Octave Garnier was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 anarchist and founding member of the infamous Bonnot Gang

Bonnot gang

The Bonnot Gang was a French criminal anarchist group that operated in France and Belgium during the Belle Époque, from 1911 to 1912...

.

Life

Born in Fontainebleau

Fontainebleau

Fontainebleau is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the arrondissement of Fontainebleau...

, Seine-et-Marne

Seine-et-Marne

Seine-et-Marne is a French department, named after the Seine and Marne rivers, and located in the Île-de-France region.- History:Seine-et-Marne is one of the original 83 departments, created on March 4, 1790 during the French Revolution in application of the law of December 22, 1789...

 on Christmas Day

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 1889, Garnier worked as a butcher

Butcher

A butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat or any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat, poultry, fish and shellfish for sale in retail or wholesale food establishments...

 and baker

Baker

A baker is someone who bakes and sells bread, Cakes and similar foods may also be produced, as the traditional boundaries between what is produced by a baker as opposed to a pastry chef have blurred in recent decades...

  at an early age. He took up theft

Theft

In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...

 at the age of thirteen and had served his first prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

 term by age seventeen. Garnier later wrote, "prison had made me even more rebellious."

Following his release from prison, Garnier dabbled in, and then became disillusioned with, both union syndicalism

Syndicalism

Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...

 and revolutionary

Revolutionary

A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...

 politics before turning to anarchism.

Following two additional stints in prison (one for assault

Assault

In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...

), Garnier fled to Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 in 1910 to avoid France's military draft

Conscription

Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...

. Abroad, he learned the art of burglary

Burglary

Burglary is a crime, the essence of which is illicit entry into a building for the purposes of committing an offense. Usually that offense will be theft, but most jurisdictions specify others which fall within the ambit of burglary...

 and counterfeiting from anarchist associates. In April 1911, Garnier and his partner Marie Vuillemin moved to Romainville

Romainville

Romainville is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-History:On 24 July 1867, a part of the territory of Romainville was detached and merged with a part of the territory of Pantin and a part of the territory of Bagnolet to create the commune of...

 to live with future gang

Gang

A gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen...

 members Raymond Callemin, Jean De Boe, and Edouard Carouy as well as Victor Kibalchich, then editor of l'Anarchie. Within this group, Garnier's political sympathies grew rapidly towards illegalism

Illegalism

Illegalism is an anarchist philosophy that developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland during the early 1900s as an outgrowth of individualist anarchism...

, a radical form of individualist anarchism

Individualist anarchism

Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his or her will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a...

 that was heavily influenced by German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 philosopher Max Stirner

Max Stirner

Johann Kaspar Schmidt , better known as Max Stirner , was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism...

.

Following an ideological split within l'Anarchie, Garnier and Vuillemin moved to Paris and he began work as a navvy

Navvy

Navvy is a shorter form of navigator or navigational engineer and is particularly applied to describe the manual labourers working on major civil engineering projects...

, participating in strikes at Chars

Chars

Chars is a commune in the Val-d'Oise department in Île-de-France in northern France.-References:** -External links:* *...

, Marin, and Cergy

Cergy

Cergy is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris, in the "new town" of Cergy-Pontoise, created in the 1960s, of which it is the central and most populated commune....

. Working as a burglar on the side to make ends meet, he was unhappy with his lot and dreamed of bigger heists. It was at this point that Garnier, in consultation with Callemin, began to plan the activities of an anarchist gang - a group that would be known in the press as first, "The Auto Bandits", and later, "The Bonnot Gang".

Death in Nogent-sur-Marne

On May 14, 1912 Garnier and René Valet were killed in a shootout

Shootout

A shootout is a gun battle between armed groups. A shootout often, but not necessarily, pits law enforcement against criminal elements; it could also involve two groups outside of law enforcement, such as rival gangs. A shootout in a military context A shootout is a gun battle between armed groups....

 with French authorities when their safe house

Safe house

In the jargon of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, a safe house is a secure location, suitable for hiding witnesses, agents or other persons perceived as being in danger...

 in Nogent-sur-Marne

Nogent-sur-Marne

Nogent-sur-Marne is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Nogent-sur-Marne is a sous-préfecture of the Val-de-Marne département, being the seat of the Arrondissement of Nogent-sur-Marne.-History:...

 was raided by police. Armed with seven 9 mm Browning

John Browning

John Moses Browning , born in Ogden, Utah, was an American firearms designer who developed many varieties of military and civilian firearms, cartridges, and gun mechanisms, many of which are still in use around the world...

 semi-automatic

Semi-automatic firearm

A semi-automatic, or self-loading firearm is a weapon which performs all steps necessary to prepare the weapon to fire again after firing—assuming cartridges remain in the weapon's feed device or magazine...

s and two long-barreled Mauser

Mauser

Mauser was a German arms manufacturer of a line of bolt-action rifles and pistols from the 1870s to 1995. Mauser designs were built for the German armed forces...

s, the two outlaws, who had barricaded themselves inside the rental house, faced 50 detectives, 250 police from Paris, Republican Guards

French Republican Guard

The Republican Guard is part of the French Gendarmerie. It is responsible for providing security in the Paris area and for providing guards of honor.Its missions include:...

, and 400 Zouaves from Nogent

Nogent

Nogent is the name or part of the name of several communes in France:* Nogent, in the Haute-Marne département* Nogent-l'Abbesse, in the Marne département* Nogent-l'Artaud, in the Aisne département* Nogent-sur-Aube, in the Aube département...

. As the six hour stand-off stretched on, Valet and Garnier burned 10,000 stolen franc

Franc

The franc is the name of several currency units, most notably the Swiss franc, still a major world currency today due to the prominence of Swiss financial institutions and the former currency of France, the French franc until the Euro was adopted in 1999...

s but managed to hold back the army outside.

At midnight, having failed to remove the bandits, French authorities succeeded in positioning one and a half kilograms of melanite in the house. The resulting explosion rendered the structure's inhabitants unconscious and Garnier was then executed by a 9 mm shot to the right temple. Both men were buried in unmarked graves.

A memoir

Memoir

A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...

, found by police on Garnier's body explained his criminal activities and summed up: "It's for all these reasons that I rebelled, it's because I didn't want to live this life of present-day society, because I didn't want to wait and maybe die before I'd lived, that I defended myself against the oppressors with all the means at my disposal..."