A FRENCH SOCIALISTS CAREER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 366, 22 March 1881, Page 3

A FRENCH SOCIALISTS CAREER.

The Paris correspondent of the London Times recently telegraphed the following : '—Anecdotes of Blanqui are the order of the day, and they show that he had at least his lucid moments. Shortly after the revolution of 1848 Lamai'tine sent for him, explaining his ideas of the prudence incumbent on the Republic in a country unused to self-government, dwelt bn the dangers of war, and deprecated either dictatorship or anarchy. Blanqui, who had listened attentively, offered no fundamental ■ objections to these ideas, expressed contempt for the champions of Socialism and Terrorism, admitted the necessity for a strong Government to prevent anarchy or the dictatorship of a doss, described his prison reflections, his love for his deceased wife, his desire to believe in a God, and his aversion to bloodshed, combined with a love of conspiracy which had become a second nature. Lamartine urged him to serve, the Republic as a diplonaatist, instead of continuing the ungrateful and perilous role of a Blanqui seemed rather inclined to accept the offer, and the two men parted on the best of terms, but he was soon drawn into a rising organised by Barbes. He brought up his son as a peasant, and for a long time he would not have him 'taught' to rend, declaring that ho codld do best without it. When a eschewed wine, spirits, and coffee, on fruit and vegetables, kept his throws open, and dispensed with a fire even in the depth of winter, and slept composedly with the snow falling on his counterpane. He was six years in love with his second pujril, a rich banker’s child, who also loved him, but both con* •ce'iiled their passion.from each other and uie u ' rld. They ultimately married, and lived together six years ; but then came bis sentence to imprisonment for life, and

she died of grief a year after separation. He never formed any other attachment. He made several attempts in the earlier part of his career to escape from prison. At Belle Isle he and a companion lowered themselves with a rope into a pit. The rope proved too short ; but, after being suspended sometime up to the waist in water, they succeeded in scaling the walls, and reached a fisherman’s hut, but the fisherman, instead of taking them to England, betrayed them. On another occasion he had got removed to the iniirmarv on a pretended illness, crept through the sewers, and hid himself in a fig tree, but was discovered before he could venture further.