Jules Bonnot, Conan Doyle's chauffeur, became the most wanted criminal after the robbery of the Societé Generale branch in the Parisian district of Chantilly.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator the unforgettable Sherlock Holmes, always had a love hate relationship with crime. While Doyle strove to create the most complex crime stories, he had a protagonist in the flesh. at the wheel of his own car. Jules Bonnot.
Conan Doyle's driver, he was a lover of cars and weapons, an anarchist, a rebel and went down in history for a media robbery at the Société Générale branch in the Parisian district of Chantilly, which shocked the whole of France. The paradox is that the creator of a character who did not let any criminal go unpunished, never suspected which his chauffeur was a famous bank robber and one of the most wanted criminals by the French police.
Bonnot: Origins
Jules Joseph Bonnot was born in Pont-de-Roide, France, in 1876. After his childhood was ravaged by the untimely passing of his mother when he only had five yearsHis father, an illiterate foundry worker, took over his education. Jules dropped out of school and started working at just fourteen in the metallurgical industry.
Adult life
All the fights with their bosses were constant and he soon became known for his violent character. Throughout his life, the assault convictionsFrom a fight at a dance to hitting your boss with an iron bar to assaulting a police officer.
Got married with Sofie-Louise Burdet, a dressmaker with whom emigrated to Geneva. They had a child. In 1903, a new family misfortune marked the life of Bonnot, when his brother hanged himself after suffering a love disappointment. Only six years after their marriage, his wife left him, taking their son with her.
Political life
His life was a journey of jobs and layoffs in different French and Swiss cities: after going through military service, where he learned mechanics and showed exceptional talent with engines, he began to publicly show his sympathy for the anarchist movement. He was fired at a Bellegarde railway company for heating up the atmosphere with his political harangues, he settled in Lyon where he found a job in an engine factory. There they taught him to drive to become the chauffeur of one of the company's executives, but upon learning of his union and anarchist history, he was fired again and had to move to Paris.
After the abandonment of his wife, he joined officially to the anarchist movement where they distributed propaganda brochures throughout the city and informed the citizens.
Jules Bonnot founded the Bonnot Gang together with Plátano Sorrentino, both members of the most radical phase of the anarchist party.
Criminal Life and the birth of the Bonnot Gang
From that moment on, Bonnot began a criminal career that began with petty theft, then luxury cars, and later, burglaries at the homes of wealthy families.
Forced to leave the country to avoid arrest, he fled to England, where he worked for Conan Doyle. There he met Banana Sorrentino, described by the French police as a dangerous radical anarchist and with him who returned to Paris. They began to carry out a bloody criminal activity where other members of the anarchist movement joined. His violent acts and robberies Société Générale produced more than one death. La Bonnot gang was the first organized gang to practice bank robbery with the planned escape in a car that waited for them at the door while they carried out the robbery, driven by Bonnot himself. All the French police had their eye on The Bonnot Gang and they became the media center of the country's press. Bonnot's favorite getaway car was the Delaunay-Belleville.
End of the Bonnot Gang and its members
The final fate of the gang members was diverse: Some were tried, others were shot dead by the Gendarmerie. Little by little the band was dissolving but the most important, the leader of all, was missing. Bonnot took refuge in the Parisian suburb of Choisy-le-Roi. There he had time to entrench himself and write his will and a letter to the woman he loved then, who had also been arrested. The letter ended like this:
«He didn't ask for much. I walked with her under the moonlight through the Lyon cemetery, deluding myself that there was no need for anything else to live. It was the happiness that he had pursued all his life, without being able to even dream of it. He had found it and discovered what it was. The happiness that had always been denied me. He had the right to experience that happiness. You have not granted it to me. And then it has been worse for me, worse for you, worse for everyone… Should I regret what I have done? Maybe. But I have no regrets. Regrets, yes, but in any case, no regrets.
In 1912, the police raided his house and Bonnot was shot to death.. I had 36 years.
And Conan Doyle finally finds out what happened
In 1925, Conan Doyle was in Lyon visiting the Crime Museum of the city, where the most famous criminals in the history of the country were shown when, to the surprise of his companions, Doyle stopped before a photo of the exhibition and exclaimed:
"But it's Jules, my old chauffeur!".
According to other versions of this story, it was a close friend of the writer who recognized Bonnot's photo at the Lyon exhibition.
If you want to know more about Bonnot's life, the Italian writer Pino Cacucci wrote his biography in his novel In no case, no remorse. And you can also see the film La Bande a Bonnot (1968) by French director Philippe Fourastié.