Émile Henry (anarchist)

He was also seen as one of the first people of a growing group of revolutionaries (largely anarchist) who subscribed to the doctrine of the "propaganda of the deed", which would later take the life of many governmental figures.

These anti-state attitudes were confirmed when the Spanish authorities confiscated the Henry family's property due to their political beliefs.

After the family returned to France, Henry's brother, an anarchist, eventually helped him establish connections with French revolutionary circles.

[1]: 346  He was at first opposed to violent actions that had the potential to cause harm to ordinary people, such as Ravachol's bombings of the living quarters of government officials, where workers and children could also be present.

When brought to trial for these acts, he was asked by the courts why he had needlessly harmed so many innocent people, to which he replied, "…there are no innocent bourgeois", adding that his acts caused the "insolent triumphs" of the bourgeoisie to be shattered, and "its golden calf would shake violently on its pedestal, until the final blow knocks it into the gutter and pools of blood."

I had been accustomed to respecting and even cherishing the principles of the nation, family, authority and property.But those educating the present generation all too often forget one thing – that life, indiscreet with its struggles and setbacks, its injustices and iniquities, sees to it that the scales are removed from the eyes of the ignorant and that they are opened to reality.

It did not take me long to realize that the same great words that I had been raised to venerate: honor, devotion, duty were merely a mask hiding the most shameful turpitude.The factory-owner amassing a huge fortune on the back of the labor of his workers who lacked everything was an upright gentleman.

The officer testing his new model rifle on seven-year-old children had done his duty well, and in open parliament the premier offered him his congratulation.

I know that mine will not be the last head you will sever (…) You will add more names to the bloody roll call of our dead.Hanged in Chicago, beheaded in Germany, garroted in Xerez, shot in Barcelona, guillotined in Montbrison and in Paris, our dead are many; but you have not been able to destroy anarchy.

Its roots go deep: its spouts from the bosom of a rotten society that is falling apart; it is a violent backlash against the established order; it stands for the aspirations to equality and liberty which have entered the lists against the current authoritarianism.