Jules Vallès (11 June 1832 – 14 February 1885) was a French journalist, author, and left-wing political activist.
Early life
Vallès was born in Le Puy-en-Velay, Haute-Loire. His father was a supervisor of studies (pion), later a teacher, and unfaithful to Jules' mother. Jules was a brilliant student. The Revolution of 1848 in France found him participating in protests in Nantes where his father had been assigned to teach. It was during this period that he began to align himself with the budding socialist movement. After being sent to Paris to prepare for his entrance into Lycée Condorcet (1850) he neglected his studies altogether. He took part in the uprising against Napoleon III during the French coup of 1851, fighting together with his friend Arthur Ranc at one of the rare barricades on December 2. Vallès later fled to Nantes, where his father had him committed to a mental institution.(ref 1978, Bernard Noël e.a.) Thanks to help from his friend Antoine Arnould, he managed to escape a few months later. He returned to Paris, where he joined the staff of Le Figaro, and became a regular contributor to the other leading journals.
In 1853 he was arrested for conspiring against Napoleon III, but was later freed due to a lack of evidence. He lived in poverty, writing journalism for bread (the stock market page of the Figaro even, until fired for his bias against capitalism). It was under these conditions that he wrote his first book L'Argent (1857). Les Amours de Paille (1859), a comedy written in collaboration with Poupart-Davyl, was a failure.(ref 1990 Alain Viala) At the insistence of his colleague Henri Rochefort he found an administrative job issuing birth certificates for the Vaugirard town hall.(1860) He became a steady friend of Hector Malot and began to live with his lover, Joséphine Lapointe. He decided to become a pion himself in Caen, but was quickly discharged. Back in Paris, his friend Hector Malot helped him reacquire his job at the town hall. In 1864–1865 he wrote literary criticism for Progrès de Lyon. In 1865 he collected much of his newspaper work in a book Les Refractaires that sold well. A second collection in 1866 La Rue had less success. In 1867 he started the newspaper La Rue, which was later suppressed by the government after a mere eight months of publication.
Republican opposition
By this time he was a recognized leader of the republican opposition against the Second French Empire. In 1865 he had lost his job at Vaugirard for a speech he gave against the capitalist society of the Second Empire, eluding the censorship by advertising a talk on Balzac. In 1868 he was twice convicted for press crimes: one month in prison for criticizing the police, two months for criticising the Empire. At the elections of 1869 he was the candidate to the left opposing the moderate Jules Simon. He lost the election and went to work for La Marseillaise the newspaper of Henri Rochefort, meanwhile contributing to La Liberté of Émile de Girardin.
In the summer of 1869 members of several "Chambres syndicales" of Paris workers rented a space at nr 6, Place de la Corderie to hold the meetings of the "Chambre fédérale des Sociétés ouvrières", the "Conseil fédéral des sections parisiennes de l'Internationale", and as the events unfolded the "Comité central républicain des Vingt Arrondissements" (1870) and the "Comité central de la Garde nationale". (March 1871) It was to be the very organisational center of the Paris Commune. Its activities are prominently described in Jacques Vingtras:L'Insurgé. Jules Vallès had friends and connections among all the tendencies represented: Proudhon, Blanquist, Marxist and while he was himself independent of all of them he represented the active force of each. He was well known and well liked and when in 1870 the Government of National Defence spread the rumour that the candidates of the extreme left including Vallès had been on the payroll of the Imperial police at the 1869 elections, the Corderie gave him a vote of confidence.
1870
The year leading up to the Paris Commune began with the assassination of Victor Noir (January 10). Jules Vallès and Henri Rochefort found themselves at the head of the mass manifestation at Victor Noir's funeral (January 12); Rochefort interceding with the blanquist Gustave Flourens who wanted to begin the anti-imperial insurrection there and then.