Millière, Jean-Baptiste

Born Dec 13, 1817, in Lamarche-sur-Saone, Cote d’Or; died May 26, 1871, in Paris. French revolutionary, Left Proudhonist socialist.

The son of a worker, Millière worked as a cooper from the time he was 13. During the Revolution of 1848, he was a contributor to revolutionary-democratic newspapers. He was exiled to Algeria for his opposition to the Bonapartist coup d’etat of Dec. 2, 1851, but returned to France after the amnesty of 1859. In late 1869 and 1870, he was business manager of the democratic newspaper La Marseillaise.

Milliere took part in the defense of Paris against the German siege of 1870 and participated in the uprising of Oct. 31, 1870, against the traitorous Government of National Defense. In February 1871, he was elected a deputy to the National Assembly. During the Paris Commune of 1871, Milliere wrote for the news-paper La Commune and was one of the organizers and leaders of the Republican Alliance of Departments, which spread the ideas of the Commune. During “May Week” he was seized by troops of Versailles and shot without trial on the steps of the Pantheon. One cause for this act of reprisal was the hatred for Milliere held by Minister of Foreign Aifairs J. Favre, whose criminal actions had been exposed in Milliere’s published writings.