Pierre Martinet, nicknamed Pol or the Pariah (1848-1919), was a French anarchist and dreyfusard activist. He is best known for being one of the principal founders of European individualist anarchism and probably a police informant.
Born into a family of landowners, Martinet committed several offenses in his youth before gradually joining the anarchist movement in the 1880s. In 1884, he gained prominence as one of the key figures in the salle Lévis affair, a meeting where Blanquist socialists and anarchists clashed violently. Months later, he assaulted deputy Achille Scrépel at another meeting and fled France. Pursued by creditors in Switzerland, he returned to France, where he was arrested and imprisoned.
Upon his release from prison in the late 1880s, Martinet rejoined French and Parisian anarchist circles, becoming one of the first militants to self-identify as an individualist anarchist. He published two newspapers, L'Anarchie (1890–1891) and La Renaissance (1895–1896), which were some of the earliest European anarchist individualist publications and engaged in various demonstrations, conferences and gatherings, like the soup-conferences. Known for his reputation as a violent activist, his erratic behavior and surprising financial ease led various French anarchists to suspect him of being a police informant—a charge he denied. Jean Grave, in particular, maintained a deeply contentious relationship with him. Despite these probably accurate accusations, Martinet remained connected to prominent anarchists of the era, including Charles Malato, Vittorio Pini, and Ravachol, the latter two requesting his intervention at their trials to defend them.
After the Dreyfus affair, where he fought against antisemitism, Martinet gradually withdrew from activism, dedicating himself to acting in and writing theatrical plays. By 1918, Malato noted that he had entirely abandoned anarchism and become a property owner.
Biography
Youth and early actions
Pierre Paul Désiré Martinet was born in Laudun on 5 May 1848. He was the son o Marie Clotilde Brache, who had no profession, and a landowner from the Gard department named Jérôme François Xavier Martinet. He began to be repeatedly sentenced by the French justice system for various offenses, in the following order:
In 1866, in Marseille, eight days in prison for carrying a prohibited weapon; In 1867, in Nîmes, two years for theft; In 1871, six months in prison for seditious crimes; In 1873, in Paris, five years in prison and five years of surveillance for theft and insults; In 1880, in Paris, fifteen months in prison for theft, breach of trust, and offenses against public morals.
He joined the anarchist movement, becoming a companion during this period, and was registered by the police as an anarchist from 1884 onward. At an anarchist meeting held in late November 1884, he gave a speech, and in the ensuing chaos, he protected the journalists present—particularly Gabriel Terrail—by shouting, 'Companions, remember, they are our guests!'
Salle Lévis affair
On 8 December 1884, an important meeting of the French labour movement took place at the Salle Lévis, gathering over three thousand participants. Several Blanquist socialist speakers were present, including Édouard Vaillant and Jules Guesde. Along the corridors leading to the hall, Blanquist militants were ordered to guard the area and prevent anarchists from entering. They also secured the podium. One of the anarchist speakers, Gustave Leboucher, attempted to enter but was turned away and ended up in the street. However, a group of around thirty anarchist companions, with Martinet among the leaders, soon arrived at the entrance and began forcing their way through the corridors to reach the hall.
They managed to enter after a few scuffles, pushing back the socialist militants blocking their way. Once inside the meeting, they moved to the left side of the platform, where they were not stopped and settled in. They rejected any legitimacy of the electoral process that had begun without them and sought to have Leboucher and Ponchet elected in place of Vaillant, who was being chosen. Ponchet climbed onto the platform, declaring that workers should elect a worker, not Vaillant, but he was quickly pushed back. Another anarchist militant, Daniel, attempted to speak next but was prevented from doing so.
Meanwhile, as the socialists were preparing to bring another of their speakers to the podium, the anarchists present took the hammers they had brought, smashed the tables in front of them, armed themselves with the debris, and charged the platform and the socialist security cordon surrounding Vaillant. They attempted to climb the platform three times, but the socialists controlling it threw carafes and struck them with canes, making it impossible to ascend. Then, Martinet led a flanking maneuver with his companions, managing to reach the platform from the side. Once there, the anarchists engaged in close combat with the socialists. Meanwhile, a large number of socialists in the room began fleeing towards the exit as the police arrived outside amidst the chaos—long corridors made escaping more difficult, and the fight continued. The anarchists, vastly outnumbered but now on the platform, fought using tables, chairs, and knives. Some socialists near the exit managed to dislodge paving stones from the ground and began hurling them at the platform, further adding to the chaos. An elderly man close to Blanqui was recognized by several anarchists, who attacked him. The socialists eventually decided to flee the hall, and the disorder continued at the entrance to the Salle Lévis. The anarchists took control of the platform and began speaking to those who remained. Outside, the socialists, dissatisfied at being 'demolished' by only thirty militants, attempted a counterattack but failed. The police eventually entered the room and arrested several anarchist militants.
