 Abandoned by his parents as a baby, Libertad was a child of the Public Assistance in Bordeaux.As a result of a childhood illness, he lost the use of his legs, but put his handicap to good use, using his crutches as weapons against the police.He moved to Paris at 21, where he soon became active in anarchist circles, going so far as to live in the offices of the journal “Le Libertaire.” A member of various anarchist groups, and a supporter of “propaganda by the deed,” he was nevertheless an abstentionist candidate in Paris’s 11th arrondissement in 1902 and 1904, seeing his candidacy as a means of spreading anarchist ideas.