Emile-Victor Duval

Born Nov. 27, 1840, in Paris; died Apr. 4, 1871, near Bicêtre. French socialist; advocate of Blanquism. Worker, by trade a founder.

Duval was a member of the Federal Council of the Paris sections of the First International, becoming secretary and later president of the Union of Founders. After the revolution of Sept. 4, 1870, he took part in the struggle against the antinational and compromising policies of the bourgeois “government of national defense.” Duval was one of the leaders of the uprising of Mar. 18, 1871. He was a military commandant and a delegate at the prefecture of police and later one of the three commanders of the armed forces of revolutionary Paris. On Mar. 26, 1871, the 13th district elected him to the Paris Commune of 1871. He became a member of its Executive and Military Commissions. During the Communards’ attack on Versailles on Apr. 3, 1871, he commanded one of the three columns. Duval was taken prisoner and shot by the Versailles forces.