Marie Vuillemin

Marie Félicie Vuillemin (1889–1963) was a Belgian individualist anarchist, known for her involvement with the Bonnot Gang. Born in Mons, she met the French anarchist Octave Garnier while working at an inn in Charleroi. Suspected of robbing her workplace, they fled to Paris, where they joined a commune at the publishing house of the magazine L'Anarchie. Their illegalist activities led to their involvement with the Bonnot Gang, with Garnier participating in numerous robberies and becoming a fugitive. Vuillemin was arrested under suspicion of her own participation, but was released due to a lack of evidence. Before long, she rejoined Garnier and other members of the Bonnot Gang in Nogent-sur-Marne, but their house was raided by police; Vuillemin was arrested and Garnier was killed. Vullemin herself was ultimately acquitted of all charges against her.

Marie Félicie Vuillemin was born on 14 May 1889, in the Walloon city of Mons. At the age of twenty, she moved to Paris for work. There she married a local painter, known as Schoofs, but they had an unhappy marriage as Schoofs was a violent husband. After only a month of marriage, she abandoned him and fled. In June 1910, she returned to Belgium and found work as a waitress in Charleroi. There she met the French anarchist Octave Garnier, the two fell in love with each other, and they left the city for the Belgian capital of Brussels. They were suspected of robbing Vuillemin's workplace before leaving, and in April 1911, they were forced to flee Belgium back to Paris.

Communal life

Vuillemin and Garnier found lodging at the printing house of the individualist anarchist magazine L'Anarchie, located in Romainville. Before long, it became a safe house for many more exiled Belgian anarchists, including Jean de Boë, Raymond Callemin [fr], Édouard Carouy [fr], and Victor Serge. The house in Romainville was transformed into a commune, where its inhabitants practiced naturism, vegetarianism and physical fitness, supporting their lifestyle financially through theft. On Sunday mornings, Vuillemin and Garnier would go for bike rides down to the Marne, where they would relax on boats together with the commune's other couples. Keeping to their principles of illegalism, the commune's members also adopted nicknames in order to avoid being identified or tracked; Vuillemin took the name La Belge (English: The Belgian). The commune collapsed towards the end of August 1911, after Carouy disappeared under police suspicion of participating in a robbery. Garnier and Vuillemin left Romainville in early September.

Involvement with the Bonnot Gang

The couple moved into Garnier's mother's house in Vincennes, living an ostensibly normal life in between meetings with other members of what became the Bonnot Gang. Garnier himself began to participate in their robberies. After the Bonnot Gang carried out an armed robbery against the Société Générale, the police initiated an intensive search operation to find the culprits. After hearing that Jean Dettweiller [fr] had been arrested, on 31 December 1911, Garnier and Vuillemin left their house in Vicennes. Garnier and other accomplices rented a safe house in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, while Vuillemin went to stay at the offices of the individualist magazine L'Idée libre [fr].

On 22 January 1912, the police raided L'Idée libre. There they arrested Vuillemin, under suspicion of participation in the robbery. She confessed that she was living with Garnier and they searched their house, discovering photographs of Garnier that a victim of the attack identified as one of the attackers. While more of their accomplices were arrested, Garnier discovered that his partner was in jail and his face was in all the newspapers. The police kept L'Idée libre under constant surveillance, hoping to catch more of the Bonnot Gang. The authorities ultimately found no evidence against Vuillemin and dismissed her case, releasing her on 21 March.

Garnier, still a fugitive from justice, began to deeply miss Vuillemin and considered meeting her in Vincennes, but initially decided against it due to the risk of capture. In early May, he ended up deciding the take the risk an he reunited with her. She agreed to go with him to Nogent-sur-Marne, despite the risk of arrest or death. At their safe house, she cut her hair and died it dark brown, so that she could go food shopping without being identified. For appearances, the couple attempted to live a normal life in Nogent, playing music, gardening and exercising, and even once attending a local fête. But the police were soon tipped off that Garnier was in Nogent, and on 14 May, commissioner Xavier Guichard dispatched fifty armed officers to apprehend him.

That evening, while Vuillemin was cooking a vegetarian meal of macaroni and Garnier prepared potatoes and leaks, they heard a shout from their garden gate: "Surrender in the name of the Law!" A gun-battle ensued between the police on one side and René Valet [fr] and Octave Garnier on the other. Prefect Louis Lépine ordered a ceasefire, in order to allow the gang to surrender. Vuillemin quickly ran out of the house; she was arrested and taken into interrogation while the police finished their operation. The police unloaded on the house with machine gun fire and explosives, covering a team's entry into the building, where they finally killed Valet and Garnier.

Imprisonment, trial and later life

Vuillemin was charged with complicity in theft. During her interrogation, she claimed she had only been involved with the Bonnot Gang due to her love for Garnier. She also gave up the names of Raymond Callemin, Étienne Monier and André Soudy [fr]. Together with the other two women of the Bonnot Gang, Rirette Maîtrejean and Barbe Le Clerc'h [fr], Vuillemin was imprisoned in Saint-Lazare Prison. The imprisoned women were deprived of clothing, searched on a daily basis, and kept awake at night. While Maîtrejean attempted to use their sentence as an opportunity to teach Le Clerc'h how to read, Vuillemin retreated inwards, dissociating herself from her experience.

The trial of the Bonnot Gang commenced on 3 February 1913 at the Palais de Justice, which was kept under heavy security to prevent disruption. The judged declared that he would not allow the proceedings to become a political trial and banned political proclamations from being made. The public prosecutor Théodore Lescouvé [fr] opened the case by classifying the members of the Bonnot Gang into different categories: the principal offenders, the intermediaries, the harbourers, the firearms providers, and the women. The prosecution defined the women - Marie Vuillemin, Rirette Maîtrejean and Barbe Le Clerc'h - according to their gender, rather than their role in the gang's operations. During the trial, Vuillemin retracted her previous confessions, claiming they had been elicited from her under duress. Together with Maîtrejean and Le Clerc'h, Vuillemin was acquitted of all charges against her.

Vuillemin died in 1963, in Charleroi.