Zo d'Axa | |
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| Born | Alphonse Gallaud de la Pérouse 28 May 1864 Paris, France |
| Died | 30 August 1930 (1930-08-31) (aged 66) Marseille, France |
Alphonse Gallaud de la Pérouse (28 May 1864 – 30 August 1930), better known asZo d'Axa (French pronunciation:[zodaksa]), was a French adventurer,anti-militarist,satirist,journalist, and founder of two of the most legendary French magazines,L'EnDehors andLa Feuille. A descendant of the famous French navigatorJean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse, he was one of the most prominent Frenchindividualist anarchists at the turn of the 20th century.[1]
He was a sort of Socialistcondottieri, a dandy, a rake, and a natural adventurer. Ernest La Jeunesse nicknamed him the Restaurant Recruit.
— Jules Bertaut,Paris 1870-1935, 2007.[2]
D'Axa was acavalryman but deserted toBelgium and was exiled to Italy in 1889.[2] There he ran an ultra-Catholic newspaper and seduced the native womenfolk.[2] According to popular myth, d'Axa during his time in Italy was hesitating between becoming an anarchist or a religiousmissionary when he was accused (wrongfully, he contended) of insulting theEmpress of Germany, and was made an anarchist by the subsequent legal proceedings against him.[3] He spent the next few years being pursued from one country to the next by the police, before taking advantage of the general amnesty and returning to France.[2]
At this point, having led (in the words of historianJules Bertaut) "a most disreputable life", and being an agitator by temperament, d'Axa gravitated towards theanarchist movement.[2] He founded the famous anarchist newspaperL'EnDehors in May 1891 in which numerous contributors such asJean Grave,Louise Michel,Sébastien Faure,Octave Mirbeau,Tristan Bernard andÉmile Verhaeren developedlibertarian ideas.[2] D'Axa andL'EnDehors rapidly became the target of the authorities after attacks byRavachol and d'Axa was arrested, charged with 'association to commit crimes' and kept inMazas Prison. After his release he wrote numerous pamphlets and metCamille Pissarro andJames Whistler inLondon. He was again arrested in Jaffa, and transferred toSainte-Pélagie Prison,Paris, where he spent 18 months before his release in july 1894.[4] He died from suicide in 1930, burning most of his papers the previous night.[5][6]
Anindividualist andaesthete, d'Axa justified the use ofviolence as an anarchist, seeingpropaganda of the deed as akin to works of art.[7] Anarchists, he wrote, "had no need to hope for distant better futures, they know a sure means of plucking the joy immediately: destroy passionately!"[8] "It is simple enough.", d'Axa proclaimed of his contemporaries, "If our extraordinary flights (nos fugues inattendues) throw people out a little, the reason is that we speak of everyday things as the primitive barbarian would, were he brought across them."[9] D'Axa was abohemian who "exulted in his outsider status",[7] and praised the anti-capitalist lifestyle of itinerant anarchist bandit precursors of the Frenchillegalists.[10] He expressed contempt for the masses and hatred for their rulers.[11] He was an important anarchist interpreter of thephilosophy ofindividualist anarchistMax Stirner,[12] defender ofAlfred Dreyfus during theDreyfus affair and opponent of prisons and penitentiaries.
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