Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1874-05-27
ROchefOrt and Theirs.

Henri Rochefort, the N lid George Fran
els Train of France, will create quite an
interest by his presence in the eastern
states this summer He is due in New
York in a few days, and has given while
in San Francisco I'm account of the escape
of himself ana comrades. They swan
under water to a small boat of the vessel
which took them away. The captain af-
forwards threatened to give them up but
was bought off by them. The Springfield
Republican says of him.
Rochcfort first achieved celebrity as the
editor of the Lantern, a little red
pamphlet scOurging the second empire,
and selling so immensely in Paris rs to
profit the editor nearly $500 week. Be
fore this he had been working for Vile
messant on the Figaro, having dropped
into lourn ,lism after some years in Il clerk
ship in the hotel de Vile, and amassing a
com Portable fortune as Il broker in the art
trade. The Lantern became SO savage
upon Louis Napoleon that Rochefort was
finally obliged to betake himself to Bel
gium, whence he was recalled by his cleo
ton to the assembly. The indiscretions
of new paper, the MarseiLtaise, got him
| into prison in 1870, whence he was releas-
ed by the revolution of September. Dur
ing and after the war he was extremely
unfortunate, not being able to work with
Gambetta, nor with the communists; while
he was fleeing from the latter he fell into
the hands of Theirs, who had him tried
and transported to New Caledonia for life
Rochefort has displayed more power of
destruction than of construction. He was
useful in undermining the empire, but
would be of doubtful assistance to a re-
public. He is neither bad nor a terrible
man, and any one capable of feeling for 4
brute will congratulate him upon his es-
sape from the horror of a penal colony.
He is the illegitimate son of the Count de
Lucay, and bears that title himself by
adoption. His father died in neglect, es-
tranged from his son by their political
differences. He had several children, le-
gitimized by his marriage with his mis-
tress during his imprisonment in 1870.
His wife survived her marriage but a short
time, Rochefort himself is about A years
of age.
On arriving in Sun Francisco Of course
the editorial instinct returned at once, and
he fastened to relieve his mind by IN ar
ticle on MacMahon and France, the first
he has written for three years. He pre-
diets that MacMahon will not be president
more than three months more. He is glad
to see so many pretenders in France, for it
causes the greater division among the en-
emies of republicanism. He says:
But it is among those who have lost po-
litical power that men DESTROYS of obtain
inc it are found. After the Legitimists
and the Orleanists and the Bonapartists
we shall heve the Sep ennists, until Il fifth
aspirant comes to join the dance. Our
part will then be limited for the present
to watching these marvellous simpletons
who honestly believe the French nation
has been created for their personal use.
Let us leave them to unmask one another,
to reproach one another with simplicity
or with crimes; the people who assist at
this scene of dissection will perhaps profit
by it, and the result will inevitably be the
moral and material ruin of these imperial
and royal princes, of whom it can be truly
said, that they have forgotten nothing,
since they never knew anything. If there
is ANYTHING in the world more ridiculous
than republic without republicans it is
monarchy without Il monarch.
Though the above is but the opinion of
:, fire-brand, the remarks made on Sunday
by the venerable ex-President Theirs, the
little old man who saved France from
the flames of foreign and civil war, and
who made the way clear for her swift re-
urn to plenty and the happiness of all