Henri Martin

Félix Victor Henri Martin, known as Le docteur Martin and le Bib, (23 February 1895 – 6 June 1969) was a French physician, extreme-right-wing militant activist, resister and soldier in two World wars.

Biography He was born in Paris to Sophie Henriette Quizerme and Adolphe Gilbert Martin. He became a hospital intern and fought voluntarily at the western front during WWI in the dragoons at Tours, transferring to 112e régiment d’artillerie lourde [112th heavy artillery regiment] as an auxiliary doctor. After the war, he resumed his studies in day school at Saint-Antoine Hospital (1920–1921), boarding school at Broca Hospital, finally qualifying as a doctor at the Pitié hospital (1921–1923), specialising in respiratory tract illnesses and aiding sick children in Paris, before opening his own practice.

From Action Française to La Cagoule A member from 1914, in the 1920s he campaigned for Charles Maurras' royalist right-wing Action française. On 27 June 1923, he was sentenced to three months in prison and a 500 Fr. fine for an attack on statesman Maurice Viollette on 31 May by the Camelots du roi, the militant youth group of Action française popular with students; Maurras and two others were also imprisoned. He became general secretary of the federation of the Paris region of the Ligue d'Action française - an older organisation which was a recruitment and propaganda group for Action française; he combined this role with that of deputy secretary of the Ligue from June 1928, leading conferences and chairing private meetings.

In 1930, he was expelled from Action Française with another doctor, Paul Guérin (president of sections of the 18th arrondissement and former president of the northern suburbs federation). He went to Brussels to see Jean d'Orleans, a pretender to the French throne, who had also distanced himself from Action française. There, with help from army intelligence colonel Elie de Froidemont, he was put in charge of security for d'Orleans' daughter, Isabelle, on the family's trips to Paris, even interviewing suitors to assess their honourability. He advised Dorgères,

Arrested in March 1942, Martin was transferred to Castres, Vals and then Évaux-les-Bains, where he met Jewish-born, homosexual, left-wing-associated writer Roger Stéphane. Martin cared for Stéphane's sick mother and another inmate while they were all incarcerated. Stéphane told Martin he considered him a friend, despite their marked differences in background and views; Martin said he would never forget. He escaped, became a maquisard of the "Roy" network, participated in the liberation of Lyon, and enlisted in the 7th Army of general Alexander Patch, undertaking several missions in Alsace and on the Rhine as "commander Bernard" between the 7th and the Office of Strategic Services. Close to the Organisation de l'armée secrète (OAS) at the onset of the French Fifth Republic, he was sought by police again for his participation in the semaine des barricades in Algiers in January 1960, and then for his role in the generals' putsch of 1961. After his arrest, and his trial in October 1963, he was sentenced by the Cour de sûreté de l'État [State Security Court] to 10 years' hard labour. He died on 5 June 1969 at the Bicêtre hospital, survived by his daughter Danièle de Villemarest.