The Limited Times

The day a bomb exploded inside the National Assembly

1/27/2023, 7:33:36 PM


SECRETS OF THE ASSEMBLY (1/12) - On December 9, 1893, in the middle of a session in the Hemicycle, around fifty deputies were injured by an attack from the stands. The author, who has fled, forces the Palais Bourbon to barricade itself.

Gentlemen, the session continues!

Nearly 130 years ago, on December 9, 1893, Charles Dupuy coldly pronounced this laconic sentence.

Half an hour earlier, a bomb exploded in the Hemicycle.

Democracy has just been attacked at its core.

And the political consequences of this attack will be lasting.

But, facing the deputies - and despite the many injuries to be deplored -, the President of the National Assembly launched: "

It is the dignity of the Chamber of the Republic that in such attacks, wherever they come from and whose cause, moreover, we do not know, do not trouble legislators.

»

It is 4 p.m. that day when a deafening noise shakes the walls of the Palais Bourbon.

Everywhere, a rain of projectiles falls on the chosen ones caught in a thick yellowish smoke.

The cloud swells until it invades the room, from floor to ceiling.

A suspended moment, a few seconds of calm... Then cries of pain from both sides of the Hemicycle break the silence.

Over there, a deputy, whose skull has been torn by a nail, looks at his bloody hands.

A little further on, one of his colleagues has his face riddled...

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