Norwich bulletin., 1914-11-12
FAMOUS TRIALS
rHlAL OF HENRI RocHEFoRT.

For more than half a century
 Henri Rochefort BaS the most famous
 editor in France He was known the
 world over for deciding almost every
 thing, including politics, art, fashions, morals and manners He figured most
 prominently during the trying period
 of the Franeo-PFugsian war, and the
 Empress Eugenie called him the Though no Communist himself. he
 came near being shot because his
 paper was, and he languished for a
 considerable period in the penal coll
 ony of New Caledonia He was not
 allowed to return unmolested to Paris
 until 1897.
 For vigorously attacking the Elm
 peror i'll his paper, La Lanterne. in 1868, he was seize6 fined and i'm
 prisoned- After he emerged he start
 ed the Marseillaise. and for his at
 taclzs on the imperial family he was
 sentenced to six months imprison- ment in January, 1870. He fled from
 Paris in May, 1871, when he foresaw the end of the Commune of which he
 had been vigorous supporter but was arrested by the Versailles gov-
 ernfnent.
 At his trial Rochefort was charged with all sorts of crimes, with having
 footed public edifiees with having
 written scurrilous articles, and with having been affiliated with bands of
  phleteeFs and journalists heaped all sorts of calumnies on his head. The trisl begun on Sept. %, 1871, at Versailles, before military court. Tho president of the court was M. Merlin, the colonel of engineers, Condr. Cav eau occupied the general advocate's bench. M. Rochefort was defended by Albert Joly, a poor, but ambitious aI- torney. The president charged him l with having sustained war which ha y1yaM against the general Government. That he likened the National Assembly to | g. lunatic asylum That in speaking Of M. Thiers, and his efforts to over come the instruction, he had warned | him insultingly that every deadly en- zine that could be imagined would be used against him, which was an i'm \ citation to civil war.
 The, president continued: You treated the members of the Govern ment as figures of a Punch and Judy l show; you said in the same article that 1t is fortunate that the elected | should be a pack of nobodies-passers | by in the street. On April you complain of the bombardment, and accuse the Versailles army of 1t, when the Commune had only to lay down its arms to bring about its ! cessation.H
 Rochefort to each of these charges.
 gave an explanation. to which the I I have to be very intelligent and clever to understand these articles as you wish them to be understood, and the people who read the Mot o'Odre' ip- 1 terpreted them differently. And fnaI- ly," the psesident said, On April 13 ties behave like wretciles toward our prisoners, and it is easy to under stand the exasperation of the Parisian population which meditates reprisals. | Eg-s-, 4.a- L rather shaken, but very few people I take any interest in the fate of the abode of this princely murderer You thus call a man a murderer who sim ply defends himself when he is at I lacked in his own homei"
 Colndr. Gaveap summed up tho caee for the prosecution He based | the whole or his argument on the pub | lication of the Lanterne in which ne 1 said Reihefort had outraged every
 thing that France held sacred. He de- Inanded of the court that the accused I should be imprisoned until the end of ! his days. By a singular coincidence | it was Gayeau who met this fate and not Rochefort, for the former died three months afterward in a mad | house.
 With Roehe6ort were tried two ] other prisoners. After the sessions were over and they were led to a large ] room, under tho eyes of several \ dl1Q 1 1GN poAC6 agents. Rochefort remarked to one of his
 companions: T wouldn't mind being condemned by judges endowed with l some sort Of intelligence, but by sucn | idiots as these--it Is too humiliating'' 1 A brigadier overheard this, ami planting himself in front of Rochefort I he said!. "1Ahi you call the military ! judges idiots? All right! I'm going | to tell them what you say." By a | stroke of unlocked for l11ok the judges l had already reached the deliberating 1 chamber, and not knowing what this | brigadier had to communicate to them l they refused to allow him to enter The sentence passed upon Rochefort was perpetual bantshment in a forti- fed place. The editor regarded this as an excessive punishment, when the crime was considered, but he was l wrong. for, as he found out he was much more free and better treated than in simple transportation. He escaped from New Caledonia in 1874 and became prominent in the Bou.~ l anger movement, for which he was zggff9 oFIf1asEed