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The principle of honour in the Republic is an important mechanism to build cohesive communities and to integrate individuals into a national identity. It may also serve to exclude those deemed unworthy. To study the real power and the use of honour in the Republic, we follow the very meandering path taken by Pierre Bournel (1881-1916), the grandson of a convict from the Corrèze region, condemned for violent robbery at the age of twenty in Tours, and ultimately sent to Algeria in the “bataillons d’exclus” (the battalions of the outcasts of the French army) after serving his civil sentence. Having never been trained in combat, he would heroically sacrifice himself during the First World War in 1916.