A DANGEROUS WOMAN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 79, 2 April 1881, Page 4

A DANGEROUS WOMAN.

The writer of " Continental Gossip" in the Sydney Morning Hetaldzv$ s '"" A very dangerous Virago is just no * making some noise in Pans, hotn through tbe extravagant violence of tne speeches she is delivering: and als° through the speculation thus excited concerning wbat mny be expected should she purl her frienda succeed in pelting the .whip-liand over Paris, at* they hope to do. The virago in question ia i'ho Louise Michel, one of the leading Furies of the Commune, recently amnestied, nvd now spending her time and strength in stirring' up nil who will listen to her to deeds of blood, which phe declares to be necessmrv for avenging •" the martyrs" slain by M. Thiers, and bringing in the Beciol millennium wih the flames of petroleum to add splendour to the scone. After her late rtriuuinbant return to the scene of her Communistic enormities, her partisans dubbed her "the Angel of the Commune," an allusion, possibly, to "exterminating angels," in whose activities po many people believe, especially in Catholic countries. But within a few dayp, oddly enough, the newspaper vendors, when their prints contain anything about this woman, erv, " The Qaeen of Montmartre ! " This " Queen" (a comedy queen now, but alas ! it mny be a tragedy qupen some of these days) was born in 1830, her hirfch being a scandal in the region of " trje upper crust " her mother being a beasfa'ful scullery-maid in the family of her father, a very srand grandee ; and the child, thus unhappily ushered into the world, was pityingly taken and brought up by a noble family. Louise was clever, and profited by tbe educational advantages that were generously given her. Sbe became an accomplished musician, and not only wrote verses, but prompted the verse making of illustrious votaries of the muse. Victor Hugo Bent her a copy of his " Notre Dame de Paris" with a dedication, and Lamartine declared her to be a " daughter of our country," and so on till Mademoiselle Louise grew intoxicated with the praises showered on her. But; " a change came o'er the spirit of her dream," when, in 1850, her noble protectress, who had survived her : hue-; band by several years, also died/and then she left to her adopted child all thatj remained to her from the wreck of a formerly brilliant fortune, some £480. Louise soon found herself in difficulties, and she accordingly took out a certificate as governess, in order to gain her bread by teaching." But her ill-balanced brain could hardly be expected to work, well in bar jeBS. A clerk in some ironworks desired io marry her, but she . scornfully rejected his advances, She felt herself to be abovje so prosaic a settlement in life, came to tbe conclusion that she had a vocation, and that a glorious martyrdom awaited her in the capital : so to the capital she came. She had sold off her furniture in Andelon Court, and, with the proceeds furnished some rooms in the Rue Cadet, and set up a school, which did not flourish. It was just at the moment when political clubs were being founded, and Louise Michel was soon in the thick of the medley, haranguing, lecturing, and stirring up the slumbering" elements of revolution that were deetined to bring in the Commune civil war, the sanguinary reprisals of Satory, the consignment; to Noumea, the triumphant return of a few innocent victims of revolutionary misleading, and of all tbe tens of thousands of abominable ruffians and galley-birds now let loose in tbe midst of the community by the amnesty, and what else? A question that will be more readily answered than now. Since her return to France, Loui e Michel is the adopted bead and front of the moßt advanced Radical party. She openly urges the necessity of killing off everybody great and small who is not prepared'to adopt her plan of ": improving" the world, not only urging her hearers to assassinate, but declaring her determination to be first in the work of killing. While she lived in quiet ease with the aged couple who so generously brought her iupdn their quiet chateau, had some country gentleman asked for her hand, she would gladly have accepted him ; the smallest title of baronne, or vieomtesse> the smallest home of her own among the relatively aristocratic people with whom she mingled, would have satisfied her ambition and have kept her quiet ; she would probably have been found signing addresses to the Count de. Chambord and boldly defending the doors of convents. But she missed her opportunity and has gone steadily down-hill. Saturated with blood, powder, and petroleum, there is no returning to ordinary life for her. She hates the world in which she has no legitimate place, and would fain revenge all her vanished hopes and dreams,, all her vexations, anxieties, and mortifications on the society in

which she has no recognised ploce. Her utterances would almost suggest tbe doubt as to her eanity, but there is a method in her madness, and it will be an evil day for Paris and for France should Bbc and her followers ever succeed in seizing, even for a week or a day, on the reins of power.