Julien Enjolras (1806-6 June 1832) was a French republican revolutionary who led the Les Amis de l'ABC student secret society in Paris during the early 19th century. He was one of the leaders of the June Rebellion of 1832, and he was killed when the uprising was suppressed.
Biography[]
Enjolras' body
Julien Enjolras was born in Paris, Ile-de-France, France in 1806, and he became a radical republican while studying at university. Enjolras admired the radical Montagnard faction of the Jacobin Club, taking inspiration from Maximilien Robespierre and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's views. Enjolras founded the Les Amis de l'ABC revolutionary society, based at the Cafe Musain in Paris, and he and his fellow students took up arms against the Orleanist July Monarchy following the death of their political hero, Jean Maximilien Lamarque, in June 1832. After instigating a riot at Lamarque's funeral, Enjolras supervised the creation of a barricade on the Rue de la Chanvrerie, where he and his fellow student revolutionaries captured a police spy (Inspector Etienne Javert) and repelled a National Guard attack on the first night of the rebellion. However, Enjolras and the others were dismayed to see that, by the next morning, the people of Paris had not risen to join their revolution, and they resolved to fight to the last man, allowing any who wished to leave to do so. That afternoon, the National Guard attacked the barricade with cannons firing grapeshot, and Enjolras and his fellow revolutionaries were overwhelmed. Enjolras retreated into the cafe, where he and his friend Antoine Grantaire defiantly held up the barricade's red flag as the National Guardsmen fired on them, causing Enjolras to partly fall from the window, dangling from the ledge and draped in the red flag.