19th-century French criminals

Jean-Louis_Verger

Jean-Louis Verger (20 August 1826 – 30 January 1857) was a French Catholic priest who assassinated Marie-Dominique-Auguste Sibour, the Archbishop of Paris, in January 1857, after the archbishop ordered him to desist from publishing pamphlets against clerical celibacy and the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Verger was an opponent of this newly defined doctrine as well as celibacy for the clergy. Verger was also a continuous troublemaker, frequently complaining about his assignments, most of which he was unable to accomplish due to his temper. The trial became, in his mind, a sounding board for his notions. He was found guilty on the day of the trial (17 January 1857) and sentenced to death. To the end, Verger had convinced himself that Emperor Napoleon III would pardon him. When he was executed by guillotine at La Roquette Prisons on 30 January 1857, he was in a state of panic and fear due to the failure of the pardon to come.

Marius_Jacob

Alexandre Marius Jacob (29 September 1879 – 28 August 1954), also known by the names Georges, Escande, Férau, Jean Concorde, Attila, and Barrabas, was a French anarchist illegalist.

Auguste_Vaillant

Auguste Vaillant (27 December 1861 – 5 February 1894) was a French anarchist, most famous for his bomb attack on the French Chamber of Deputies on 9 December 1893. The government's reaction to this attack was the passing of the infamous repressive Lois scélérates.
Vaillant threw the home-made device from the public gallery and was immediately arrested. The weakness of the device meant that the explosion only caused slight injuries to twenty deputies. At his trial in Paris he was defended by Fernand Labori. Vaillant claimed that his aim was not to kill but to wound as many deputies as possible in revenge for the execution of Ravachol. Despite this, Vaillant was sentenced to death. He was put to death by the guillotine on 5 February 1894.
His bombing and execution in turn inspired the attacks of Émile Henry and Sante Geronimo Caserio (who stabbed to death Marie François Sadi Carnot, President of the French Third Republic) and Bhagat Singh (who threw a low-intensity bomb into the Central Legislative Assembly in British India, and was hanged later). Vaillant's last words were "Death to the Bourgeoisie! Long live Anarchy!"