The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection by Dorothy Hoobler, Thomas Hoobler Page A
Authors: Dorothy Hoobler, Thomas Hoobler
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alone am guilty.…
I know there will be an end to this struggle which has begun between me and the formidable arsenal at Society’s disposal. I know that I will be beaten; I am the weakest. But I sincerely hope to make you pay dearly for your victory.
Awaiting the pleasure of meeting you.
Garnier 16
Just to prove the letter was no hoax, Garnier enclosed a sheet onto which he had carefully placed his fingerprints, along with an inscription taunting Bertillon to put on his glasses and “watch out.” Bertillon duly checked the prints and reported that they were indeed Garnier’s.
As if that were not bold enough, Bonnot personally marched into the offices of a major newspaper, Le Petit Parisien, to complain about mistakes in one of the stories it had printed about the gang. At first no one recognized him — blond, without facial hair — until he sat down with a reporter named Charles Sauerwein and placed a 9-millimeter Browning automatic on the desk in front of him. Bonnot declared, “We’ll burn off our last round against the cops, and if they don’t care to come, we’ll certainly know how to find them.” 17 (The Demon Chauffeur intended to deliver on his promise. He had obtained four Winchester repeating rifles, accurate and deadly. By contrast, the French police were armed only with cavalry revolvers.)
Just as calmly, Bonnot strode out of the building without interference. Sauerwein claimed journalistic ethics prevented him from notifying the police, or perhaps he hoped he would get another such sensational scoop sometime. Sauerwein and Le Petit Parisien showed their gratitude by henceforth calling the criminals La Bande à Bonnot, which somehow stuck, probably to Garnier’s annoyance.
Other events must have convinced the gang that their dream of overturning the government was drawing nearer. Paris’s taxi drivers had been waging a strike for more than four months. The cab companies had brought in scab drivers from Corsica (who, unsurprisingly, were unable to comprehend the Paris street system), and the strikers began to bomb taxis. A striker leaving a union meeting was shot by one of the scabs, further raising tensions in a city already apprehensive about anarchist murderers who could apparently carry out their crimes with impunity.
Though the newspapers reported that the Bonnot Gang had scores of members, in reality it was quite small. For its next crime, however, it would be augmented by René Valet, Élie Monier, and a shy, tubercular eighteen-year-old named André Soudy, who had decided he was soon to die anyway because he could not afford treatment for his illness, so why not go out with a bang? Soudy defiantly flaunted his nickname, Pas de Chance (“Out of Luck”). Though publicity about the gang’s exploits had frightened Parisians, it also made it increasingly difficult to find unguarded automobiles waiting to be stolen outside the houses of wealthy citizens. The gang still wanted to accomplish their original goal of robbing a bank, so they developed yet another tactic: carjacking. Now six in all, they camped out all night in the Forest of Sénart, on the road between Paris and Lyons. By 7:00 A.M. on March 25 they were awake and waiting for their prey, another luxury car: a blue and yellow De Dion-Bouton limousine, just purchased from a showroom on the Champs-Élysées. A De Dion employee was chauffeuring it to the Côte d’Azur, where its new owner, the comte de Rouge, was vacationing. The only passenger was the comte’s male secretary, who had come to Paris to make the eighteen-thousand-franc purchase. The De Dion company was known for the high quality of its engines; if Bonnot had somehow gotten wind of the delivery and chosen this car on purpose, it may have been because of his dissatisfaction with the way the previous Delaunay-Belleville had broken down.
The gang had earlier stopped two horse-drawn carts at gunpoint and forced their drivers to block the road. As the De Dion-Bouton
I know there will be an end to this struggle which has begun between me and the formidable arsenal at Society’s disposal. I know that I will be beaten; I am the weakest. But I sincerely hope to make you pay dearly for your victory.
Awaiting the pleasure of meeting you.
Garnier 16
Just to prove the letter was no hoax, Garnier enclosed a sheet onto which he had carefully placed his fingerprints, along with an inscription taunting Bertillon to put on his glasses and “watch out.” Bertillon duly checked the prints and reported that they were indeed Garnier’s.
As if that were not bold enough, Bonnot personally marched into the offices of a major newspaper, Le Petit Parisien, to complain about mistakes in one of the stories it had printed about the gang. At first no one recognized him — blond, without facial hair — until he sat down with a reporter named Charles Sauerwein and placed a 9-millimeter Browning automatic on the desk in front of him. Bonnot declared, “We’ll burn off our last round against the cops, and if they don’t care to come, we’ll certainly know how to find them.” 17 (The Demon Chauffeur intended to deliver on his promise. He had obtained four Winchester repeating rifles, accurate and deadly. By contrast, the French police were armed only with cavalry revolvers.)
Just as calmly, Bonnot strode out of the building without interference. Sauerwein claimed journalistic ethics prevented him from notifying the police, or perhaps he hoped he would get another such sensational scoop sometime. Sauerwein and Le Petit Parisien showed their gratitude by henceforth calling the criminals La Bande à Bonnot, which somehow stuck, probably to Garnier’s annoyance.
Other events must have convinced the gang that their dream of overturning the government was drawing nearer. Paris’s taxi drivers had been waging a strike for more than four months. The cab companies had brought in scab drivers from Corsica (who, unsurprisingly, were unable to comprehend the Paris street system), and the strikers began to bomb taxis. A striker leaving a union meeting was shot by one of the scabs, further raising tensions in a city already apprehensive about anarchist murderers who could apparently carry out their crimes with impunity.
Though the newspapers reported that the Bonnot Gang had scores of members, in reality it was quite small. For its next crime, however, it would be augmented by René Valet, Élie Monier, and a shy, tubercular eighteen-year-old named André Soudy, who had decided he was soon to die anyway because he could not afford treatment for his illness, so why not go out with a bang? Soudy defiantly flaunted his nickname, Pas de Chance (“Out of Luck”). Though publicity about the gang’s exploits had frightened Parisians, it also made it increasingly difficult to find unguarded automobiles waiting to be stolen outside the houses of wealthy citizens. The gang still wanted to accomplish their original goal of robbing a bank, so they developed yet another tactic: carjacking. Now six in all, they camped out all night in the Forest of Sénart, on the road between Paris and Lyons. By 7:00 A.M. on March 25 they were awake and waiting for their prey, another luxury car: a blue and yellow De Dion-Bouton limousine, just purchased from a showroom on the Champs-Élysées. A De Dion employee was chauffeuring it to the Côte d’Azur, where its new owner, the comte de Rouge, was vacationing. The only passenger was the comte’s male secretary, who had come to Paris to make the eighteen-thousand-franc purchase. The De Dion company was known for the high quality of its engines; if Bonnot had somehow gotten wind of the delivery and chosen this car on purpose, it may have been because of his dissatisfaction with the way the previous Delaunay-Belleville had broken down.
The gang had earlier stopped two horse-drawn carts at gunpoint and forced their drivers to block the road. As the De Dion-Bouton
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