e by way of reprisal (6th of April);
he mentioned the artistic wealth which it contained. He also referred to
the dwellings of other ministers. He returned persistently to this idea,
and on the 17th of May he invited the people, in the name of justice, to
burn off-hand that other humiliating monument which is styled the
History of the Consulate and of the Empire--in short, he insists on the
execution of these acts of Vandalism. He did not call for the
destruction of the Column Vendome, but approved of the decree. He
demands the destruction of the Expiatory Chapel of Louis XVI. (20th of
April), and suggests the seizure of the crown jewels, which were in the
possession of the bank (14th of April). In short, M. Rochefort, having
entered upon a road which must naturally lead to extremes, finally
arrives at a proposition for assassination. In the same way as he
pointed out to the demolishers the house of M. Thiers, and to the
bandits released by the Commune the treasures of the Church, so he
points out to the assassins the unfortunate hostages.

A few days before the end of the reign of the Commune he judged it
prudent, "seeing the gravity of events," to suspend the publication of
his journal and to quit Paris.

He was arrested at Meaux. It was the "_Meaux de la fin_,"[113] said a
friend and fellow-writer.

He arrived at Versailles on the twenty-first of May, at two o'clock,
the same day on which the troops entered Paris. On Sept. 20 Rochefort
was tried with the Communists before the military tribunal of
Versailles. Physically he seemed to have suffered much during his three
months of incarceration. He is reported to have made anything but a
brilliant defence, and to have restricted himself to pleading past
actions and good services. He said that he suppressed _The Marseillaise_
at a loss of 20,000 francs per month, when he had no other private means
of support, because he thought the effect of its articles would weaken
the plan of Trochu for the defence of Paris, and that when he (M.
Rochefort) held the _forces populaires_, and had an _occasion unique_,
he chose to play a subordinate part. He stated himself a journalist
_under_ the reign of the Commune, and not an active power _in_ the
Commune from which in the end he had to fly. Rochefort owned that his
articles in the _Mot d'Ordre_ had been more or less violent, but he
pleaded the cause his "_facon plus ou moins nerveuse a ecrire_" and that
from illness he did not some