A VIRAGO.

Temuka Leader, Issue 373, 9 April 1881, Page 2

A VIRAGO.

The writer of 11 Continental Gossip" in the Sydney Morning Herald says ;—.

A very dangerous virago is just making some noise in Paris, bdth through the extraordinary violence of the speeches she is delivering, and also through the speculation thus excited concerning what may be expected should she and her friends succeed in getting 1 the whip-hand over Paris, as they hope to do. The virago in question is Louise Michel, one of the leading Furies ot the Commune, recently amnestied, and now spending her time and strength in stirring up all who will listen to her deeds of blood, which she declares to be

necessary for avenging “ the martyrs’ c slain by M. Thiers, and bringing in the the social millennium with the flames, of petroleum to add splendour to the scene. After a late triumphant return to the scene of her Communistic enormities, her partisians dubbed her “ the Angel of the Commune,” an allusion possibly, to “ exterminating angels,” in whose activities so many people believe, especially in Catholic Countries. But within a few days, oddly enough, the newspaper vendors, when their prints contain anything about this woman, cry, “ The Queen of Montmatre !” This “Queen” (a comedy queen now but alas ! it may be a tragedy queen some of these days) was born in 1830, her birth being a scandal in the region of the “ upper crust,” her mother being a beautiful scullery-maid in the family of her father, a very grand grandee ; and the child, thus unhappily ushered into the world, was pityingly taken to, and, brought up by a noble family. Louise was clever, and profited by the educational advantages that were generouslygiven her. She became an accomplished musician, and not only wrote verses, but prompted the verse making of illustrious votaries of the muse, Victor Hugo sent 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 Mdlle 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 protec-jg tress, who had survived her husband serveral years, also died, and then she leit to her adopted child all that remained to her from the wreck of the formerly brilliant fortune, some L4BO Louise soon found herself in difficulties,, and she accordingly took out a certificate as governess, in order to gain herbread by teaching. But her ill-balanced brain could hardly be expected to work well in harness. A clerk in some ironworks desired to marry her, but shescornfully rejected bis advances. She felt herself to be above so prosaic a settlement in life, came to the conclusion, that she had a vocation, and that %.

glorious martyrdom awaited lur in the capital ; so to the capital she came. She had sold off her furniture in Audelon and with the proceeds furnished JfcS&e rooms in the Rue Cadet, and set up a school, which did not flourish. It was just at the time 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 revoluticn that were destined to bring in the Commune civil war, the sanguinary reprisals of Satory, the consignment to !N oumea, the triumphant return of a few innocent victims of revolutionary misleading, and of all the tens of thousands of abominable ruffians, and gallery birds now let loose in the midst of the community by the amnesty, and what else ? A question that will be more readily answered a few years hence than now, Since her return to France, Louise Michel is the adopted head and front of the most 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 Avith the aged couple who so generously brought her up in their quiet chateau, had some country gentleman asked for her hand, she would gladly have accepted him * the smallest title of baronne or vicomtesse, 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 Court de Chaaibord and boldly defending the doors of convents. But she missed her opportunity and has gone steadily downhill. (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 hei

vanished hopes and dreams, all her anxieties, and mortifications the society in which she has no recognised place. Her utterances would almost suggest the doubt as to her sanity, but there is a method in her madness, and it will be an evil day for Paris and for France should she and her followers ever succeed in seizing, even lor a week or a day, on the reins of power.