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THE PROPAGANDA OF THE DEED 59
In 1882 the great silk industry of Lyons was undergoing
a serious crisis, and the misery among the weavers
was intense. The anarchists were carrying on a big agitation
led by Kropotkin, Gautier, Bordas, Bernard, and
others. In the center of this city reduced almost to
starvation there was, says Kropotkin, an "underground
cafe at the Theatre Bellecour, which remained open all
night, and where, in the small hours of the morning, one
could see newspaper men and politicians feasting and
drinking in company with gay women. Not a meeting
was held but some menacing allusion was made to that
cafe, and one night a dynamite cartridge was exploded
in it
by an unknown hand. A worker who was occasionally
there, a socialist, jumped to blow out the lighted
fuse of the cartridge, and was killed, while a few of the
feasting politicians were slightly wounded. Next day a
dynamite cartridge was exploded at the doors of a recruiting
bureau, and it was said that the anarchists intended
to blow up the huge statue of the Virgin which
stands on one of the hills of Lyons." (14) A panic
seized the wealthier classes of the city, and some sixty
anarchists were arrested, including Kropotkin. A great
trial, known as the Proces des Anarchistes de Lyons, ensued,
which lasted many weeks. At the conclusion only
three out of the entire number were acquitted. Although
nearly all the anarchists were condemned, the police of
Lyons were still
searching for the author of the explosion.
At last, Cyvoct, a militant anarchist of Lyons, was
identified as the one who had thrown the bomb. Cyvoct
had first gone to Switzerland, then to Brussels, in the
suburbs of which city he was finally arrested. He was
given over to the French police, appeared before the
court of assizes of the Rhone, and was condemned to