Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1886-11-18
WHAT A WOMAN SHE IS.
A TALK WITH ONE WHO KNOWS
THE STRANGE LOUISE MICHEL.

Fancies which Never Reached Frui-
tiop-Uncoufh Appearance-Her Lovers
Blood at the Barricades.
The name of Charles Francois Thibaudeau,
a Young French artist given to painting sad
eyed peasants, is not altogether unknown in
this country He is Q wild-haired young fel-
low of the Gautier type-a genius given up TO
mediaeval neckerchiefs and re-Raphaelite col
lars. But he knows every one-artists, play
ers, loafers, students, demagogues, cocottes-
in fact. he knows Louise Michel Loafing one
evening in one of the coy rooms of the Eden
sheatre-where poor little Van Zandt was
missed into tears-he grew reminiscent.
HDear boy, what woman, what woman!"
he said musingly, watching the winking bub-
bies in his glass. II would give every hair in
my head to paint her-every hair. Yes. dear
boy, and forswear wigs to boot. What a
womanl
sThe first time 1 saw her, you sayl Ouf,
what devils day it wasl 1t was two, three
years ago-a lifetime ago. l was painting
my great"
GCertainly, but Louise"
sShe lived with her mother then" he went
on, ain one of the suburbs-La Chapelle.
They had bit of a room on the fourth floor
of a house in the Rue du Polonceau, near the
dainty quarter, Goutte dor. There was
only one room, / think. A stove on one side,
a sideboard on the other, a rickety table in
the middle, a few stolid chairs scattered
about, made up the furniture. Poverty
stricken but clean-very. Imagine Louise
sweeping, dusting, or ponsense Imagine the
Maid of Arc trotting a baby on her knee!
1t was doubtless the good mothers doing.
She sat by the window-a sturdy old peasant,
wrinkled and gray, knitting stockings or
something of the sort.
HER PERSONAL APPEARANCE
@Louise sat by the table, writing furiously,
splattering ink and talking to herself. OF
course N Thibaudeau added, Hshe stood up
when came in. What womanl Wouldn't
she make great model for that old vixen,
Macbeth, or that she-devil, Cordayl Perhaps
not. She was made for woman, so 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 Scotchman's, 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 mus
tache-beg pardon of the sex-shadows her
upper lip Can you see her? Standing up,
grasping roll of papers, clad all in black
and tapping large, well-booted foot on the
floor. Put mole on her forehead and you
have the picture complete. Mon Dieu, what
a womanl Vulgar, obtrusive, hard, but
woman with the DEVILS own will in her gray
eyes, and woman of brains or something
that answers as we'll"
and musing over the picture he had drawn.
There was nothing startling in the descrip-
tion. What else could Louise Michel look
like? One doesn't gather figs from thistles.
She was born in 1880 in q chateau in the De-
partment Haute- Marne. Dame Scandal had
a merry time at her birth. Her father was
Comte de Broncourt and her mother was
nothing in particular. She rev up in the
chateau; an odd sort of Id, laughed at
by the servants, kissed by ,he count and
cuffed by the countess. She played the piano,
sang, made verses. She must have been
devout little thing in those days Her ideal
was that magnificent turncoat, Victor Hugo,
who just then was posing as a Royalist and
Catholic. She wrote mystic verses echoing
his aristocratic piety.
When she was 20 the countess died, and
year later the count followed her to the
grave, leaving Louise a legacy of 10000
francs or so.
Her mother suggested matrimony, but she,
on the other hand, was anxious to get her to a
nunnery. OF course a discussion arose, and
it lasted for weeks. In the meantime this
awkward, homely young woman was doing a
deal of thinking. One morning she woke up
an atheist, and the nunnery question was set
tied forever. But she was poet, or thought
herself one, which is every whit as good, and,
of course, must needs be martyr. But how
and where? In Paris, of course, and in any
way that turned up. First of all she opened
a school 1t is one way of being a mar
tyr The school was doubtless a good one,
but as there came no pupils it was discontin-
ued. Anyway it revolted her. A scion of
the house of De Broncourt teach school! The
idea is ridiculous And yet she was only
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, a pariah-well, so be
1t: 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 a year before
was red-capped revolutionaire. She chose
lucky time The opposition to the empire
was intensely bitter. She organized clubs for
men, for women, for gamins. She wrote
red articles, made red speeches, and was
famous She was the one man amid crowd
of masculine women. She outran her social
istic colleagues, Clemenceau and Louis Blanc,
and even Rochefort and Franquet grew too
pacific for her. Before long she was an An
archist, bitter, daring and unscrupulous.
One sees 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
de Boncourt's peccadillo was not such laugh
able little thing after all.
But it is a shame to leave NJ Ch. Francois
Thibaudeau musing all this time over wine
glass, and an empty one at that.
"Ah, well, what did she sayl"
@What do the falls of Niagara say? OF
course, dear boy, she said she was glad to
see me, and then-the revolutionI The old
story-death to the rule of the individual,
freedom as common as air-and the red flag
over ALL And when does all this Gomez Ah,
the opportunity When Paris is ringed by
second siege-meets a second Sedan; when
nihilism flames out in Russia; when war
or pestilence arises; when anything hap
pens to sound the call for the rising of the
army of the reds. And then9 Fire-dyna-
mite-destruction And then2 The rule of
the downtrodden and universal happiness.
Mon Dieu, what wonanl"
"She has the heart of tigreSs."
%Hm, dye think so, my friendF' the painter
returned, deftly rolling a cigarette.
a asked her if she ever had lover-it's
way have with women, and did it inyol-
unfairly She drew down her black brows
and looked at me until shivered. My lover
was killed at the last barricade,' she said at
last, 'and his blood was spattered in my face,
monsieur What womanl Mon Dieu,
what womanl"-Paris Letter.
Prince Krapotlzine's Brother.
Alexander Krapotkine, who was prosecuted
by the Russian government into committing
suicide at Tomsk last month, was a brother
of the well-known Prince Peter Krapotkine