Alfred Léon Gérault-Richard

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Alfred Léon Gérault, known as Gérault-Richard (1860-1911), was a French journalist and socialist politician, born at Bonnétable (in the départment of Sarthe) of a peasant family.

He began life as a working upholsterer, first at Le Mans, then at Paris (1880), where his peasant and socialist songs soon won him fame in the Montmartre quarter. Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, the communard, offered him a position on La Bataille, and he became a regular contributor to the progressive journals, especially to La Petite République, of which he became editor-in-chief in 1897.

In 1893 he founded Le Chambard, and was imprisoned for a year (1894) on account of a personal attack upon the president, Jean Casimir-Perier. In January 1895 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a member of the Socialist Party for the XIIIth arrondissement of Paris. Gérault-Richard was defeated at the elections of 1898 at Paris, but was twice re-elected (1902-1906 and in 1906-1911) by the colony of Guadeloupe. He died in Fréjus.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article "Gerault - Richard, Alfred Leon", a publication now in the public domain.
• French deputies associated with the conflict over Laïcité