After he was shot and killed by Prince Pierre Bonaparte, a cousin of the French Emperor Napoleon III (r. 1852–1870), Noir became a symbol of opposition to the imperial regime.

He moved to Paris and became an apprentice journalist for the newspaper La Marseillaise, owned and operated by Henri Rochefort and edited by Paschal Grousset.

On 9 January 1870, Prince Bonaparte wrote a letter to Rochefort, claiming to uphold the good name of his family: After having outraged each of my relations, you insult me with the pen of one of your menials.

[a]On the following day, Grousset sent Victor Noir and Ulrich de Fonvielle as his seconds to fix the terms of a duel with Pierre Bonaparte.

A public outcry followed and on 12 January, led by political activist Auguste Blanqui, more than 100,000 people[1] joined Noir's funeral procession to a cemetery in Neuilly.

At a time when the emperor was already unpopular, Pierre's acquittal on the murder charge caused enormous public outrage and a number of violent demonstrations.

A life-sized bronze statue was sculpted by Jules Dalou to mark his grave, portrayed in a realistic style as though he had just fallen on the street, dropping his hat which is depicted beside him.

The myth says that placing a flower in the upturned top hat after kissing the statue on the lips and rubbing its genital area will enhance fertility, bring a blissful sex life, or, in some versions, a husband within the year.