Camelots du Roi
youth political organization
The King's Camelots, officially the National Federation of the King's Camelots (French: Fédération nationale des Camelots du Roi) was a far-right youth organization of the French militant royalist and integralist movement Action Française active from 1908 to 1936. It is best known for taking part in many right-wing demonstrations in France in the 1920s and 1930s.
History
Genesis
In 1908, the Action française sought to equip itself with a youth militant organization. Commander Louis Cuignet prospected in the ranks of the army in search of a forceful leader. In the end he chose Maxime Real del Sarte, a student at the Beaux-Arts Academy, after his notorious performance in the Court of Cassation. In the aftermath of the Dreyfus affair, the young Real del Sarte undertook to publicly insult the judges during a hearing presided over by the public prosecutor Alexis Ballot-Beaupré:
"Unworthy, fraudulent magistrates, it will not be said that no Frenchman would throw in your face your dereliction and your infamy!"
Created on 16 November 1908, the name "Camelots du Roi" first used in L'Action française daily newspaper to designate the newspaper sellers of the Gazette de France, L'Accord social and L'Action française. The name means "street-hawkers of the king" and does not refer to the legendary locale of Camelot. They were recruited on the one hand from the royalist group of the XVIIe district of Paris organized by Henry des Lyons to sell newspapers at church doors, and on the other hand from among the royalist workers and employees of L'Accord social of Firmin Bacconnier.
Few in number at the start, the first police reports mention about fifty members in January 1909. At the end of 1909, the police counted around 400.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Camelots du Roi” as youth political organization. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as youth political organization. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q805447. VIAF identifies the subject as 211007494. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1908, 1936 and 1909.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Camelots du Roi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.