Victor Noir

French journalist (1848–1870) Victor NoirIllustration of Noir, 1900BornYvan Salmon27 July 1848Attigny, Vosges, FranceDied11 January 1870(1870-01-11) (aged 21)Auteuil, Paris, FranceResting placePère Lachaise CemeteryOccupationJournalist Yvan Salmon (27 July 1848 – 11 January 1870), known by his pen name Victor Noir, was a French journalist. After he was shot and killed by Prince Pierre Bonaparte, a cousin of the French Emperor Napoleon III (r. 1852–1870), Noir became a symbol of opposition to the imperial regime. His tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris has become a fertility symbol. Early life, family and education He was born Yvan Salmon at Attigny, Vosges, the son of a Jewish cobbler who had converted to Catholicism. Career He adopted "Victor Noir" as his pen name after his mother's maiden name. He moved to Paris and became an apprentice journalist for the newspaper La Marseillaise, owned and operated by Henri Rochefort and edited by Paschal Grousset. Shooting Background In December 1869, a dispute broke out between two Corsican newspapers, the radical La Revanche, inspired from afar by Grousset; and the loyalist L'Avenir de la Corse, edited by an agent of the Ministry