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Maxime Marie Abel Joseph Vuillaume (19 November 1844 – 25 November 1925), Chevalier of theLegion of Honour, was a French engineer, particularly known for his work on theGotthard Tunnel. He was also a journalist and pamphleteer. He was involved in theParis Commune of 1871, on the fall of which he was forced to go into exile, and later wrote several volumes of detailed memoirs of the Commune (Mes Cahiers Rouges).
Vuillaume was born inSaclas, inSeine-et-Oise (now inEssonne), son of Claude Joseph Vuillaume and his wife Augustine (née Grégoire). He studied at theCollège Sainte-Barbe and theÉcole des Mines. In his youth in Paris he frequented revolutionary circles.
In 1871 Vuillaume withEugène Vermersch andAlphonse Humbert re-founded the newspaperLe Père Duchêne, which took its name from the journal ofJacques-René Hébert at the time of theFrench Revolution.
After theBloody Week (la Semaine sanglante) in May 1871 which brought the Paris Commune to its end, he fled to Switzerland, withEugène Protot and other communards, passing through theJura. In 1872 he was engaged as the secretary of the entrepreneurLouis Favre, based inAltdorf inUri. From that position during the active phase of the excavation and construction of the Saint-Gotthard tunnel he was able to observe and write about the work at close hand. By his numerous articles published inLa Nature (a science review) under the pseudonymMaxime Hélène, he made generally known the progress of the works on the tunnel and the person of Louis Favre. He also published articles on explosives, which was his speciality.
In 1878, Louis Favre entrusted to him, for the requirements of the digging of the tunnel, the management of thedynamite factory set up atVarallo Pombia inPiedmont. In 1882, he became director of a new dynamite factory inLiguria. He then became director of the Société continentale des Glycérines et Dynamites, which was founded in Lyon in 1882.
He later (1887) returned to Paris, where as a journalist he wrote for various reviews includingL'Aurore. He wassyndic of the Association des journalistes républicains.
Vuillaume was one of the survivors of the Commune, likeVictorine Brocher andGustave Lefrançais, to bear witness to it in later years. He wroteMes Cahiers Rouges, memoirs in 10 parts, published between 1908, with a preface byLucien Descaves, and 1908. These memoirs are highly regarded, and Vuillaume has been described as "the best memoirist of the second half of the 19th century".[1]
In his old age, after the death of his wife, he lived at the Fondation Galignani, an old people's home and hospice inNeuilly-sur-Seine, where he died on 25 November 1925.
