[1] Held in virtue of the lois scélérates censoring the press and outlawing apologies for propaganda by the deed, the trial mixed anarchist theorists with common law criminals.
The government aimed at annihilating the anarchist movement, and used for this the lois scélérates of December 1893 and July 1894, enacted after Auguste Vaillant's bombing.
Among the most famous were included Jean Grave, Sébastien Faure, Charles Chatel, editor at La Revue anarchiste, Félix Fénéon, Matha.
Five of the accused had gone underground: Paul Reclus, Constant Martin, Émile Pouget, Louis Duprat, Alexandre Cohen.
[1] The chief prosecutor, Bulot, prohibited the press from reproducing the interrogatories of Jean Grave and Sébastien Faure, leading Henri Rochefort to write, in L'Intransigeant, that the criminal association concerned not the defendants, but the magistrates and the ministers.
[1] Despite this, the president of the court, Dayras, dismissed all objections from the defense, leading Sébastien Faure to say: "Each time we prove the error of one of your allegations, you declare it unimportant.
The general prosecutor Bulot intended to prove that there had been an effective agreement between theoreticians and illegalists, but failed to do so for lack of evidence.
[1] He abandoned the accusations for some of them, and claimed attenuating circumstances for others, but requested harsh sentences for those he depicted as the leaders: Grave, Faure, Matha and some others.