Émile Henry (26 September 1872 – 21 May 1894), nicknamed 'the Saint-Just of Anarchy', was an individualist and illegalist anarchist militant and terrorist. He is best known for his terrorist actions and is considered one of the main founders of modern terrorism.
Born into a family of exiled Communards, he moved to France in 1880, where he pursued studies that promised him a prestigious career. However, after witnessing the misery and social inequalities of his society, he abandoned his studies to join Parisian anarchist circles, particularly under the influence of his older brother, Jean-Charles Fortuné Henry. Associating with various anarchists of the time, especially Charles Malato, who became his friend, he closely followed the beginning of the Ère des attentats, literally "Era of Attacks" (1892–1894) and the first attacks of Ravachol. As he became increasingly isolated, Henry paid close attention to the Carmaux strike and considered the agreement signed by the employers and socialists a betrayal of the proletariat. He then organized the Carmaux-Bons-Enfants bombing (8 November 1892), possibly with his brother and Adrienne Chailliey, targeting the headquarters of the Carmaux Mining Company by planting a parcel bomb. This bomb, retrieved by the police and an employee, exploded at the Bons-Enfants police station, killing four policemen and the employee. This was the deadliest attack of the Ère des attentats.
Although Henry managed to avoid strong suspicion, he fled France and took refuge in the United Kingdom. From this base and Belgium, in 1893, he participated in a series of robberies with the Ortiz gang, notably with Paolo Chiericotti and Léon Ortiz, following the emerging anarchist ideology of illegalism. His robberies and movements during this period are difficult to reconstruct, but he took part in the 1893 general strike in Belgium, where the army fired on the population. Henry himself fired at the police on this occasion. At the beginning of 1894, he returned to Paris, where the authorities were increasingly searching for him. The news of Auguste Vaillant's execution (5 February 1894) pushed him to act, seeking to assassinate the French president, Sadi Carnot. Failing to approach the Élysée Palace with a bomb, he went instead to the Café Terminus, where he threw his bomb into the crowd—killing one person and injuring about twenty others. Pursued by the police, at whom he fired, he was finally arrested.
The Café Terminus bombing and Henry's trial were central events in the emergence of modern terrorism. By targeting an adversary identified with society as a whole, he ushered terrorism into the era of mass terrorism, a phenomenon that continues into the 21st century. Unlike Ravachol or Vaillant, his predecessors, he did not present himself as an avenger but rather as a fighter who must destroy "bourgeois society" or die. He was sentenced to death, which did not seem to trouble him; he refused to appeal—declaring that he did not recognize "bourgeois justice"—and was executed on 21 May 1894 in Paris. The motivations behind this attack are debated, but they could range from a thought-out radicalization to romantic reasons aimed at impressing Élisa Gauthey, the anarchist with whom Henry was in love.
His action was rejected by some anarchists in France, who began to question the use of terrorism to achieve their goals after this event. Thus, he foreshadowed the end of the Ère des attentats and the evolution of anarchism from propaganda by the deed to other forms of struggle, such as anarcho-syndicalism. However, some, especially within individualist anarchism, used him as a symbol and hero of their struggle. Even though he did not influence later anarchist terrorism, the directions he gave to modern terrorism continued into the 21st century within very different movements.
Joseph Félix Émile Henry was born on 26 September 1872 in a small town near Barcelona. He was born in Spain because his father, Fortuné Henry, a former Communard now a coal miner, had been sentenced to death in absentia and had taken refuge there to escape French justice. His mother, Rose Caubet, who had worked as a seamstress before their exile, decided to follow him, and the couple settled in Catalonia. Émile was the youngest of his siblings; he had several brothers, including Jean-Charles Fortuné Henry, who would later become an anarchist activist like him, and a sister, Marie Constance Gabrielle Henry, who died in infancy. Taking advantage of a general amnesty in 1880, the family returned to Paris and settled at 5 Rue de Jouy in the fourth arrondissement of the capital. However, Fortuné Henry died a few months later from mercury poisoning, forcing Caubet to seek income to support her children and granting Henry the status of a ward of the city of Paris. This was done by setting up a drinking establishment on the ground floor of their home, called 'La Buvette de l'Espérance'.
Their family was relatively well-off, and Henry excelled in his studies at the Lycée Jean-Baptiste-Say, passing his baccalauréat in sciences a year early, at the age of seventeen. Destined for a promising career, he pursued scientific studies in preparatory classes and was eligible for admission to the École Polytechnique. However, he decided not to take the oral entrance exam, justifying his choice to his professors by citing, first, his reluctance to pursue a military career and, second, an opportunity offered by a family member—a wealthy industrialist—who had proposed that he become his private secretary. Henry was deeply influenced by the memory of the Paris Commune and the legacy of his father, who had a significant impact on him. He attempted to take part in a few spiritualism sessions to communicate with his father's soul but quickly deemed it a useless practice, less precise than the sciences he was studying.
Politicization, radicalization, love
It was in this first job as a personal secretary that Henry became aware of the harshness of society. He quickly resigned, refusing to oversee workers in Italy on behalf of his industrialist relative. Upon returning to Paris, he spent three months unemployed, and during this period, he became increasingly conscious of the social inequalities dividing French society. Henry wrote about this time:
Everywhere I went, I witnessed the same suffering among some, the same pleasures among others.
Henry also wrote about other issues, such as the monopolization of intellectual knowledge by the bourgeoisie and the morality of his society. Thus, he opposed the view that a bourgeois, being an exploiter in his view, could be considered an 'honest man'. More broadly, Henry perceived the society he lived in as profoundly shocking and revolting. Increasingly outraged by the injustices he witnessed, Henry began sheltering activists or people in need if they required a place to stay. He stole food to feed beggars he encountered on the streets—even stealing a cow for a starving woman. He also gave money to the poor.
Moreover, his elder brother, Fortuné, became involved in the anarchist movement, where he established himself as a recognized speaker at anarchist meetings. Émile assisted him in organizing these gatherings and gradually embraced anarchist ideas through his contact with and influence from his brother. Henry likely joined anarchist circles around November 1890 and quickly became an active and 'able to act' militant. Well integrated into the anarchist network of the French capital, he spent the year 1891 engaging with Parisian anarchist circles. He also began writing for a series of anarchist publications, such as l'Endehors or probably also Le Forçat, where an "E. Henry" published in 1891. In particular, he met Charles Malato, who quickly became one of his close friends and introduced him to smaller anarchist groups. During this time, he worked in various jobs, which he performed fairly well. Malato noted his determined character—he would engage in anarchist discussions until late at night and still wake up early in the morning to go to work.