Departures of note

Pierre Martinet, known as Pol or the Pariah, was a French anarchist and Dreyfusard activist who became one of the principal founders of European individualist anarchism. Born into a landowning family in 1848, he accumulated a criminal record from an early age, including convictions for theft, carrying a prohibited weapon, and seditious crimes. In 1884, he gained prominence during the Salle Lévis affair, when he led a group of anarchists in a violent clash with Blanquist socialists at a labour meeting, helping to seize the platform and drive the socialists out. Months later, he assaulted deputy Achille Scrépel at another meeting and fled France, only to be arrested and imprisoned upon his return.

After his release in the late 1880s, Martinet rejoined Parisian anarchist circles and became one of the first militants to self-identify as an individualist anarchist. He founded two of the earliest European anarchist individualist publications, L'Anarchie (1890–1891) and La Renaissance (1895–1896), and organized public events such as the soup-conferences, where the homeless were fed and addressed. His erratic behaviour and unexplained financial ease led many fellow anarchists, including Jean Grave, to suspect him of being a police informant—a charge he denied. Despite these accusations, he remained connected to prominent figures like Charles Malato, Vittorio Pini, and Ravachol, the latter two requesting his intervention at their trials to defend them.

During the Dreyfus affair, Martinet fought against antisemitism and was linked to the Ligue des droits de l'homme, founded by Francis de Pressensé. He also publicly criticized the antisemitic activist Édouard Drumont, with whom he had shared a prison cell, accusing him of opportunism. In 1892, he was sentenced to one year in prison for his involvement in producing posters calling for military insubordination, and he later endorsed the actions of Émile Henry, seeing him as a symbol of individualist anarchism. After the turn of the century, Martinet gradually withdrew from activism, taking up acting and writing theatrical plays. By 1918, Charles Malato noted that he had entirely abandoned anarchism and become a property owner. He died in Clermont on 6 October 1919.