BLANQUI, LOUIS AUGUSTE (18o5-1881)

This article appears in Volume V04, Page 43 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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BLANQUI, LOUIS AUGUSTE (18o5-1881) , French publicist, was born on the 8th of February 18o5 at Puget-Theniers, where his father, Jean Dominique Blanqui, was at that time sub-prefect. He studied both law and

medicine

MEDICINE

, but found his real vocation in politics, and at once constituted himself a champion of the most advanced opinions. He took an active part in the revolution of July 183o, and continuing to maintain the

doctrine

DOCTRINE

of republicanism during the reign of Louis Philippe, was condemned to repeated terms of imprisonment. Implicated in the armed outbreak of the Societe des Saisons, of which he was a
or:
leading spirit, he was in the following year, 184o, condemned to death, a sentence that was afterwards commuted to imprisonment for life. He was released by the revolution of 1848, only to resume his attacks on existing institutions. The revolution, he declared, was a mere

change

CHANGE (derived through the Fr. from the Late Lat. cambium, cambiare, to barter; the ultimate derivation is probably from the root which appears in the Gr. «a urmu', to bend)

of name. The violence of the Socikte republicaine centrale, which was founded by Blanqui to demand a modification of the government, brought him into conflict with the more moderate Republicans, and in 1849 he was condemned to ten years' imprisonment. In 1865, while serving a further

term

TERM

of imprisonment under the Empire, he contrived to escape, and henceforth continued his propaganda against the government from abroad, until the general amnesty of 1869 enabled him to return to France. Blanqui's leaning towards violent

measures

MEASURES

was illustrated in 187o by two unsuccessful armed demonstrations: one on the 12th of January at the funeral of

Victor

Noir, the journalist shot by Pierre Bonaparte; the other on the 14th of August, when he led an attempt to seize some guns at a barrack. Upon the fall of the Empire, through the revolution of the 4th of September, Blanqui established the club and journal La patrie en danger. He was one of the band that for a moment seized the reins of power on the 31st of October, and for his share in that outbreak he was again condemned to death on the 17th of

March

of the following year. A few days afterwards the insurrection' which established the Commune broke out, and Blanqui "was elected a member of the insurgent government, but his detention in prison prevented him from taking an active part. Nevertheless he was in 1872 condemned along with the other members of the Commune to transportation; but on account of his broken health this sentence was commuted to one of imprisonment. In 1879 he was elected a

deputy

DEPUTY (through the Fr. from a Late Lat. use of deputare, to cut off, allot; putare having the original sense of to trim, prune)

for Bordeaux; although the election was pronounced invalid, Blanqui was set at liberty, and at once resumed his

work

WORK

of agitation. At the end of 188o, after a speech at a revolutionary meeting in Paris, he was struck down by apoplexy, and expired on the 1st of January 1881. Blanqui's uncompromising communism, and his determination to enforce it by violence, necessarily brought him into conflict with every French government, and half his life was spent in prison. Besides his innumerable contributions to journalism, he published an astronomical

work

WORK

entitled L'Eternite par les astres (1872), and after his death his writings on economic and social questions were collected under the title of Critique sod ale (1885).
A

biography

BIOGRAPHY (from the Gr. (3ios, life, and yp&4 , writing)

by G. Geffroy, L'Enferme (1897), is highly coloured and decidedly partisan.

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