Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-02-05
FIFTY YEARS IN PRISON.
LOUIS BLANoUr AND HIS IMPRIsoN-
MENT FOR OPINIONS SAKE.
The Romance and Tragedy of His Life
-peath-Funeral-
At the Grave
PARIS, January 10, 1881.

1 1llLJ years VI DIlS6n IL must De Gull
fessed that man who spends fifty years
out OF seventy-si of his life in prison for
his opinions, can be no ordinary man, nor
one entertaining the opinions of the rest Of
mankind. Mr.. Blanqui was not only a
revolutionist through principle, but con.
spirator through temperament, and would
have remained SO until the end of time-at
least until those social reforms had been
accomplished which he has always advo-
Gated. The necessity of conspiration, which
has become noted feature under monarch
ical governments, disappears under a re-
public, for that inward activity finds an
outlet in free political demonstration.
However, Blanqui, although he passed the
! last DAYS Of his life under q republic, could
not divest himself of his revolutionary
principles, and with the rude arms of IN.
polished liberty fought the republic itself
A republic, howsoever old-fashioned may be
which kings and emperors might
envy, and Blanqui's attacks, as
well as those OF his associates,
HdsC pdoSSu uALSSelCus IL was u1 1CluAL-
ing from a public reunion on the Rue Le-
courbe, on the 18th CT December, that
Blanqui was seized with an apoplectic at.
tack, from which he died on the lst of
January at 8 o'clock in the evening with
out having regained consciousness. The
history of Blanqui's life is ike a legend,
and it seems almost as thought he were
BORN PRISONER.
Every ten or fifteen years he was known
to have half hours liberty, when, through
an act or word, he was again thrust back
into some cell. lie was there when the
men OF the present generation were but
infants he was still there when they left
their school. benches to go out into the
world, and they found him there when
they had already passed three.fourths of
their existence. Louis Auguste Blanqui
was born near Nice, in 1905, making HIM
Just three years younger than Victor Hugo,
who, in mentioning his birth in some of the
finest verses he has ever written, begins by
saying: '.Le steele avait deua ans" Blanqni
was the second son of j. Dominique, the
conventional Girondin. He received very
careful education, and was for some time
Vie DTGfGpJOI VI bilt CillluIS1 vi d
General, then afterward came to Paris and
studied both law and medicine. He soon,
however, threw himself with passion into
political contests, and was wounded by a
ball in his neck in the riot of the Rue Saint
Denis at the time OF the elections of 1927.
He again fought in 1880 and took
VERY ACTIVE PART
In all the enterprises of the Republican
party against the Government of Louis
Philippe. Like Mazini, Blanqui would
never correct himself of the habit of
roughly fastening solutions by some bold
act, and in the affair Of la Villette he sug-
gested nothing less than the blowing up of
the fort of Vincennes as a preliminary op-
Grafton of the revolution. He was mem
her of all the republican societies which
were organized after the revolution of July.
Implicated in the process of the 10Th, he
defended himself with passionate eloquenee,
which for long time characterized him,
but which eloquence on that occasion did
not prevent his being condemned to years
imprisonment for offending the Court. In
1887 he underwent another condemnation.
In 1884 he had married a young girl who
possessed very distinguished talent as a
painter and a remarkable portrait is now
shown of the venerable martyr, painted by
his wife, and bearing the date of 1881.
He is there represented as handsome
and prepossessing young man, with high,
broad forehead, closely cut whiskers and
mustaches, and large, full eyes of great
brilliancy and expression. In lS4S the
public for long time were mystihed by
10 - nf R1,-,oT,i Of la 4rib
of the clubs, where he never appeared
but in deep motrning and his hands
covered with black gloves, whose long
wrists were quite unusual for gen
tlemen. 1t seems when he was en-
tering his nineteenth year he became
member of the family of General Compans,
as preceptor, at the chateau of Blagnac,
near Toulouse. One day young girl also /
came to reside at the chateau, the daughter
of rich bourgeois family. Blanqui soon
fell in love with her, but kept the
secret locked in his breast, and he !
had loved her six years without &C
knowledging it to her then, one day she |
discovered it. She also loved him. She I
became his wife, and six years after the |
day of the anniversary of the condemna-
ton of Blanqui she died. To the last day
vi HIS QSdGu AuSuSbt III NUFS lIlOuIu-
ing for his wife, and during the time he
presided at the club in IS4S he never left /
off his black gloves, which produced such
tragical effect when, as an accompaniment |
to the discourse he pronounced with his
voice somewhat sharp-a wooden voice, as
it was called-he extended his hand In
sober gestures. These gloves added a
mystery to his physiognomy, and if they
never were missing, If they extended far
beyond the wrist, like the gloves of |
women, it was because the eternal and |
rigid conspirator wore under his gloves the
bracelets of her whom he had loved and |
always loved Six months after
THE RESURRECTION
OF the 18th of May. 1889, Blanqui. de-
livered up by traitor, was tried before
the Court of Peers and condemned to death |
on January ID. 1910. All his goods were
coniscated, but the penalty was changed +
to imprisonment for Efe Imprisoned at
Mont Saint Michel with his condemned |
comrades, each to solitary cells, Bianqui
suffered in company with the other Re-
publican prisoners the most barbarous
treatment, while his wife died of sorrow
less than year after. After these years !
of fearful treatment they had to transfer |
him half-dying to the Penitentiary, then
to the hospital of Tours. The revolution |
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