Alfred Léon Gérault-Richard

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Alfred Léon Gérault-Richard (1860 – 6 December 1911) was a French journalist and socialist politician. Born into a peasant family in Bonnétable, Sarthe, he worked as an upholsterer in Le Mans and later in Paris, where his peasant and socialist songs made him popular in Montmartre. Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray helped him get a job on La Bataille, and he became a regular contributor to progressive journals, especially La Petite République, where he was editor-in-chief in 1897. In 1893 he founded Le Chambard and was imprisoned for a year in 1894 for a personal attack on President Jean Casimir-Perier. In January 1895 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a Socialist Party member for Paris’s 13th arrondissement. He was defeated in 1898, but he was re-elected twice (1902–1906, 1906–1911) representing Guadeloupe. He died in Fréjus.