Jules Bonnot was born in Pont-de-Roide, France October 14, 1876. He was orphaned at the age of 5. He apparently tried to become a automobile mechanic with little success in Lyon. By the time he organized the band he already had a criminal record from aggravated assaults, automobile theft, money forgery and he was suspected of various burglaries and one murder.
Bonnot’s gang was originally a group of French anarchists around an anarchist magazine l’Anarchie. The founder of the group of was Raymond Callemin (nicknamed Raymond la Science) who regarded Mikhail Bakunin and Pierre Proudhon as his role models. Jules Bonnot joined them in December 1911. His ideas were more part with late anarchist Ravachol.
The first robbery of Bonnot’s gang was to rob the money transfer of Societe Generale bank in Paris in December 21, 1911. They escaped with an automobile (a Delaunay-Belleville) they had stolen a week before. Robbers – Bonnot, Octave Garnier, Eugene Dieudonne and Raymond Callemin – got a booty equal to 5,126 francs but rest of it was composed of securities. The gang had a dubious honor of being the first to use an automobile to flee the scene of crime.
On December 28, 1911 the gang broke into a gun shop in Paris center. In the night of January 2-3 they entered the rich home of M. Moreau and killed both him and his maid in a brutal manner. The booty was equal to 30,000 francs. The latter crime aroused a public outcry.
French central police Surete Nationale made its best to catch the gang. They were able to arrest just one man based on their registers of anarchist organizations. Gang fled temporary to Belgium, where they sold the stolen automobile and tried to took another from its driver. In the process they shot a Belgian policeman.
The gang continued their automobile thefts, robberies and shot two more policemen in the process. Note that automobiles were still expensive and uncommon and most of them were stolen from garages, not from the street.
By March 1912 police had arrested many of the gang’s supporters and knew most of them by face or by name. In March 1912 gang member - and would-be-leader - Octave Garnier sent a mocking letter to Surete – with his fingerprints. At the time French police still did not use fingerprinting.
On March 25, 1912 the gang stole a de Dion-Bouton automobile in Senart forest south of Paris by shooting the driver into head. They drove into Chantilly, north of Paris, where they robbed the local branch of Societe Generale bank – they simply shot the three cashiers. They escaped with the automobile when two policemen tried to catch them, one by horse and another one by bicycle.
Another public outcry ensued. Chief of Surete, Xavier Guichard, took the matter personally. Even politicians became concerned, increased police funding by 800,000 francs and increased police support. Banks begun to prepare for forthcoming robberies and armed the cashiers. Societe Generale promised a reward of 100,000 francs for information that would lead to arrests.
On March 30, police arrested Andrey Soudy from the English Channel coast – he announced that he did not care whether he died of tuberculosis or by guillotine. Eduard Carouy was arrested April 3. Raymond Callemin was arrested April 7 and police had to prevent an angry mob from lynching him on the spot. Antoine Monnier was arrested in Paris April 24. By the end of April police had arrested 28 gang members and supporters. Bonnot, Octave Garnier and Rene Valet were still at large.
On April 24, three policeman surprised Bonnot in an apartment of a suspected fence Gauzy. He shot one of them, wounded another and fled over the rooftops. Part of the 100,000 reward was later given to the widow of the killed policeman, Jouin.
On April 28, police had tracked Bonnot to Paris suburb of Choisy le Roi. They besieged the place with 500 armed policemen and soldiers, firemen, military engineers and private gun-users. By noon, after a sporadic firing from both sides, Chief of Paris Police, Lepines, sent three policemen to put a dynamite charge under the house. The explosion tore down the front of the building. Bonnot was hiding in a middle of mattress and tried to shoot back until Lepines shot him, non-fatally, to the head. Afterwards police again had to prevent the spectators from lynching Bonnot. Afterwards police just told that Bonnot had been buried in a secret grave.
In the evening of May 14 Octave Garnier and Rene Valet were besieged in Paris suburb of Nogent sur Marne with 300 policemen and gendarmes and 800 soldiers. Xavier Guichard himself led the siege. Firing was intense from both sides and at 2 AM Guichard decided to blow the place up. Garnier died in the explosion and but Valet tried to keep firing despite of his wounds.
Trial of survivors of the gang begun in February 3, 1913. Viktor Serge was sentenced for five years for robbery. All the others were initially sentenced to death. Sentence of Eugene Dieudonne was commuted to life imprisonment. Sentences of Eduard Carouy and Marius Metge were commuted to life imprisonment with hard labor. Carouy later committed suicide. Metge was sent to a penal colony. Raymond Callemin, Antoine Monnier and Andre Soudy refused to plea for clemency and they were executed by guillotine in April 21, 1913.