Gaston Pierre Da Costa (15 December 1850 – 11 December 1909) was a French teacher, left-wing militant and communard.

Biography

Da Costa was born in Paris, the son of Eugène François Da Costa (1818–1888), teacher of mathematics, and his wife Adèle-Pauline (née Varenne). A follower of Auguste Blanqui while a student, in 1871, at the age of 20, Da Costa embraced the cause of the Paris Commune. He was deputy of the prosecutor Raoul Rigault, who was in charge of the police, and took part in the events in the capital until the fall of the insurgents. It was Da Costa, accompanied by

Eugène Protot Louis Charles Eugène Protot (27 January 1839 –17 February 1921) was a French lawyer (''avocat'') and a political opponent of the Second French Empire, Second Empire. During the Paris Commune in 1871, he was Minister of Justice (France), m ...

, who implemented the decision of the 1871 Committee of Public Safety to destroy the house of

Adolphe Thiers Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers ( , ; 15 April 17973 September 1877) was a French statesman and historian. He was the second elected President of France and first President of the French Third Republic. Thiers was a key figure in the July Rev ...

. In the face of the hostility of the crowd and the reluctance of the workmen commandeered to undertake the demolition, he struck the first blows of the pickaxe on the building's chimneys, while Protot broke the windows on the veranda. It required the arrival of a company of the communard Garde Nationale unit the "Vengeurs de Flourens" to disperse the hostile demonstration and to induce the workmen to start work. Da Costa was arrested at

La Varenne-Saint-Hilaire LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...

in June 1871 and was tried in July 1872 on charges of "violent action with the aim of changing the form of government, complicity in assassination, illegal arrests with threats of death". The council of war sentenced him to death. After an appeal for review which confirmed the initial judgement, and a further appeal to the Commission for Pardons, the sentence was commuted in January 1873 to

forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...

for life in the

penal colony of New Caledonia The penal colony of New Caledonia was a Prison, penitentiary establishment which was in operation from 1864 to 1924. Many French prisoners from mainland France (approximately 21,000) were Deportation, deported there. Divided into three categories ...

, where he was sent without delay. After the amnesty of 1880 he was repatriated on board the ''Loire'', which reached Brest on 7 June 1881,« Le retour des derniers amnistiés »
in ''Le Petit Parisien'', 19 June 1881 after which he occupied himself with pedagogical matters. In 1889 he published the ''Nouvelle méthode d'enseignement de la grammaire française'', which was approved by the municipal council of Paris. This work was followed by several handbooks for the use of pupils in primary schools, of which the last appeared in 1906. He was close to the left-wing of the

Boulangiste Georges Ernest Jean-Marie Boulanger (29 April 1837 – 30 September 1891), nicknamed Général Revanche ("General Revenge"), was a French general and politician. An enormously popular public figure during the second decade of the Third Repub ...

s in 1889. He also shared the convictions of Ernest Granger,

Ernest Roche Ernest Jean Roche (19 October 1850 – 27 December 1917) was a French engraver and socialist politician. He was of working class origin, and became involved in trade union activity while young. He was a supporter of the revolutionary socialist Lo ...

and Henri Rochefort and joined the Comité central socialiste révolutionnaire (CCSR). In 1904 he published his memoirs of the events in which he had taken part, while enlarging the viewpoint to the scale of historical analysis. The three volumes of ''La Commune vécue'', 30 years after the facts, provoked many reactions not only from his opponents but also from former communards. He died on 11 December 1909 at Bois-le-Roi.

Works

* ''Nouvelle méthode d'enseignement de la grammaire française'', revised and corrected by Jeannin, Paris, 1894 * ''Mémoires d'un communard: 18 Mars–28 Mai 1871, La Commune vécue''
vol. 1 onlinevol. 2 onlinevol.3 online
. ** ''Mémoires d'un communard: 18 mars–28 mai 1871, La Commune vécue'', Larousse, 2009, 383 pp. — condensed into one volume.

References

Bibliography

* ''La Commune'', Éditions Sociales, 1970

External links

Maitron.fr: notice DA COSTA Gaston, Pierre, put online 26 July 2009, latest modification 14 December 2021
{{DEFAULTSORT:Da Costa, Gaston 1850 births 1909 deaths Educators from Paris Blanquists 19th-century French educators 20th-century French educators 20th-century French historians Communards People deported to New Caledonia