Henri Rochefort, personal enemy of the Empire, republican humourist of
the _Marseillaise_, and the lukewarm socialist of the _Mot d’Ordre_,
who could answer to the judge who demanded his name, “I am Henri
Rochefort, Comte de Lucey,” has been reproached by some with his titles
of nobility, and with the childish pleasure that he takes in affecting
the plebeian. It is said of him that he aspires but to descend, but who
would condemn him for spurning the petrifactions of the Faubourg
Saint-Germain? A man must march with the times.
Rochefort has distinguished himself among the young men by the
marvellous tact that he has shown in discovering the way to popular
favour. If I were allowed to compare a marquis to one of the canine
species, I should say that he has a keen scent for popularity; but one
must respect rank in a period like ours, when we may go to sleep to the
shouts of the _canaille_, and awake to the melodious sounds of “_Vive
Henri V!_” “Long live the King!”
Born in January, 1830, Henri Rochefort was the son of a marquis,
although his father, lately dead, was a _vaudevilliste_ and his mother
a _pâtissère_. From such a fusion might have emanated odd tastes, such
as preferring truffles to potatoes, but putting the knife into
requisition whilst eating green peas. But in his case Mother Nature had
intermingled elements so cleverly that Rochefort could be republican
and royalist, catholic and atheist, without being accused for all that
of being a political weathercock.
As a writer of drollery and scandal in the _Charivari_, would it have
been well if he had used his title as a badge? Later, when contributing
to the _Nain Jaune_, the _Soleil_, the _Evénement_, and the _Figaro_,
when everyone would have been enchanted to call him _mon cher Comte_,
he never displayed his rank, except when on the ground, face to face
with the sword or pistol of Prince Achille Murat or Paul de Cassagnac.
A frequenter of _cafés_, living fast, bitter with journalists,
hail-fellow with comedians, he lavished his wit for the benefit of
minor theatres, and expended the exuberance of his patrician blood in
comic odes. Dispensing thus some of his strength in such pieces as the
_Vieillesse de Brididi_, the _Foire aux Grotesques_, and _Un Monsieur
Bien-Mis_, in 1868 he founded the _Lanterne_, and thenceforth became
the most ardent champion of the revolutionary party; and in the
brilliant articles we all know, he cast its light on the follies of
others under the pretext that they were his own. This satirical
production reached the eleventh number, when its author, overstepping
all bounds, took Napoleon by the horns and the gendarmes by the nose,
and committed other extravagances, until the Government fined him to
the amount of ten thousand francs penalties, and ordered him a short
repose in the prison of Sainte-Pélagie. The notoriety attaching to his
name dates from that period, and the events which accompanied the
violent death of Victor Noir tended to augment his popularity and to
convert him into the leader of a party, or the bearer of a flag, around
which rallied all the elements of the struggle against established
authority. He escaped to Belgium, and studied socialism, which he
expounded later to an admiring audience of seventeen to eighteen
thousand electors at Belleville. Elected deputy by the 20th
Arrondissement, M. de Rochefort became, in 1869, a favourite
representative of that class of the Parisian population whose bad
instincts he had flattered and whose tendencies to revolt against
authority he had encouraged, and in virtue of these claims he was
chosen to form part of the Government of the National Defence. As
President of the Commission of Barricades, after the 4th of September,
during the siege of Paris, in the midst of the difficulties of all
sorts caused to the Government of the National Defence by the
investment of the capital, M. De Rochefort, making more and more common
cause with the revolutionary party, separated himself from his
colleagues in the Government who refused to permit the establishment of
a second Government, the Commune, within a besieged city. By this act
he openly declared himself a partisan of the Commune, and immediately
after the acceptance of the preliminaries of peace he resigned his
position as a deputy, alleging that his commission was at an end, and
retired to Arcachon.
