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Not a very convincing explanation, it would seem, but Garnier was present and was impressed enough to approach Bonnot with an attractive proposal. Along with Raymond-la-Science Callemin, they began to plan their big job.

Their first step was to steal the Delaunay-Belleville, which they drove through the dark streets of Paris and out to Bobigny, a suburb to the northeast, where their friend Édouard Carouy was currently staying with a family named Dettweiler. Georges Dettweiler was an anarchist sympathizer, but a small businessman as well; he had opened a garage, and that night, much to his later regret, he allowed the car thieves to hide their prize inside. The first step in Bonnot’s plan had been carried out.

A week went by, during which the conspirators scouted for a target. They found one at the branch of the Société Générale bank on the rue Ordener in Montmartre, virtually the home territory of Paris’s anarchists. Every weekday morning, punctually at nine o’clock, a messenger arrived on foot from the main office of the bank, carrying cash and securities to be deposited in the local branch. Since it was the midst of the Christmas season, his leather carrying case was likely to be as full as Père Noël’s. Easy to identify because he wore a uniform, the messenger seemed not even to be armed. A bodyguard came from the bank to meet him at the streetcar stop, and of course anyone desperate enough to rob him would immediately be seized by pedestrians on what was one of the most crowded streets of the eighteenth arrondissement.

It seems almost impossible now, since everyone has seen car chases on film countless times, but no one had yet conceived the idea of escaping a robbery via automobile.

So it was that on the morning of December 21, Bonnot, Garnier, and Callemin sat on the rue Ordener in their stolen Delaunay-Belleville, engine idling, waiting for the messenger. Passersby may have paused to admire the car, but a cold rain was falling, and no one tarried long. Nor had anyone, it seems, read or remembered an advertisement that appeared in that morning’s L’Auto, a newspaper dedicated to car enthusiasts. It offered a reward of five hundred francs to anyone finding the green and black Delaunay-Belleville limousine, model 1910, motor no. 2679V, that had been stolen from M. Normand a week before. (The experienced Bonnot had already switched the license plates.)

The thieves were prepared for any kind of interference. “We were fearfully armed,” Garnier wrote later. 9 He carried six revolvers, each of his companions had three more, and among them they had four hundred rounds of ammunition.

As nine o’clock drew near, a butcher across the street noticed that the magnificent automobile had been parked in the same spot since 8:00 A.M. He stepped outside to stare at it, and the chauffeur, dressed in a gray cap and coat, wearing driving goggles, put the car in gear and moved slowly forward, only to stop again a few doors down. The butcher recalled later that the curtains in the rear compartment had been drawn, making it impossible to see if there were any passengers.

The messenger that day was a man named Caby. As he emerged from the streetcar, his escort-bodyguard stepped up and shook his hand. They headed down the street toward the bank — walking right into the hands of the thieves. Garnier and Callemin stepped out of the car, hands in their pockets. As they reached their quarry, they pulled out their 9-millimeter automatics and ordered Caby to hand over his case. Apparently unprepared for any show of force, the bodyguard put his hands over his face, turned, and ran. Caby was less cooperative, either from fear or from misplaced bravery. He refused to release his hold on the case, even after Callemin dragged him down the sidewalk with it. Garnier, ever impatient, shot Caby twice in the chest, leaving him bleeding on the pavement.

Bonnot had moved the car up alongside them, and his two companions jumped inside. Some horrified passersby made tentative attempts to stop them, but a blast of gunshots drove