The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-15
LOUISE MICHEL.
 ANARCHIST
BOUGHT IN COMMUNE AND PREACH
 ED ASSASSINATION.
Yet Was Tender to Beasts. Teacher of Children-Often in Prison, Twice an
 Extle, Ever in Privation, She Lived to be Nearly 75.


 Louise Michel. noted as communist and revolutionary agitator for the past thirty-fiye years, died few days ago in MarseflIes of double pneumonia con- tracted while on featuring tour in Southern Isxance. She was almost seventy-five years old.
 Louise Michel known as the Red Virgin" and also as the Joan of Arc of the Paris Commune" was the great est of all feminine Anarchists the world has ever known: and, strange anomaly. was both the gentlest and fiercest of women. @
 On being asked once by a French statesman what he would do if she Presidency of the French Republic were offered to her, she answered:
 T would except 1t for twenty-four hours. Then I would open the banks and the prisons, and the world would be reJuvenated immediately
 Noble Blood In Her Veins.
 The Red Virgin" was born May 2s. 1880. in a romantic and remote region of Lorraine. She was a natural child Her ancestors on the paternal side we're nobles--the Des Merhts. of La Vendee. One of them was. Governor of Brit tany and a member of the National As- sembly. His son, Louise's father, mar ried Burgundy heiress. After his wife's death he formed an attachment for his housekeeper's daughter, the mother of Louise.
 Louise MichePs childhood home was in a corner of a ruined castle. where she lived with her mother, two grand mothers and a grandfather.
 The spirit of compassion for suffering which Is said to have been the motive of all her conduct was shown early to dumb animals. She could hardly eat meat because she remembered, animals had been slaughtered to provide 1t, and frogs, killed in a peculiarly brutal lIway by the French, were repulsive to her She fought with children il1-treat- ling dogs and kittens. and when she lcould not overcome them bought them Ioff with money or toys. Her home was Ia refuge for all animals sick or in dis " Horrors Fascinated Her.
 Such was the tenderness and pitying bompassion of the woman who cher lshed an early admiration for Charlotte corday, which afterwards grew into desire to initiate that heroine in her practical way. With youthful cousin Jules, Louise used to enact the scenes If the Reign of Terror. They built a mall scaffold and took turns in being txecutioner and condemned They you'd mount the scaffold, cry ''Vive h Republique!" and lay down their heads.
 Another childish amusement was tc burn one another at the stake for re- lligious heresies.
 In her later years Louise was a Enarled, masculine-faced woman, but 1 she must have had some charm of feature when young. as she Is known to have been courted by many men, to none of whom she would listen.
 A devout aaunt made her a good Catholic, but the teachings of her grandfather, a staunch republican and Bonapatrist while Louis Napoleon was rising to power, and remained so throughout the Second Empire until its fall, when she became an equally bit ter enemy of the present republic She taught her pupils that 1t was wicked to pray for Napoleon III, and was more than once reprimanded by the au- thorities, but never punished.
 Before the French public knew her Louise Michel was a teacher in a boarding-school at Clemont. in the Haute-Marne, becoming the directress at the death of her superior. through the influence of a neighboring village curate who raised s2,00O to put her at the head of the~school. Very religious then, she wrote some verse upon the assassination of Archbishop Sibour de- manding in behalf of France and the Virgin Mary what Paris meant by mak- Ing martyrs of her citizens. Later she was teacher in a Paris school.
 Assassin and Warrior.
 She planned to personally assassinate Napoleon III, and Thiers also and on the eve of the latter attempt Ferre disarmed her, saying that the revolu- ton must not be founded on a crime.
 She fought like a demon during the Commune, and this woman with such 3 horror of blood used a gun, side by side with maddened men, doing bloody work and herself being wounded.
 Made a prisoner in 1871, and taken before a court-martial for her part in the insurrection, Louise Michel was ob- Btreperous. insolent and furiously ex- alted. While refusing to defend her self or to allow herself to be defended she did her best to prove that she was dangerous character.
 Condemned to transportation for life she was taken to New Caledonia where although the Governor was ordered to treat her indulgently and allow her certain privileges. she insisted upon sharing all the privations of her com panions in exile. and made herself use full by watching over the sick and teaching the children.
 An act of amnesty permitted her to return to Paris in 1880. She was met HNur Awrr1 aVNI l.. H. A.n~