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 entre nous, à la vie, à la mort.” A “Rochambeau fête” was held simultaneously in Paris.

ROCHDALE, a municipal, county and parliamentary borough of Lancashire, England, on the river Roch, 10 m. N.N.E. from Manchester and 196 m. N.W. by N. from London, on the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway. Pop. (1891) 76,161; (1901) 83,114. By means of the Rochdale canal and connexions it has water communications in every direction. The site rises sharply from the Roch, near its confluence with the Spodden, and from the high-lying public park of Rochdale fine views of the picturesque neighbourhood are obtained. Several interesting old houses remain in the vicinity of the town. The parish church of St Chad is built on the site of a church erected in the 12th century, but itself retains no portion earlier than the Perpendicular period. In the churchyard is buried John Collier (1708–1786), a local author, artist and caricaturist, who was among the first to recognize and utilize in writing the humour of the Lancashire dialect, and attained considerable fame under the pseudonym of Tim Bobbin. The town hall is an extensive and elaborate structure in the Decorated style, with a tower. Of educational charities the principal is the Archbishop Parker free grammar school, founded in 1565. There are also technical and art schools; and a large Roman Catholic orphanage. Among other public institutions are the public library, the infirmary, the literary and scientific society and the art society. Rochdale was the birthplace of the co-operative movement. The Equitable Pioneers Society (1844) numbers over 11,000 members, with a capital of over £350,000. A handsome co-operative store, belonging to the Rochdale Provident Co-operative Society, wasiopened in 1900. A statue of John Bright (1891) recalls the Connexion of the statesman and his family with Rochdale. The staple manufactures are those of woollens and cottons. There are, besides, foundries, iron-works and machine-factories. Coal and stone are obtained extensively in the neighbourhood. Frequent cattle and horse fairs are held. Rochdale was incorporated in 1856, and includes several townships. The corporation consists of a mayor, 10 aldermen and 30 councillors. The county borough was created in 1888. The parliamentary borough, which has returned one member since 1832, falls between the Middleton and Heywood divisions of the county. Area of municipal borough, 6446 acres.

Rochdale (Recedham, Rachedam, Rachedal) takes its name from the river on which it stands. A Roman road passed the site, and a Saxon castle stood in Castleton, one of the component parts of the town. In Edward the Confessor's reign most of the land was held by Gamel the Thane, but after the Conquest the manor probably came into the hands of Roger de Poictou, from whom it passed to the Lacys and like their other lands became merged in the duchy of Lancaster. From 1462 to 1625 the crown seems to have leased it to the Byron family. In 1625 Charles I. conveyed the manor in trust for the earl of Holdernesse, and in 1638 it was sold to Sir John Byron, afterwards Baron Byron of Rochdale, whose descendants held it till 1823 when it was sold to the Deardens. Manor courts are still held periodically. Henry III. in 1240-41 granted by charter to Edmund de Lacy the right to hold a weekly market on Wednesday and an annual fair on the feast of SS Simon and Jude (28th October). Early in George III.’s reign the market day was changed to Monday. Two of the early industries, cutlery and hat-making, date from about the middle of the 16th century. The woollen industry is generally, but erroneously, said to have been introduced by Flemish immigrants in Edward III.’s reign; but, with the cognate trades of dyeing and fulling, its importance only dates from the early part of the 17th century. It was not till 1795 that a cotton mill was built here, and in the latter half of the 18th century the town was famed for its woollen, not its cotton manufactures.

ROCHE, SIR BOYLE,. (1743–1807), Irish soldier and politician, famous for his “ bulls,” came of a branch of the family of the Viscounts Fermoy. He served in the American War, and sat in the Irish parliament from 1777 onwards, being created a baronet in 1782 for his loyalty to the government. He supported the Union, and one of his recorded “bulls”—many, however, being only fastened on him—was his declaration that he would have “the two sisters” (England and Ireland) “embrace like one brother.” Sir Boyle Roche was a characteristically witty and genial Irishman, and was master of the ceremonies at Dublin Castle.

ROCHEFORT, HENRI, (1830–), French politician, was born in Paris on the 30th of January 1830. His father was a Legitimist noble who as “Edmond Rochefort” was well known as a writer of vaudeville’s; his mother’s views were republican. After experience as a medical student, a clerk at the Hôtel de Ville, a playwright and a journalist, he joined the staff of the Figaro in 1863; but a series of his articles, afterwards published as Les Français de la Décadence (3 vols., 1866–68), brought the paper into collision with the authorities and caused the termination of his engagement. In collaboration with different dramatists he had meanwhile written a long series of successful vaudeville’s, which began with the Monsieur bien mis at the Folies Dramatiques in 1856. On leaving the Figaro Rochefort determined to start a paper of his own, La Lanterne. The paper was seized on its eleventh appearance, and in August 1868 Rochefort was fined 10,000 francs, with a year’s imprisonment. He then published his paper in Brussels, whence it was smuggled into France. Printed in French, English, Spanish, Italian and German, it went the round of Europe. After a second prosecution he fled to Belgium. A series of duels, of which the most famous was one fought with Paul de Cassagnac a propos of an article on Joan of Arc, kept Rochefort in the public eye. In 1869, after two unsuccessful candidatures, he was returned to the Chamber of Deputies by the first circonscription of Paris. He was arrested on the frontier, only to be almost immediately released, and forthwith took his seat. He renewed his onslaught on the empire, starting a new paper, the Marseillaise, as the organ of political meetings arranged by himself, at La Villette. The staff was appointed on the votes of the members, and included Victor Noirand Pascal Grousset. The violent articles in this paper led to the duel which resulted in Victor Noir’s death at the hands of Prince Pierre Bonaparte. The paper was seized, and Rochefort and Grousset were sent to prison for six months. The revolution of September was the signal for his release. He became a member of the government of National Defence, but this short association with the forces of law and order was soon broken on account of his openly expressed sympathy with the Communards. On the 11th of May 1871 he fled in disguise from Paris. A week earlier he had resigned with a handful of other deputies from the National Assembly rather than countenance the dismemberment of France. Arrested at Meaux by the Versailles government, he was detained for some time in prison with a nervous illness before he was condemned under military law to imprisonment for life. In spite of Victor Hugo’s efforts on his behalf he was transported to New Caledonia. In 1874 he escaped on board an American vessel to San Francisco. He lived in London and Geneva until the general amnesty permitted his return to France in 1880. In Geneva he resumed the publication of La Lanterne, and in the Parisian papers articles constantly appeared from his pen. When at length in 1880 the general amnesty