Youth
Bonnot was born on October 14, 1876 in Pont-de-Roide, a town in Doubs, France (the same département in which anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was born). At the age of five, his mother died, leaving Bonnot in the care of his father (a factory worker) and grandmother.
As a teenager, Bonnot served time in prison on two occasions (the latter, for assaulting a police officer) and was compelled to leave his work at the factory after being accused of stealing copper shavings.
At the age of 21, Bonnot was conscripted for service in France's infantry, where he served three years as a truck auto mechanic. He was an excellent rifleman and left the army as a corporal first class.
Read more about this topic: Jules Bonnot
Famous quotes containing the word youth:
“We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“Remember thee?
Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“If I use the media, even with tricks, to publicise a black youth being shot in the back in Teaneck, New Jersey ... then I should be praised for it, and it’s more of a comment on them than me that it would take tricks to make them cover the loss of life.”
—Al, Rev. Sharpton (b. 1954)