THE ESCAPED COMMUNISTS.

Evening Star, Issue 3479, 17 April 1874, Page 3

THE ESCAPED COMMUNISTS.

(From the * Argus. 1 ) Of the Communists who have escaped from New Caledonia, three played a very prominent part in the events which succeeded the fall of the Empire; while one—Victor Henri Rochefort, Marquis de Lucay— helped, as is well known, to pave the way for it by the bitterness with which he assailed the Imperial dynasty in the various publications with which he was successively connected. The son of a Legitimist noble, and of a republican daughter of the people, Rochefort received a religious education at the College of St. Louis. He subsequently studied medicine, but soon drifted into literature; and became one of the editors of the ‘ Charivari.*

In 1868 ho. founded ‘La Chronique Pansienne, a short-lived publication j and in 1863 was associated \yith M. Scholl in the editorship of the ‘Nain Jaune.’ He was successively a diligent contributor to ‘La SoleiT and ‘ L’Evenement/ and for a considerable period was in the receipt of L 1,200 per annum, as one of the principal writers of the ‘Figaro.’ Between 1856 and 1866, he furnished to the Parisian stage, in collaboration with other dramatists, as many as eighteen vaudevilles, besides com posing an historical romance, which he published under the nom de plume of M. de Mirecourt. Bochefort’s articles in the ‘ Figaro ’ were characterised by so much asperity, and his attacks on the Emperor were so incessant and were so keenly felt and resented at the Tuilleries, that the proprietors of that journal took fright, and publicly gave the satirist his cenge. This induced him to start a publication of his own • La Lanteme, 80,000 copies of which yreve sold qpon the first day. The eleventh number was seized, and confiscated j a fine of L4OO was imposed Upon the editor, stud; he ■was deprived yf all civil and political rights. This

was in August, 1868, and thenceforth he transferred himself and his paper to Brussels. As brave with his sword as he was fearless with his pen, the irrepressible journalist fought four duels. One of these was with a Spanish officer, who undertook the quixotic task of defending the chastity of Queen Isabella ; the second was with Prince AchilleMuratj the third with M. Paulde Cassagnac, one of the Emperor’s literary hirelings j and the fourth with M. Baroche, who was for some time Mini-

ster of Foreign Affairs. How M. de Rochefort was afterwards elected a Deputy, and permitted to return to Paris, by order of the Emperor; how he founded ‘La Marseillaise,’ and became its editor-in-chief; how when his colleague, Victor Noir, had been shot by Prince Pierre Bonaparte—whose wife has just started in business as a dressmaker in London—his animated pen caused 100,000 men to flock to the funeral of the victim ; how M. de Bochefort was arrested, fined, and imprisoned at St. Pelagie ; and how he was released from there on the decheance of the Empire, and played a conspicuous part in the proceedings of the Commune, are circumstances which must be sufficiently fresh in the recollection of ©ur readers to exempt us from the necessity of recapitulating them in detail. As he is still in the prime of life, having been born in 1830, his political career is by no means ended.

Paschal Groasset was a medical student before embracing the profession of He contributed to ‘Figaro,’ to ‘ L’Etendard,’ and ‘LaMarseillaise;’ and it was at his suggestion that Victor Noir waited on Prince Pierre Bonaparte to demand an explanation of an insulting article which had [appeared in ‘La Corse.’ It was Grousset who set the whole of Paris laughing by his caustic answer to one of the formal questions put to him when he entered the witness-box at the trial at Tours. “ Are you,’’ said the judge, “in any way related to or connected with the accused 1 ” “I really cannot say,” was M. Grousset’s reply, “ for the Prince’s mother had so many lovers that it is quite impossible for me to determine whether I am akin to Trim or not.” It is said that the distinguished culprit started as if he had been shot. Another remark which fell from M. Grousset at the trial was also taken up and passed from mouth to mouth throughout the whole of France: —“A Bonaparte to assassinate a Republican ! Never did I so fully comprehend as now the profound abjectness into which eighteen years of Bonapartism have plunged my country.” When the revolution of the 18th’ of March, 1871, broke out, M. Grousset started a newspaper entitled ‘ La Nouvelle Republique,’ which was succeeded by ‘ L’Affranchi.’ He had for his colleague in editing the latter M. Ollivier Pain, who is probably his companion in the escape from New Caledonia. On

the establishment of the Government of the Commune at the Hotel deVille, M. Grousset was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. Youthful, pleasing in person, and elegant almost to effeminacy in his habits, there was nothing of the Red Republican about the Parisian dandy, whose linen was always white, whose boots were alway lustrous, whose clothes were irreproachable in material and style, and who had always a flower in his button-hole and a glass in his eye. “ 1 dress in this way,” he used to say, “ because I wish to honor the people.” Five days after the fall of the Commune, a lady-like person was seen picking her way along the rue Condorcet just as night was falling. A sinister-looking fellow was dogging her steps, _and she was about to take refuge in a side street when a second obstruction presented himself. At the same moment an empty ■ cab drove up. Thankful for such a means of escape, she immediately entered it. So did the two men. “ Where to f said the coachman. “Versailles,” replied a gruff voice belonging to one of these rude persons. They were agents of police, and the young lady w*is M, Paschal Grousset, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs.

M. Jourde, who discharged the functions of Minister of Finance under the Commune, was one of the ablest and most upright members of that shortlived Government. The son of a dealer in hri&a-hrac, in the Rue St. Placide, he received a commercial education, and after attending the course of lectures give at the Ecole Turgot, he entered a banking house, but, upon joining the International, he threw up his situation and embarked in business as a haberdasher. On the establishment of the Commune, he offered his services to the Central Committee, and they were promptly accepted. A compatriot, who often saw him at the Hotel de Ville, describes him as being at that time about twenty-eight years of age, with a finely-shaped mathematical head,

long curly chesnut hair, and a very worn expression of countenance. “ Tall and thin, with a red scarf bound his waist, he struck you as resembling one of the members of the old Convention.” Belonging to the moderate section of the Central Committee, M. Jourde found his position a very irksome one, on account of the suspicious and overbearing conduct of some of his colleagues j and, after six weeks’ tenure of office, he asked to be relieved of his responsible functions. But President Grousset, backed up by thirtyseven members out of the fortyfour, induced him to remain at his post, in which he seems to

have labored hard and honestly to discharge the thankless duties which devolved upon him; and the balancesheet which he issued on the Ist May, 1871, is one of the curiosities of revolutionary finance. On the 23rd of that month he ‘ relinquished his Ministerial portfolio, clothed himself in the garments of an artizan named Roux, who had been shot, and of whose livret he

possessed himself, and hoped, in this disguise, to make his escape. But he was arrested eight days afterwards, and by a strange caprice of fate the functionary by whom he was seized was a Monsieur Hortus, Mayor of the Seventh Arrondissement, who had been M. Jourde’s schoolmaster in early life.