A few days later, Martinet wrote to Le Soir to request a correction to the claim that he had used a knife during the incident.
In early 1885, he participated in Leboucher’s trial as a defense witness. He asserted that his arrested comrade had done nothing wrong and deserved to be acquitted by the court. He also criticized the justice system for treating the bourgeois more leniently than workers like Leboucher. The prosecutor interrupted him, read out his criminal record, then declared that for the honor of justice, Martinet could not be allowed to speak further and expelled him from the courtroom.
Continuation of his activities, conflicts, and suspicions
While illegalism—an ideology blending crime and anarchism—was not yet established, emerging later from the actions of figures like Clément Duval and the Intransigents of London and Paris such as Vittorio Pini, Martinet faced accusations from fellow anarchists. They criticized him for being a criminal to speak in defense of a militant, deeming it unworthy. Martinet had to defend himself against accusations of immorality, asserting his poverty and insisting he did not deserve exclusion from the group. After two hours of defense, the group decided to let him remain among the anarchists but ruled that his views represented only himself and that he could not speak on behalf of the anarchist movement.
Martinet continued his activism. On 9 February 1885, accompanied by a few other anarchists, he traveled to Montreuil and Bagnolet, among other places, to recruit as many homeless and unemployed people as possible and send them to the Place de l'Opéra for a demonstration. He instructed them to flee when the police arrived but to return quickly if possible. He fought with the officers who came to arrest him.
On 11 February 1885, the socialist newspaper L'Intransigeant accused him of being a police informant. According to the paper, Martinet’s behavior was suspicious—his absence from anarchist dinners contrasted with his active participation in meetings during the day, and he remained free despite a surveillance order that should have confined him to Melun. The newspaper concluded that he was a provocateur protected by authorities, arrested merely to preserve his cover and explain his absence from Melun.
This characterization of Martinet as a police informant was shared by Jean Grave, with whom Martinet was in open conflict. When Martinet visited Grave to request a response in La Révolte of the accusations made by L'Intransigeant, Grave refused, stating that he agreed with Henri Rochefort, L'Intransigeant's editor, that Martinet was a 'fed'. Martinet demanded proof, and Grave retorted that he should ask Rochefort himself, before slamming the door in his face.
For this affair, Martinet was sentenced to six months in prison and five years of surveillance.
Lyz-lez-Lannoy case
Upon his release from prison, Martinet left the Île-de-France region and traveled to Belgium, from which he was swiftly expelled after insulting a mayor and denouncing white female slavery.
After his expulsion, he returned to France and settled in Roubaix. Between August 1885 and February 1886, he engaged in anarchist propaganda, producing posters and sometimes carrying them himself while working as a 'sandwich man'. He made public speeches that resonated with local workers. Martinet also wrote and published several texts, including Les infamies de la police de Roubaix ('The infamies of the Roubaix police'), Les deux complices ('The two accomplices'), and Le Pharisien et le gros porc ('The Pharisian and the fat pig').
On 28 September 1885, the bourgeois deputy Achille Scrépel organized a public meeting in Lys-lez-Lannoy to gain popular legitimacy. The assembly was open to debate, and Martinet decided to attend. He was joined by many fellow anarchists from Roubaix and local workers—altogether numbering several hundred—while the authorities had only the village constable present to oversee the discussions.
The anarchists entered the meeting and took their seats. At the start of the gathering, a speaker, prompted by Scrépel, proposed electing Scrépel as the assembly's president. The motion was put to a vote, but only sixty votes (≈20%) out of more than three hundred supported him. Approximately two hundred and fifty people (≈ 80%) opposed the proposal. A supporter of Scrépel then took the floor, was insulted, and declared that since Scrépel was organizing the meeting, he should be elected. This time, Scrépel received only thirty votes, while the syndicalist candidate supported by the anarchists, Henri Carrette, secured the rest of the votes. The republicans present tried to put the issue to a vote once more, prompting Martinet to exclaim:
A fight then broke out on the platform, prompting the republicans to flee the room—except for Scrépel, who remained trapped at the foot of the stage. Martinet and three other companions chased him, seized a table, and cornered him between the table and the platform. Martinet raised the cane he was holding in a threatening manner, but Scrépel managed to escape amidst the chaos. The mayor of Lys attempted to enter the hall to stop the brawl, but the anarchists mistook him for the police commissaire and struck him several times in the face before he, too, fled. To avoid arrest, the anarchists formed a tight group and left the scene, heading back to Roubaix. Martinet was arrested the next day while putting up posters and was put on trial for assaulting the mayor.
While awaiting his trial, he was arrested again for the posters he had made. After being acquitted for lack of evidence in the mayor’s assault case, Martinet was arrested once more—this time for targeting the central police commissaire of Roubaix in a poster.
Prison and exile