3-028-256 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Funeral of Victor Noir at Neuilly, 1870. On 11 January 1870, Noir, a journalist for the "Marseillaise" newspaper, was shot and killed by Prince Pierre Bonaparte, a cousin of the Emperor Napoleon III. The funeral took place '...in the cemetery at Neuilly; and it had been feared that some breach of the peace, leading to a sanguinary conflict, would have attended the proposed demonstration. The father and brother of the deceased, Messrs. Salmon, refused, however, to let this mournful ceremony be converted into an exhibition of political spite, or an exciting appeal to the feelings of the populace...There was a vast concourse of people along the road, and in front of the house in the Passage Massena, at Neuilly, where the deceased had lived, and from which his coffin was to be carried to the cemetery. They unharnessed the horses from the hearse, and six men drew it to the place of interment; but no speeches were made, and there was no disorder'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.