3-028-388 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Prince Pierre Bonaparte's house at Auteuil, Paris, 1870. 'The disastrous and scandalous affair of the killing of M. Victor Noir by Prince Pierre Bonaparte, a cousin of the Emperor Napoleon III. This act of homicide...was committed...at the private house of the Prince, No. 59, Rue d'Auteuil...The Prince...has been engaged...in a fierce controversy with the Marseillaise [newspaper]...The insults and calumnies with which [it] had assailed the whole family of the Bonapartes seem to have provoked him to violent expressions of rage and scorn...The statement of M. de Fonvielle is that he and M. Victor Noir were sent by M. Paschal Grousset to demand satisfaction [ie a challenge to a duel] for the insulting articles by the Prince..."suddenly and without any provocation on our part, Prince Bonaparte struck M. Victor Noir on the face with his left hand, and, at the same time drawing a six-barrelled revolver which he had concealed in his pocket, he fired point-blank upon M. Noir"...The poor young man died in a few minutes, in a druggist's shop, having been shot through the lungs...The Marseillaise of next day contained most violent articles, denouncing vengeance against all the Bonapartes as a set of murderers and assassins'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.