Victor Noir was the rather punkish nom de plume of Yvan Salmon (1848-1870), a journalist at the republican newspaper La Marseillaise. On 10 January 1870 he called upon Pierre Bonaparte, a hothead cousin of Napoléon III, with the intention of organizing a duel for his editor-in-chief. The visit turned ugly, a pistol shot was fired, and Victor Noir, aged just 22, was fatally wounded. In order to quell popular outrage, the authorities decreed that his funeral should take place in Neuilly, then as now an enclave of the monied establishment. In spite of this, 100,000 people launched an insurrection that ultimately spelled the end of the Napoleonic régime. In 1891 the mortal remains of Victor Noir, by then a republican icon, were transferred to Père-Lachaise cemetery. (more…)