Edmé Charles Chabert, an engraver by trade, mounted the barricades of 1848 at twenty-nine and saw the July Monarchy fall. He then became a Paris city councillor, which a working man almost never was in the nineteenth century, then one of the founders of the Workers' Party. On his stone, the word “ouvrier” comes before the mandates and returns twice. He died in 1890.
The story
On Charles Chabert's stone the word “ouvrier,” workman, comes before the offices, and it comes twice: “ouvrier graveur” for the trade, “un des fondateurs du Parti ouvrier” for the commitment. Few epitaphs at Père-Lachaise lay claim in this way to a social condition.
Born in Paris on 13 December 1818, Edmé Charles Chabert was an engraver — a workshop trade, skilled and badly paid. He made the revolution of February 1848, and Louis-Napoleon's coup earned him, three years later, deportation to Algeria.
The voters of the nineteenth arrondissement sent him in 1884 to the municipal council of Paris, then to the general council of the Seine: a working engraver sitting at the Hôtel de Ville, something the century had almost never seen. He was one of the founders of the Parti ouvrier, the first French political organisation to claim the working class explicitly as its own.
He died on 24 May 1890, at seventy-one, and lies in Division 76. His bronze bust, signed Charles Lafuma, bears the date 1888: two years before his death, he had already seen his own likeness.
The grave
An inscription whose order is a political choice: “A, Edmé Charles, Chabert, 24 mai 1890, ouvrier graveur, conseiller municipal, de Paris, conseiller général, de la Seine, un des fondateurs, du Parti ouvrier.” — working engraver, Paris city councillor, councillor for the Seine, one of the founders of the Workers' Party. The word “ouvrier” comes before the mandates, and it returns twice — for the trade, then for the party. Few epitaphs at Père-Lachaise lay claim in this way to a social condition.
On site, do not miss
The epitaph respects the order of things: “ouvrier graveur”, working engraver, comes before “conseiller municipal de Paris”, Paris city councillor, and “un des fondateurs du Parti ouvrier”, one of the founders of the Workers' Party.
Visitors' questions
Where is Charles Chabert's grave?
In Division 76 of Père-Lachaise, the Division of the Polish general of the Commune Wróblewski and of the Kurdish leader Ghassemlou. His epitaph opens on the word “ouvrier”, working man. He died on 24 May 1890, at seventy-one.
Waléry WróblewskiWhat was the Parti ouvrier?
The first French political organisation to claim the working class outright. Chabert was one of its founders — and his stone cuts it, at the end of the list of his titles.
Émile EudesWas he really a working man?
He was: an engraver by trade, skilled workshop work and badly paid. Elected a member of the Paris city council, he was a working man sitting at the Hôtel de Ville — something the century had almost never seen.
Charles DelescluzeWhat did he do in 1848?
He took part in the Revolution: at twenty-nine, he was one of the men who brought down the July Monarchy. Forty years later he was sitting on the council of the city he had fought in.
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