Victor Noir
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Victor Noir, (July 30, 1848 – January 10, 1870), was a French journalist.
Born Yvan Salmon at Attigny, Vosges, he went to Paris where he became a popular journalist for the newspaper "La Marseillaise" where he adopted the name Victor Noir as his pseudonym.
In 1870 he went to meet Prince Pierre Bonaparte, the great-nephew of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, and cousin of the then-ruling Emperor Napoleon III. Victor Noir and Ulric de Foinville were sent as witnesses to fix the terms of a duel with Pierre Bonaparte on behalf of politician Paschal Grousset. But an argument broke out and Pierre shot Noir dead.
A public outcry followed and on January 12, led by political activist Auguste Blanqui, more than 100,000 people joined Noir's funeral procession to a cemetery in Neuilly.
At a time when the Emperor was already unpopular, Pierre's acquittal on the murder charge caused enormous public outrage that erupted into a number of violent demonstrations. However a plebiscite was held over a new more liberal constitution and was approved by a crushing majority. The Republican cause appeared to be lost.
Separate events however led to the Franco-Prussian War which resulted in the overthrow of the Emperor's regime on September 4, 1870. Following the establishment of the Third Republic, the body of Victor Noir was moved to Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
A life-size bronze statue depicting Noir as he lay dying was sculpted by Jules Dalou to mark his grave. The sculpture was created with a very noticeable "life-size" protuberance in Noir's trousers that has made it one of the most popular memorials for females to visit in the famous cemetery. Myth says that placing a flower in the upturned tophat after rubbing the statue's genital area, lips, and foot will enhance fertility, bring a blissful sex life, or, in some versions, a husband within the year. As a result of the legend, those particular components of the tarnished bronze statue are rather well-worn.
In 2005 a fence was erected around the statue of Noir, to deter people from touching the statue. Due to the protests of the female population of Paris however, it was torn down again.
