Jacob was born in 1879 in Marseille to a working-class family. At the age of twelve, he signed up as a sailor's apprentice for a voyage that would carry him to Sydney where he deserted from the crew. Of his voyage he would later say, "I saw the world; it is not beautiful". After a short episode of piracy, which he soon rejected as too cruel, he returned to Marseilles in 1897 and gave up navy life definitively, plagued by fevers which would accompany him for the rest of his life. As an apprentice typographer he attended anarchist meetings and met his future wife Rose.
The parliamentary socialists of the late 19th century were opposed, often violently, to anarchists in the working world. Socialists sought to attain power legally through the electoral process. Anarchists, however, felt that social justice was not something that could be attained through the existing power structure, but instead had to be seized by the working classes. In the Europe of the Belle Epoque, after the repression of the Paris Commune, revolt tended towards the individual act of violence, often directed towards kings, politicians, soldiers, police officers, tyrants, and magistrates. Numerous militant anarchists were imprisoned and faced the guillotine. Men such as Ravachol, considered by many to be terrorists, were condemned to death.
Caught with explosives after a string of minor larcenies, Jacob was condemned to six months in prison, after which he had difficulty reintegrating himself. From that point forward, he choose "a pacifistic illegalism."
Basically we too, the hard, dauntless ones with our refusal to accommodate, even we, who are not discouraged by the threats of the institutions, nor by the far more terrible ones of imbecility disguised as rebellion, also need our iconography. That is why we collect memories, sympathies, friendship, sometimes no more than a simple handshake, storing them up in our minds as sharing and support when not direct participation. Rigorous science is no longer possible: remember? So how can we put any criteria in our fantasy. Let's leave it at full gallop, far from the sepsis that used to confuse us not long ago. Let's warm our hearts with tales of adventure like the one we are presenting here...
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