine. He supported the Commune but held no post in it. Seized by Versailles troops on 26 May 1871, he was shot before the Panthéon on General Cissey's order, despite his parliamentary immunity.