X-Nico

Martial Bourdin

Martial Bourdin (1868 - 1894) was a French anarchist, who died on 15 February 1894 when chemical explosives that he was carrying prematurely detonated outside the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park.

•

Bourdin's gruesome death -- and the mystery surrounding his act of terrorism -- inspired Joseph Conrad's novel, The Secret Agent as well as a mention in the T.S. Eliot poem Animula, under the name Boudin.

•

Later, police investigators discovered that Bourdin had left his room on Fitzroy Street in London and traveled by tram from Westminster to Greenwich Park.

see also