Emmanuel Barthélemy
Emmanuel Barthélemy (1823–1855) was a French revolutionary and a member of secret Blanquist societies during the reign of Louis-Phillipe, the citizen king of France in the July Monarchy from 1830 until 1848.
[3] In 1839, he was imprisoned for shooting a police officer during a coup attempt by the Société des saisons, led by Louis Auguste Blanqui and Armand Barbès.
[4][Note 1] In London, Barthélemy became involved in producing a journal, Les Veilles du Peiple, alongside Louis Auguste Blanqui, Eugène Sue, and others.
He had been elected to the National Assembly in 1850, but in the same year had been imprisoned for helping Eugène Edine Pottier escape from prison.
[10] He fled France after leading the unsuccessful resistance in Paris to the Coup d'etat of Napoleon III in 1851.
[10] Although both men were on the political left, Cournet was a follower of Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin and so was an opponent of Barthélemy and Louis Blanqui.
Evidence suggested the meeting was initially cordial,[Note 2] but it ended in a struggle which resulted in Moore being beaten with a stick, then shot and killed.
As Barthélemy left the house, Charles Collard, an ex-policeman[14] who kept a neighboring greengrocer's shop[15] attempted to stop his escape but was shot and wounded.
[17] Collard died the next day from his wound, although not before identifying Barthélemy as the man who shot him, when he was brought to his hospital bedside.
[7] Wilhelm Liebknecht later wrote in his work Karl Marx: Biographical Memoirs, that before the meeting with Moore, Barthélemy had been planning to travel to France.
He had managed to obtain an admission ticket to a ball due to be held at the Tuileries Palace and planned to attempt the assassination of Napoleon III during the event.
[6] Some figures publicly called for a reprieve of Barthélemy's death sentence, claiming that the shooting of Moore was the result of an angry quarrel and not premeditated, and that Collard was shot accidentally.
During his final days before his execution, Barthélemy scandalized his jailors, and the priests given the task of ministering to him, by repeatedly confirming his firm atheism.
[18] A request he made to the authorities was for a French translation of Paradise Lost, a copy was found for him with some difficulty and he read it with great attention during his final days.
[20] His final request was to hold a piece of paper in his hand while he was hanged - this was later found to be a letter from a Frenchwoman called Sophie.
