Fernand-Gustave-Gaston Labori
Encyclopedia
Fernand-Gustave-Gaston Labori (April 18, 1860 – March 14, 1917) was a French
attorney. He was born in Rheims. In his professional life, he defended the accused in some of the most prominent political cases in of his day. Among his noted clients was Alfred Dreyfus
, who was eventually acquitted of treason
. During the Dreyfus trial he was the victim of an assassination attempt which hospitalised him for a week, the attacker was never identified.
His speeches were regarded as masterpieces of forensic eloquence.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
attorney. He was born in Rheims. In his professional life, he defended the accused in some of the most prominent political cases in of his day. Among his noted clients was Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French and European history...
, who was eventually acquitted of treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
. During the Dreyfus trial he was the victim of an assassination attempt which hospitalised him for a week, the attacker was never identified.
Legal career
Labori was the defence counsel for- the anarchist Auguste VaillantAuguste VaillantAuguste Vaillant was a French anarchist, most famous for his bomb attack on the French Chamber of Deputies on 9 December 1893. The government's reaction to this attack was the passing of the infamous repressive Lois scélérates.He threw the home-made device from the public gallery and was...
who threw a bomb into the French Chamber of DeputiesChamber of DeputiesChamber of deputies is the name given to a legislative body such as the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or can refer to a unicameral legislature.-Description:...
injuring twenty people. He was sentenced to death. - Émile ZolaÉmile ZolaÉmile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
in 1898 in the Dreyfus trial. - Captain Alfred Dreyfus at the court martial in Rennes in 1899.
- Thérèse HumbertThérèse HumbertThérèse Humbert was a French female fraudster, who pretended to be an heir of an imaginary American millionaire Robert Crawford.Humbert was born Thérèse Daurignac, a peasant girl in Aussonne, Languedoc, France. As a child, she once convinced her friends to pool their jewelry so that she could fool...
, in the case of the Crawford inheritance she pretended to be an heir of American millionaire Robert Crawford. It was sometimes described as 'the swindle of the century'. - Henriette CaillauxHenriette CaillauxHenriette Caillaux was a Parisian socialite and second wife of the former Prime Minister of France. She is remembered as an assassin.-Biography:...
, wife of Caillaux in 1914.
His speeches were regarded as masterpieces of forensic eloquence.