ri du Peuple_ called it a
simple burglary, followed by an incendiary attempt. But after some days,
Duval announced himself an anarchist and declared that his act was in
harmony with his faith.

On January 11 and 12, 1887, the case came before the court. The
discussions were very heated. After M. Fernand Labori, then a very
young advocate, who had been appointed to defend Duval, had made his
plea, Duval became anxious to defend himself. He threatened, in leaving
the prison, to blow up with dynamite the jury and the court, and heaped
upon them most abusive language. The president ordered that he should be
removed from the court. An enormous tumult then ensued in that part of
the hall where the anarchists were massed. "Help! Help! Comrades! Long
live Anarchy!" cried Duval. "Long live Anarchy!" answered his comrades.
Thirty guards led Duval away, and the verdict was read in the presence
of an armed force with fixed bayonets. He was condemned to death and his
two accomplices acquitted.

Eight days afterward, on January 23, an indignation meeting against the
condemnation of Duval was organized by the anarchists, at which nearly
1,000 were present. Tennevin, Leboucher, and Louise Michel spoke in
turn, glorifying Duval. The opposition was taken by a Blanquist, a
Normandy citizen, who censured the act of Duval, because such acts, he
said, throw discredit on the revolutionists and so retard the hour of
the Social Revolution.

Duval's case was appealed to the highest court in France, but the appeal
was rejected. The President of the Republic, however, commuted his
sentence of capital punishment to enforced labor. Then followed a long
period of discussions and violent controversies between the anarchists
and the socialists over the whole affair. The anarchists claimed the
right of theft on the grounds that it was the beginning of capitalist
expropriation and that stolen wealth could aid in propaganda and action.
The socialists, on the other hand, protested against this theory with
extreme vigor.

After Duval, there is little noteworthy in the terrorist movement for a
period of four years, but with May 1, 1891, there began what is known as
_La Periode Tragique_. Five notable figures, Decamps, Ravachol,
Vaillant, Henry, and Caserio, within a period of three years, performed
a series of terrorist acts that cannot be forgotten. Their utter
desperation and abandon, the terrible solemnity of their lives, and the
almost superhuman ef