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Victor Noir was born Yvan Salmon at Attigny, Vosges. He lived as an ordinary man from 27th July 1848 until he met his death on 11th January 1870 in France as a journalist.
He adopted the name ‘Vicor Noir’ as his pen name after his mother’s maiden name. He moved to Paris, France during his early life and became an apprentice journalist for ‘La Marseillais‘, a company operated by Henri Rochefort and edited by Paschal Grausset in Paris, France.
Victor Noir’s shooting.
On 10th January 1870, poor Victor Noir found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The cousin of Emperor Napoleon III, Prince Pierre Bonaparte, was angry about an article that had been published in “La Marseillaise”. Because of this, he challenged the editor of the newspaper to a duel. Acting on behalf of his editor, Victor went to help set up the details.
When Victor Noir was in the middle of establishing a time and place for the duel, things got tense. The prince lost his cool in a major way, pulled out his pistol, and shot and killed poor Victor.
Read:Victor Noir’s Mysterious Erection
The aftermath of Victor Noir’s killing.
A public outcry followed and on 12 January, led by political activist Auguste Blanqui, more than 100,000 people joined Noir’s funeral procession to a cemetery in Neuilly. Attendance in this procession was regarded as a civic duty for Republicans. When Marie François Sadi Carnot endorsed electoral candidates, he often identified them as such attendees. (“Il a été au convoi de Victor Noir.”)
At a time when the emperor was already unpopular, Pierre’s acquittal on the murder charge caused enormous public outrage and a number of violent demonstrations.
The Franco-Prussian War resulted in the overthrow of the Emperor’s regime on 4 September 1870 and the establishment of the Third Republic.
Read: INSIDE THE TAJ MAHAL; INDIA’S HERITAGE, A WORLD WONDER.
Victor Noir’s body was moved to Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Against expectations, it wasn’t his death or the political consequences of the shooting that made Victor Noir famous. It was his grave. Twenty years after Noir’s death, in 1891, following the establishment of the Third French Republic, the body of Victor Noir was moved from his hometown to Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris to honor his name and memory. A renowned French sculptor, Jules Dalou, was given the job of creating the sculpture in bronze for Noir’s grave.
The sexiest tomb in Paris.
The statue became a fertility symbol – the story says those who kiss the statue on the lips, leave a flower in Victor’s hat and rub the genital area will find themselves with enhanced fertility, great sex life, or find a husband within one year.
The lips and trousers’ bulge on the grave is noticeably shiny from people kissing and rubbing them. In 2004, a fence was built around the grave to prevent women from touching the statue but after many protests, it was taken down.
