Émile Eudes, son of a Norman pharmacist, came to Paris to study medicine and from 1866 sided with the Blanquists, those professional revolutionaries who staked everything on the coup de main. In August 1870, he attacked a barracks in an attempt to raise the city against the dying Empire; sentenced to death, he was saved by the Republic. The Commune would make him a general at twenty-eight.
The story
The son of a Norman pharmacist, Émile Eudes came up to Paris to study medicine and joined the Blanquists as early as 1866 — those professional revolutionaries who counted on the surprise raid rather than on mass organisation. He kept the taste for direct action all his life.
In August 1870 he led the attack on the fire station at La Villette in an attempt to raise Paris against the failing Empire. The affair failed, he was arrested and sentenced to death. The proclamation of the Republic, on 4 September, saved him from execution.
The Paris Commune made him a general in March 1871, at twenty-seven, and gave him the war department for a time. The Bloody Week found him on the barricades; he got through to London, where he lived eight years of exile among the proscribed.
Amnestied in 1880, he took up speaking again at Paris meetings and died of a cerebral haemorrhage on 5 August 1888, at forty-four, on leaving a public gathering. Thousands followed his funeral. He lies in Division 91.
On site, do not miss
The position of the grave, in the quarter of the cemetery where the Communards' tombs gathered: the geography of Père-Lachaise keeps here the trace of a defeat.
Visitors' questions
Where is Émile Eudes's grave?
In Division 91 of Père-Lachaise, in the high eastern part of the cemetery, near the Communards' Wall. Division 91 also holds the grave of Auguste Blanqui, whose lieutenant Eudes was.
Auguste BlanquiWhat is a Blanquist?
A follower of Auguste Blanqui, who staked everything on an insurrection led by a determined minority rather than on organising the masses. Émile Eudes joined that current as early as 1866 and remained one of its figures until his death, in 1888.
Political figures at Père-LachaiseWhat part did Émile Eudes play in the Commune?
A general, appointed in March 1871 at twenty-seven, and briefly delegate for war. He fought on the barricades during Bloody Week in May 1871, then went into exile in London until the amnesty of 1880.
Love & legends at Père-LachaiseWhere is the Communards' Wall?
At the south-eastern corner of the cemetery, in Division 76, a few minutes' walk from Division 91. It is there that the last hundred and forty-seven fighters of the Commune were shot, on 28 May 1871.
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