Raoul Rigault

[citation needed] The New York Times in 1884 gives the following description of Rigault... ...fond of good wine, always talking, shouting, gesticulating, filling his nose with snuff, astonishing the novices with his gift of speech, almost celebrated in the Quartier des Ecoles, and much appreciated by girls of low condition.

[1]According to the Association des Amies et Amis de la Commune de Paris 1871 (Association of Friends and Friends of the 1871 Paris Commune), Rigault was hated for being a "swagger of perversity", "scoundrel", "aristocrat of the thuggery", for making jokes about how he had improved the guillotine, for his "militant atheism," and for creating a police system of "informants and snitches.

In 1866, he was arrested at a meeting of revolutionaries at the Café de la Renaissance in Saint-Michel, and in 1868, he served three months imprisonment for publishing a journal on Atheism.

"[6] His most popular acts as police chief were those in the beginning, when he freed those imprisoned by the imperial French government, which included revolutionaries, Anarchists, and Blanquists.

[7] As police chief, the main occupation that Rigault worried himself with was with freeing Louis Auguste Blanqui, then being held by the monarchist forces of Versailles.

[10]One historian of the Paris Commune wrote that, "Atheism was a cardinal tenet of Blanqui's faith, and his disciple Rigault was an adept at priest-baiting.