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Grey River Argus, Volume XI, Issue 945, 7 August 1871, Page 2

One of the most important of the "hostages" who suffered death at the hands of the Commune — the most important person of their lay victims — M. Bonjean, was President of the Court of Cassation, and it was only the fact of his holding a high position, and being respected by all persons whose respect was worth having, that can have rendered him odious. He was a very old man, as old at least as the Abbe Deguerry. It was chiefly as a Judge and not as a politician that his name was known to the world, though, as our Special Correspondent said in announcing his arrest, " all that was known of him as a politician was in his favor. Indeed, he enjoyed the safe distinction of being, perhaps, the one Liberal member of an Assembly so bigoted and so subservient as was the Senate under the Empire. Notwithstanding his advanced age, he remained firm at his post during the siege and during the farmore perilous period of the conflict between; M. Thiers and the Comite* Central. His arrest was, so to speak, an accident, as .he happened to be paying, or expected to pay, a visit, by appointment, to the house of his friend, the Procureur-General, when the police of the Communists were taking possession of the house of the latter officer. He bore his imprisonment, old as he was, with patience and resignation, remarking that for the last 40 years he had been self-con^ demned to upwards of 12 hours' hard labor a day over his books and papers, and that he could work as well at these in a prison cell as in a palace.