The weekly clarion., 1874-06-25
TILTON an ROCHEFORT.
a Wan Of Fire.

Ills name Il Henri RDchefOrt. or
twenty years he kept Louis Napoleon
dancing with rage. He is no philoso-
pher. He does not care a whit for po-
iitical economy He has no respect for
the solemn pageants enacted in the name
of religion, nor for the shams and funk
eys and hypocrites who rob the people in
the name of law. He j. born dlsor-
ganizer, trained agitator, an iucanate
revolution. lie is a pot always boiling,
and sometimes boiling over. lie has a
faculty Of saying those sharp, bitter,
singing things, which fly like poisoned
arrows direct to the mark and rankle worse
than death where they do not kill, and
which give ineXpressible delight to the
Frenchmen who look on, and who are a
hundred times more eager for an epigram
than for an argument. lie is the prince
Of paragraphists, and no writer ever lived
who could write sharper line than he.
His words pierce like needles. His sen
tences are lancets, all edge and no back.
They glitter like polished steel, but they
ignite wherever they fall, and in the in
hammabIe tinder OF French society they
make a blaze if they do not create a con
hagration.
AFRAID OF NOBODY,
shrinking from nothing, defying enemie:
and epithets, az home, anywhere, half in
spired and half insane, but altogether
alive with an overmastering passion fol
liberty, he has been the terror Of every
tyraut and the fear Of every regime
France has had for quarter Of century
This man Rocheiort il phenomenon.
He may be studiei in two ways-as a
character in himself and a force in his
1 tory. He is the John Brown of modern
/ France, the Robespi-rr, Of to-day. Bu
/ it is the conjunction OF events with per
sonalities that gives special importance
| TO the particular individual VINO Il mas
! ter Of the situation, or wHp holds Its key
! Ihe Provisional Government eXpdirlatc'
/ ROchefOrt as a convict in order 10 &c
/ the incendiary out OF France and beyond
/ the possibility Of harm. No more incen
! diary Laaterne5 flung across the line to IN
/ flame the passions Of the mob and eXcit'
/ insurrectionsl No more Communistic a.
saults on orderl But they did not know
I their man. The prisoner escaped. H'
is welcomed by his counirymen in tn
city. No sooner than he arrives Ire fling
! out manifesto, Whlch
Is A FIEEBBAND
and declaration of war both in one, am
which cannot but strike the ear Of Frencl
Radicals as a bugle-cail and fire the pas
! sions ofthat eXcitable people to the hight
ING heat. He accuses MacMahOn o
treachery to the Republic. While Ba
zaine has been tried aud condemed, am
is now suffering punishment in disgrace
for sacrificing France IN his loyalty to tn
Empire, Rochefort arraigns Marshal Mac
Mahon for sacrificing the nation to Ger
many in order to strange the Republi
in the hour Of It's birth. He could hav
defended her by giving liberty to her pee
pie. he betra yed her, coldly and in ID
most mercenary way. in order TO stiff
the freedom her salvation would cost.
RoCHEFoRT l. THE MAN OF THE HOUR
He carries "a revolution in his brain
No wonder the Roya!l-ts, the Impeua
lists. the timid and time-serving COusel
vatives Of France want to crush bin
He is their doom. In his advent Che.
see nothing but the judgment day. The
forget that their own follies and b.indne-
and crimes have made him possible an
given him his power to harm Franc
wants order; but it cannot be the orde
of the graveyard. She must have libei
tv; but il cam OF be the liberty OF univei
sal license. RochefOrt may be the tr
and lead in the whirlwind needed TO clea
the ground and purify the II. Bu
statesmen of another order must follow
create the new nation, and marry libert
and order in everlasting wedlock. COLD
en- age.
1t is the penny saved, more than th