Playing a coordinating role between French anarchists and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), Pierre Quillard also served as a witness and compiler of historical sources regarding the Hamidian massacres, a series of atrocities carried out by the Ottoman Empire under Abdul Hamid II.

Pierre Quillard pursued his education at Lycée Condorcet, where his classmates included Éphraïm Mickaël, Stuart Merrill, René Ghil, André Fontainas, Rodolphe Darzens, Georges Vanor, and Jean Ajalbert.

He contributed his initial poems to the journal Le Fou and incurred the displeasure of the headmaster for publishing a sonnet that began with the alexandrine, "Un lendemain de fête on a mal aux cheveux" ("The day after a celebration, one has a headache").

[7] His first play, "La Fille aux mains coupées" (The Girl with Cut Hands), was published in the same journal alongside René Ghil's "Traité du verbe."

"[8] Described by a contemporary as a knight with a "clear eye, flavescent beard, raising his head high, the helmet of hair pushed back, revealing a forehead reminiscent of a primitive Flemish painting, with a special feature of a vaguely sarcastic immobility of the upper lip.

Quillard showed interest in the theater of his time, offering reflections on the subject,[10] particularly in an article titled "De l’inutilité absolue de la mise en scène exacte" ("On the Absolute Uselessness of Exact Staging"), where he proposed "the refusal of restrictive scenic visibility," a technique previously employed in "La Fille aux mains coupées.

[12] One of his friends, Fernand Gregh, wrote about his artistic rigidity:[12][13]"[Pierre Quillard, even if he was], a man of the left [...] believed that I had failed the ideal of 'art for art's sake' by celebrating human hope.

[…] On the contrary, the destructive power of a poem does not disperse at once: it is permanent, and its detonation is certain and continuous; and Shakespeare or Aeschylus prepares as infallibly as the boldest anarchist comrades the collapse of the old world.

[20] However, he also became an eyewitness to the Hamidian massacres (1894-1896), events he documented in the Revue de Paris in an article dated 1 September 1895, under the pseudonym Maurice Le Veyre.

[16] In October 1900, he founded the bimonthly magazine Pro Armenia, which supported the Armenian cause following the ARF's line[23] and featured articles by Jean Jaurès, Anatole France, Francis de Pressensé, Georges Clemenceau, and Victor Bérard.

"[27] After the death of Christapor Mikaelian while preparing the assassination attempt against the Sultan, Pierre Quillard dedicated a few pages to him in his journal, praising his memory and his 'revolutionary work.

He was arrested and sentenced to death, prompting Pierre Quillard to use his journal, Pro Armenia, to advocate for his release[29][30][31]—a stance shared by his colleague Jean Grave in Les Temps nouveaux.

[23] Quillard collaborated with the Journal du peuple and published a large volume listing all the subscribers to the campaign organized by the La Libre Parole newspaper in support of the widow of Commander Henry.

[23] Alongside Gustave Rouanet, a close friend of Jean Jaurès, he engaged in the defense of Eastern European Jews facing pogroms and advocated for the colonized population in the Congo.

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation sent the following telegram upon his death:[35]"Struck by unexpected loss Pierre Quillard, valiant director Pro Armenia, defender oppressed peoples.

Send heartfelt condolences members collaborators Pro Armenia: Pressensé, Anatole France, Clemenceau, Jaurès, Bérard, Roberty, d'Estournelles, Cochin, all those who supported cause our people in difficult times.