Alexandre-Albert Martin, dit l'ouvrier Albert

Alexandre Martin (27 April 1815 – 28 May 1895), nicknamed Albert l'Ouvrier ("Albert the Worker"), was a French

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

statesman of the French Second Republic. He was the first member of the industrial working class to be in French government.

Early life

Albert was born in Bury, in the

Oise Oise ( ; ; pcd, Oése) is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise. Inhabitants of the department are called ''Oisiens'' () or ''Isariens'', after the Latin name for the river, Isara. It had a population of 829,419 ...

département In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level ("territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. Ninety- ...

'' to a peasant family. As a young man he moved to Paris, where he served as an apprentice in his uncle's machine shop; later, he worked as a machinist in a button factory. He participated in the

July Revolution The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution (french: révolution de Juillet), Second French Revolution, or ("Three Glorious ays), was a second French Revolution after the first in 1789. It led to the overthrow of King ...

of 1830. Throughout his public life, he was known simply as "Albert the Worker," and was closely associated with the socialist Louis Blanc. He was a member of a variety of secret revolutionary societies in the 1830s and 1840s. He was made leader of the revolutionary ''Nouvelles Saisons'' society in 1839, and editor of the ''

l'Atelier ''The Workshop'' (french: L'Atelier) is a 2017 French drama film directed by Laurent Cantet. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. Plot Olivia, a well-known Parisian novelist, runs a writing worksho ...

'' the following year.

1848

He fought on the barricades in the revolution of 1848, and was a member of the socialist government that formed at the Hôtel de Ville. When the socialists were included into the provisional government, Louis Blanc made Albert – by this time a popular figure among the workers – a secretary. He was sent to the

Luxembourg Commission The Government Commission for Workers (french: Commission du gouvernement pour les travailleurs), best known as the Labour Commission (french: Commission du travail, label=none) or the Luxembourg Commission (french: Commission du Luxembourg, label=n ...

– the provisional government's labor commission – as Louis Blanc's vice-president, a position he held until the 15 May riots. Albert and Blanc were two of the six members of the Luxembourg Commission to be elected in the April elections. The socialists – who, through the Luxembourg Commission ran a virtual state-within-a-state – clashed with the Assembly. Blanc's proposal for a fully fledged ministry of labor in keeping with his ideal for "national workshops" was rejected on 10 May. By this time, Albert had lost faith in the provisional government, and, together with Louis Auguste Blanqui and Armand Barbès, attempted an insurrection of his own. On 15 May, they led a crowd, demonstrating against the government; the riot was bloodily suppressed by the bourgeois National Guards, and Albert and Barbès were captured at the Hôtel de Ville.

Trial, prison, and later life

Albert did not defend himself at the subsequent trial at

Bourges Bourges () is a commune in central France on the river Yèvre. It is the capital of the department of Cher, and also was the capital city of the former province of Berry. History The name of the commune derives either from the Bituriges, ...

, in 1849. He was thus found guilty of

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

and an attempt to incite revolution, and sent to prison on Belle Île for four years. When he became ill in 1854, he was transferred to

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metr ...

, where he remained until he was released by the general

amnesty Amnesty (from the Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία, ''amnestia'', "forgetfulness, passing over") is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power offic ...

of 16 August 1859. He returned to Paris as a working man, taking a job for the gas company. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, became a member of the ''Commission des Barricades'' in the Government of National Defense, and stood for election twice in the Third Republic – but lost both attempts. He retired to Mello in his home ''département'' of Oise. Upon his death in 1895, he was given a national funeral, and his tombstone was given by the government.

References

External links

''Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions'' entry on Albert l'OuvrierInternational Institute of Social History entry
(brief)
''Encyclopædia Britannica'' article
{{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Albert 1815 births 1895 deaths People from Oise Politicians from Hauts-de-France The Mountain (1849) politicians Members of the 1848 Constituent Assembly Members of the National Legislative Assembly of the French Second Republic

Early life

1848

Trial, prison, and later life

See also

References

External links