Clément Duval


Clément Duval was a famous French anarchist and criminal. His ideas concerning individual reclamation were greatly influential in later shaping illegalism. According to Paul Albert, "The story of Clement Duval was lifted and, shorn of all politics, turned into the bestseller Papillon."

Biography

Duval served as a member of the fifth infantry battalion in the Franco-Prussian War, where he was wounded by a mortar and contracted smallpox. As a result, he spent four of the next 10 years in a hospital. Unable to work, Duval turned to theft.
Subsequent to his spending a year in prison for the theft of 80 francs, Duval joined the anarchists of The Panther of Batignolles.
On 25 October 1886, Duval broke into the mansion of a Parisian socialite and stole 15,000 francs before accidentally setting the house on fire. He was caught only two weeks later after trying to fence the stolen goods, stabbing a policeman named Rossignol several times during his arrest. Duval's trial drew crowds of supporters and ended in chaos when Duval was dragged from the court, crying, "Long live anarchy!" He was condemned to death, but his sentence was later commuted to hard labor on Devil's Island, French Guiana.
In a letter printed in the November 1886 issue of the anarchist paper Le Révolté, Duval famously declared: "Le vol n'est que la restitution, opéré à son profit par un individu conscient des richesses produites collectivement, et indûment accaparée par quelques-uns."
Duval spent the next 14 years in prison, attempting escape over 20 times. In April 1901, he succeeded and fled to New York City, where he lived until the age of 85.

Memoir

In 1929, Duval's memoir, Memorie Autobiografiche, was translated by Luigi Galleani and published in Italian. In 1980, Marianne Enckell, at C.I.R.A. in Lausanne, recovered part of Duval's original manuscript, and had it published as Outrage: An Anarchist Memoir of the Penal Colony.