His wildly sanguinary articles in the _Marseillaise_, and the compacts
sealed with blood, with Flourens and his associates, now had so
exhausted our poor Rochefort that at the moment of flourishing his
handkerchief as the standard of the _canaille_, he dropped pale and
fainting to the ground, attacked by a severe illness. He was hardly
convalescent when the events of the 18th of March occurred. But early
in April, he exerted himself to assume the direction of the _Mot
d’Ordre_, which, after having been suppressed by order of General
Vinoy, the military commandant of Paris, had reappeared immediately
upon the establishment of the Commune. He arrived on the scene of
contest about the 8th or 10th of April. The daily report of military
operations states the movements of the enemy, and points out what
should be done to meet and resist him most advantageously (12th, 13th,
and 14th of April; 10th; 16th, and 20th of May). Imaginary successes,
the inaccuracy of which must in most instances have been known to the
chief editor of the _Mot d’Ordre_, encouraged the hopes of the
insurgents, while the announcement of unsuccessful combats was delayed
with evident intention; the most ridiculous stories, the falsity of
which was evident to the plainest common sense, and which could not
escape the intelligence of M. Rochefort, were published in his journal,
and kept up the popular excitement (12th, 15th, 19th, 26th, 27th, and
28th of April; 6th and 7th of May). It was in this manner that the
pretended Pontifical Zouaves were brought upon the scene, with
emblazoned banners, which were seized by the soldiers of the Commune
(18th and 19th of April, 8th and 10th of May); that the Government of
Versailles was furnished with war material given by, or purchased from
the Prussians (27th and 28th of April, 6th and 17th of May); that it
was again accused of making use of explosive bullets (18th and 19th of
May), and of petroleum bombs (20th of April, and 2nd, 5th, 17th, and
19th of May); and that the best-known and most respected generals had
been guilty of the grossest acts of cruelty and barbarity. Incitement
to civil war (2nd and 26th of April and 14th and 24th of May) followed,
as did also the oft-repeated accusation against the Government of
wishing to reduce Paris by famine; indescribable calumnies directed
against the Chief of the Executive Power (2nd, 16th, 20th, and 30th of
April, and 8th of May), against the minister, the Chambers (16th of
April and 14th of May), and the generals (12th, 16th, and 26th of
April). The director of the _Mot d’Ordre_ then finding that men’s minds
were prepared for all kinds of excesses, started the idea of the
demolition of M. Thiers’s house by way of reprisal (6th of April); he
mentioned the artistic wealth which it contained. He also referred to
the dwellings of other ministers. He returned persistently to this
idea, and on the 17th of May he invited the people, in the name of
justice, to burn off-hand that other humiliating monument which is
styled the History of the Consulate and of the Empire—in short, he
insists on the execution of these acts of Vandalism. He did not call
for the destruction of the Column Vendôme, but approved of the decree.
He demands the destruction of the Expiatory Chapel of Louis XVI. (20th
of April), and suggests the seizure of the crown jewels, which were in
the possession of the bank (14th of April). In short, M. Rochefort,
having entered upon a road which must naturally lead to extremes,
finally arrives at a proposition for assassination. In the same way as
he pointed out to the demolishers the house of M. Thiers, and to the
bandits released by the Commune the treasures of the Church, so he
points out to the assassins the unfortunate hostages.
A few days before the end of the reign of the Commune he judged it
prudent, “seeing the gravity of events,” to suspend the publication of
his journal and to quit Paris.
He was arrested at Meaux. It was the “_Meaux de la fin_,”[113] said a
friend and fellow-writer.
He arrived at Versailles on the twenty-first of May, at two o’clock,
the same day on which the troops entered Paris. On Sept. 20 Rochefort
was tried with the Communists before the military tribunal of
Versailles. Physically he seemed to have suffered much during his three
months of incarceration. He is reported to have made anything but a
brilliant defence, and to have restricted himself to pleading past
actions and good services. He said that he suppressed _The
Marseillaise_ at a loss of 20,000 francs per month, when he had no
other private means of support, because he thought the effect of its
articles would weaken the plan of Trochu for the defence of Paris, and
that when he (M. Rochefort) held the _forces populaires_, and had an
_occasion unique_, he chose to play a subordinate part. He stated
himself a journalist _under_ the reign of the Commune, and not an
active power _in_ the Commune from which in the end he had to fly.
Rochefort owned that his articles in the _Mot d’Ordre_ had been more or
less violent, but he pleaded the cause his “_façon plus ou moins
nerveuse à écrire_” and that from illness he did not sometimes see his
own journal. When pandering to a vulgar audience, Rochefort seemed to
have lost his rich vein of satire, and to have lost himself in vile
abuse. On the 21st he was sentenced to transportation for life within
the enceinte of a French fortress.