Raymon Callemin was Guillotined in Paris in 1913 for his part in the Bonno Gang, a group of illegalist Anarcvhist robbers.
He was killed with two other outlaws from the gang, Soudy and Monier. He smiled and cried to the crowd “it’s a fine thing, isn’t it, a man’s agony”.
RAYMOND la SCIENCE;
“Why I Took Part in a Burglary, Why I Committed Murder”
1913
Every being comes into the world with a right to live a real life. This is indisputable, for it is nature’s law. Also I ask myself why, on tyhis earth, there are people who expect to have all the rights. They give the pretext that they have money, but if one asks them where they got their money from, what do they answer? As for myself, I answer as follows: “I give no one the right to impose his own wishes, regardless of the pretext given. I don’t see why I wouldn’t have the right to eat those grapes or those apples just because they are the property of mr. X….What did he do that I have not that le’s him alone gain an advantage? I answer nothing and consequently I have the right to make use of things according to my need and if he wants to prevent me forcibly I will revolt and against his strength I will oppose my own because, finding myself attacked, I will defend myself by any means at my disposal”.
“That’s why, to those who will say that they have money and, thus, I must obey them, I will say “When you are able to demonstrate that part of the whole represants the whole, that this is another earth than that on which you have been born, as I have, and that this is another sun the one which lights the way and makes plants grow and fruit ripen, when you have proven that, I will give you the right to keep me from living, because, well, where does money come from: from the earth, and silver is one part of the earth transformed into a metal that came to be called silver and, in using this metal, violentry forced the rest of the world to obey it. For this end, they invited all kinds of torture systems such as prisons, etc.
Why does this minority “the haves”, seem stronger than the majority “the have nots”? Because this majority is ignorant and lacking in energy; it allows all sorts of caprices on the part of those who “have” by simply slouching its shoulders at each new caprice that cames up. These people are too faint-hearted to revolt themselves and, even better, if amongst them there are some who leave the flock, the others, hold them back, either directly or indirectly, without knowing it, but nevertheless in just as dangerous a manner. They claim honesty, but underneath that facade hides a hypocrisy and cowardice which cannot be disavowed.
That someone could bring an honest man before me!
It is due to all of these things that I have revolted, it’s because I didn’t want to live the life of the present society, because I didn’t want to wait until death to be alive that I defended myself against my oppressors by all means at my disposition.
From my earliest days, I knew the authority of the father and mother and before I was even old enough to understand what it all meant, I rebelled against the authority, just as I did against the authority of the educational system.
I was thirteen at the time. I started working; when I began to experience and understand what was going on around me. I also became familiar with life and social abuse; I saw people I found to be bad and corrupt, and told myself “I must find a way to get out of this shit of bosses, workers, bourgeoisie, judges, officers, and others; all of these people disgust me, some become they allow themselves to go through the motions of life without really doing a thing”. Not wanting to be exploited or, on the other hand, to be an exploiter of others, I stole from the shelves of stores, without getting too far head, the first time I was arrested I was seventeen; I was sentenced to three months in prison; and then I understood justice as it really was; my chum who was charged with the same crime (because we were working together) was given only two months, and that only a suspended sentence (of observation and good conduct). Why that was, I have always wondered. But I can say that I give no one the right to judge me, be he a judge from the educational system or one from the tribunal, because no one can possibly understand or know the reason for my actions; no one can put himself in my place, in a word no one can be me.
When I got out of prison, I returned to my parents, who reproached me severely. But to have undergone what I did in the name of “Justice”, that is, prison,made me all the more rebellious. I started working again, although not the same job. (see, after having worked in a office for some time, I threw myself into work with a butcher, then into work in a deli, something which I did well, but, now wherever I went, people asked me for some sort of certification. I didn’t have any, no one wanted to hire me, and that made me even more rebellious. That’s when I began to play games in order tp find work, I fixed up false certificates and finally found work for sixteen to eighteen hours a day for 70 to 80 francs a week, seven days a week, and when I asked for a day’s vacation Monsieur the Boss got angry.