Jules Ardouin

French florist, anarchist and anti-militarist.

The son of the communard Alphonse Ardoin [sic], Jules Ardouin lived, at the end of the 1890s, at 86, rue de Cléry, in Paris 2e.

An admirer of Paul Robin’s educational theories, he partnered with Degalvès* and Émile Janvion to constitute, in June 1897, a League of Libertarian Education, of which he was the treasurer and who tried unsuccessfully to open a libertarian school. After a subscription campaign, the sum of 2,000 francs raised proved insufficient for the creation of the school, but “libertarian holidays” by the sea were organized for about twenty children (Les Temps louveaux of October 22, 1898) then, at the beginning of the school year, “we organized, for lack of better, evening classes”. Ardouin collaborated at the same time in the newspaper Le Cri de revolt.

In 1902 he was among the initiators of the libertarian colony of Vaux, near Château-Thierry (see Georges Butaud).

In October-December 1906 he was treasurer of the newsletter L’AIA, organ of the International Anti-Militarian Association.

After the events of Villeneuve-Saint-Georges and the ensuing wave of arrests, Jules Ardouin co-founded the Social Defense Committee (CDS), of which he was the treasurer. The CDS was domiciled at home, at 86, rue de Cléry, in Paris 2nd.

At dawn on 11 June 1909, his home was raided as part of the investigation into the wave of sabotage against telegraph and telephone lines.

During the Ferrer affair, he financed the circulation of the newspaper L’Écho de Montjuich, inserted in Les Temps nouvelles, and he was arrested on 9 September 1909 during a demonstration on the outskirts of the Spanish embassy.

On 16 October 1909, called to be sworn at the sequels of the Seine, he refused, and wrote to the judge: “In 1893, called to be part of the jury I had asked to be excused because society doing nothing to prevent crime, I do not recognize him the right to judge. Since that time, since no social transformation that could change the face of things, society has always remained the great responsibility of crime. Thinking this, it is impossible for me to be a sworn. »

Ardouin had also helped Jean Grave several times when Les Temps nouvelles had experienced difficulties, by paying him a monthly subscription of 80 francs. And he paid at least 500 francs in support.

In the spring of 1910, he was a member, together with his father, of the Anti-Parliamentary Revolutionary Committee (see Jules Grandjouan) and participated in his campaign. In June 1912, he was a member of the committee of L’Entr’aide, a solidarity fund with imprisoned activists and their families, driven by the FCA (see Édouard Lacourte). In October 1912, he was a member of the “extended” board of directors of the Libertaire (see Charles Keller).

Inscribed in Booklet B, Ardouin was reformed No. 2 in 1914 and maintained as such by the reform council on 7 February 1915. He died two years later.