LOUISE MICHEL AND HER INTERROGATOR.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1042, 7 September 1883, Page 4

LOUISE MICHEL AND HER INTERROGATOR.

Mdlle. Louise Michel showed much coolness and skill in answering the interrogatories on the Judge at her trial. Asked if she had not planned a demonstration ” on her own account, the “ grande ciloyenne ” said that her demonstrativeness had only gone as far as waving a black rag fixed on the end of a broomstick—which, if a •peculiar, is not a very dangerous amusement. As to the plundering of bakers’ shops, she denied all knowledge of it, gnd adopted the convenient hypothesis of the Continental Republican that it was got up by the police. It must be admitted that the presiding Judge showed some want of tact in his questions. “You have,” he said, “a theory as to bread ?” This, of course, instantly “ let in ” (to use a sporting phase) Mdlle. Michel, who promptly answered, “ Yes, for others ! But for myself I shall fling away my life in its decline, and never ask for bread.” Again the Judge asked rather absurdly whether the prisoner had not “smiled" as seeing the bakers’ shops pillaged ? “ Smiled,” said the revolutionist; “what had I to smile at ? One does not smile at human misery.” Such remarks as these and some telling references to the events of 1871 are not likely to diminish Louise Michel’s popularity among certain classes. One incautious observation she made may, however, tend to produce some little unpleasantness in the leading Anarchist circles of Paris. Asked if she knew anything of a pamphlet published by Pouget, her fellow-prisoner, she said she did not. “I do not,” she candidly admitted, “read the pamphlets of my friends, any more than they read mine.” This is a peculiarity which has been noticed in other literary persons besides the heroine of the Commune. •