The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1886-12-10
WHAT 4 WOMAN SHE IS.
A TALK WITH ONE WHO KNOWS
THE STRANGE LOUISE MICHEL.


Her Childhood and the Stain Upon 1t.
Tancics which Never Reached Frui-
tion-Uncouth Appearance-Her Lovers
Blood ut the Barricades.
The name of Charles Francois Thibaudeau,
n young French artist given to painting sad
eyed peasants, is not altogether unknown i'm
this country. He is a wild-haired young fell
low of the Gautier type-a genius given up to
MEDIEVAL neckerchiefs and pre- Raphaelite col
lars But he knows every one-artists. play
ers, Ionfers, students, demagogues, cocottes-
in fact, he knows Louise Michel f.oating one
evening in Of the coy rooms of the Eden
theatrs.-whcrc poor little Van Zandt was
hiS7eci into trs:rs--he grew reminiscent
Dear I"y what a woman, what a womanw
he sail uul,ingly. watching the winking bub-
bles - Iii glass. Il would give every hair in
my i ;'i =. paint her-every hair. Yes. dear
boy, ant frr~wear wigs to boot. What
woman
9Th. first time / saw her, you say! OUT,
what a devils Jay it vast 1t was two, three
years aga lifetime ago l was painting
my great
Certainly. but Louise.'
..Sshc lived with her mother them" he went
on ain one of the suburbs-La Chapelle.
They had u bit of a room on the fourth floor
of a hals,. in the Rue du Polonceau, near the
dainty Juartier, Goutte dor. There was
only nrc room, think. a stove on one side,
a si,lcFDlr,l OH the other, n rickety table in
the middle, a few stold chairs scattered
About made up the furniture. Poverty
stricken hut clean-very. Imagine Louise
sweeping, busting, or nOnsensei Imagine the
Maid of Arc trotting n baby on her knee!
II was doubtless the good mothers doing
She sat by the Window sturdy old peasant,
wrinkled and gray, knitting stockings or
something of the sort
HER PERSONAL. APPEARANCE.
Louise sat by the table, writing furiously,
spattering ink and talking to herself. OF
cour-sr- NJ Thibau.leau added, ''she stood up
when ! came in What woman! Wouldn't
she make great model for that old vixen,
Macbeth or that she devil, Coriayl Perhaps
not She was made for a woman, let her
pass for such, but she looks little enough like
one. Her head is large; the face long and
copper colored, the eyes nervous-what a
woman Her cheek bones are high and
prominent, like n ScCtchmans, and her chin
small and sharp. Her hair cut short and
parted in the middle tumbles around her ears
and neck in grayish curls. a bit of n mus
tache-beg pardon of the sex-shadows her
upper lip. Can you see here Standing up,
grasping roll of papers, clad all in black
md tapping large, wellbOoted foot on the
floor. Put n mole on her forehead and you
have the picture complete. Mon Dieu, what
a woman, Vulgar, obtrusive, hard, but n
woman with the devils own viii in her gray
eyes, and a woman of brains or something
that answers we'll"
Thibaudeau fell to twirling his wine glass
and musing over the picture he had drawn
There was nothing startling in the descrip-
ton What else could Louise Michel look
likes One doesn't gather figs from thistles
She was born i'll 1880 in chateau in the De
partncnt IIaute- Marine Dame Scandal had
IL merry time at her birth. Her father was
Connie dc Broncourt and her mother was
nothing in particular. She grew up in the
chateau; odd sort of child, laughed at
by the servants, kissed by the count and
cufred by the countess. She played the piano,
sang, made verses. She must have been a
devout little thing in those days Her ideal
was that magnificent turncoat, Victor Hugo,
who just then was posing rs n Royalist and
Catholic. She wrote mystic verses echong
his aristOcratic piety.
When she was ~ the countess died, and n
year later the count followed her to the
grave, leaving Louise a legacy of 10000
francs or So.
Her mother suggested natrimony, but she,
on the other hand, was anxious to get her to a
nunncry. OF course a discussion arose, and
it lasted for weeks. In the meantime this
awkward, homely young woman was doing
deal of thinking. One morning she woke up
mn atheist and the nunnery question was set
tied forever. But she was a poet, or thought
herself one, which is every whit as good, and,
of course, must needs be a martyr. But how
and wherel In Paris, of course, and in any
way that turned up. First of all she opened
n school 1t is way of being n mar
tyr The school was doubtless n good one,
but rs there came no pupils it was discontin-
ued. Anyway it revOlted her. \ scion of
the house of DE Broncourt teach SCHOOL, The
ilea is ridiculous. And yet she was only a
sham De Broncourt. She felt this keenly,
and hated the family, the class to which it
belonged, the whole world, for the wrong
that had been done her.
\ RED-CAPPED REvoLUTIoNAIRE.
She was an outcast, parah-well, SO be
it: she would join hands with her fellows,
love and hate with them, fight their battles.
In short, she plunged into the social democ-
racy. The devout ariStocrat of n year before
was n rJtl-cappcl revolutionaire. She chose
IA lucky time. The opposition to the empire
was intensely bitter. She organized clubs for
men, for women, for ganins. She wrote
reSi articles, made rcd speeches, and was
famous. She was the one man amid n crowd
OF masculine women. She outran her social
iStic colleagues, Clcmeuccau and Louis Blanc,
and even Rochcfort AMI Franquet grew too
pacific for her. Before long she was an An
arrhist, bitter, daring and INSCRIPTIONS.
One scns quite change between this Louise
Michel and the pious girl who sat rhyming
in the big chateau near Audeloncourt, but
the growth was entirely natural. The COmte
dc E1ucuurt's pcccadiIIo was not such n laugh
able little thing after all
But it Is q shame To leave VI. Oh. Francois
ThibGudc:Iu uIusing all this time over a wine
glass, ami AN empty one ut that.
All. well, what ,iid she s;lyf'
w hat 10 the falls Of Niagara say? OF
CuurSr, dear boy she sail she was glad to
So me- ami thcn-thc revolution, The old
story-drath - the rule of the individual,
freedom as common n air-and the red flag
over all. And when does all this comet All