Achille Bianchi (died 1912) was an Italian-born French policeman who served in the "Tiger Brigades" in Paris during the 1910s. He was murdered by the Russian anarchists Constance Bolkonsky and Piotr Hernienko in 1912.
Biography[]
Achille Bianchi was born in Milan, Italy, and he later emigrated to France, settling in Paris. Bianchi joined the mobile police battalions, nicknamed the "Tiger Brigades" after their founder Georges Clemenceau, in 1912; Inspector Gustave Pujol disliked him due to his prejudices against Mediterranean immigrants, and Bianchi was initially assigned to clerical work. At the same time, he spied on the new police formation for the Paris Police Prefecture, tipping them off about Jules Bonnot's suspected hideouts so that the Prefecture made it to Bonnot before the Tiger Brigades did. Bianchi first took part in the 24 April 1912 attempted capture of Bonnot at Antoine Gauzy's locksmith shop, and, during the chase, he bumped into Constance Bolkonsky. Bianchi's involvement in the final shootout with Bonnot (during which he dynamited Bonnot's hideout and was injured in the blast) earned him the respect and friendship of Inspector Marcel Terrasson, who had carried him away from the blown-up house and asked that Bianchi talk to him on a first-name basis. Terrasson was thus betrayed when he picked up a telephone call meant for Bianchi and discovered that it came from the Prefecture; at the same time, the Prefecture forced Bianchi to betray his colleagues' plot to entrap the corrupt banker Casimir Cagne with a corrupt ledger, lest Prefect Louis Lepine arrange for Bianchi's deportation, and scar Bianchi's face with vitriol. Bianchi betrayed Pujol's lover Lea Dupuy as the woman who entrapped Cagne, leading to Dupuy being tortured and forced to withdraw her testimony, Cagne being released, and Pujol being fired as a scapegoat; Chief Inspector Paul Valentin resigned of his own volition, as he had ordered the operation.
Bianchi's death
Concurrently, Bianchi continued to work with the Prefecture to track down the last active member of the Bonnot Gang, whom he discovered to be Piotr Hernienko, an electrician working at the opera house. Bianchi went to the opera house to question Duchess Constance Bolkonsky about a friend of hers to whom Doctor Tanpisev had prescribed pervitine for; Tanpisev had identified Constance as the woman who had obtained the prescriptions. Constance feigned cooperation until Bianchi recognized her from outside Bonnot's hideout, making him suspicious, and leading to Hernienko jumping out of a wardrobe to strangle Bianchi. Bianchi gained the upper hand and beat Hernienko before Constance, deciding to take Hernienko's side, stabbed Achille in the back with a pair of scissors. Hernienko then shoved Bianchi against a wooden beam, burying the scissors in his back and killing him.