He was born on 14 October 1859, at Saint-Chamond, Loire and was guillotined on 11 July 1892, at Montbrison after being twice found guilty of complicity in bombings.

In addition to these events, authorities kept up repression of the communards, which had continued from the time of the insurrection of the Paris Commune of 1871.

Ravachol was roused to take action in 1892 against members of the judiciary because of the trial outcomes for the rioters at Clichy on 1 May 1891.

After stealing "dynamite from a quarry," Ravachol placed bombs in the living quarters of the Advocate General, Léon Bulot (executive of the Public Ministry),on 27 March 1892 and Edmond Benoît, the councillor who had presided over the Assize Court during the Clichy Affair, on 11 March 1892.An informant, named Jules Lhérot, who was a waiter at the Restaurant Véry, reported on Ravachol's actions because Ravachol had "spoke too freely with" Lhérot.

Ravachol's second trial was on 21 June 1892, before the Loire Assize Court in Montbrison, for crimes that predated the bombings.

"[3] He was refused the right to read a final statement, which he gave instead to his lawyer, Lagasse: "I hope that the jurors who, by condemning me to death, have thrown into despair those who have preserved their affection for me, carry on their conscience the memory of their sentence with the lightness and courage by which I will carry my head to the blade of the guillotine.

A commemorative woodcut of Ravachol by the French artist Charles Maurin in 1893 was used on the cover of a 1900s-era bomb making pamphlet La Salute è in voi!, associated with the Italian American Galleanisti anarchists.

Two cities in Disco Elysium, Revachol (the game's setting) and Koenigstein, are named after Ravachol.