Paris: La Taverne du Croissant

Another restaurant, but this one is of historical significance: the assassination of Jean Jaurès, which took place on 31st July 1914.

Paris was seething with war fever. Jean Jaurès was a prominent journalist and socialist member of parliament, a pacifist and passionate campaigner against the headlong rush into war in Europe.

An ardent French nationalist called Raoul Villain had been tracking Jaurès for several days. When he discovered Jaurès sitting in this restaurant, with his back to the window, Villain shot from outside with a revolver and killed him instantly.

Villain explained his action as a patriotic act. He sat in prison until his trial in 1919, a time of rampant triumphalism at the end of the war, and was acquitted of murder. To add insult to injury, the widow of Jean Jaurès was then required to pay the legal costs of the trial.

Villain was executed in Ibiza in 1936 (early in the Spanish Civil War) as a suspected spy for Franco's army.


A few days before his death, Jaurès had said pessimistically to a friend: "Ah! croyez vous, tout, tout faire encore pour empêcher cette tuerie ?… D’ailleurs, on nous tuera d’abord, on le regrettera peut-être après" ("Don't you agree that we must continue to do all we can to prevent this slaughter? Anyway, they will kill us first of all, perhaps they will regret it later.")


The marble plaque to the left of the restaurant door reminds us of this murder.