Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/306

 *ing of evil, Versailles was excited by great good news. On the evening of the 20th M. Thiers issued a circular, dated noon of the same day, in which he said:

"Several prefects have demanded that news should be published; the following answer has been sent them:—Those persons who are uneasy are greatly mistaken. Our troops are working at the approaches, and at the moment of writing the breaching batteries continue their fire upon the walls. Never have we been so near the end. The members of the Commune are busy making their escape. Henri Rochefort has been arrested at Meaux!"

Rochefort arrested! the demagogue, the falsifier, and coward arrested with the lie in his mouth! arrested escaping from Paris on the 20th of May! It seems some few days before a letter, written by him to his mistress in Arcachon, had fallen into the hands of the Prefect of Bordeaux, who sent it to M. Thiers. In this letter, he said, "Leave at once for Brussels, and engage the same apartment as before; I will meet you there on the 20th." The Gaulois of Versailles published this letter, which Rochefort repudiated in the most indignant manner; and in his journal, the Mot d'Ordre, of date the 20th of May, printed on the 19th, the last number published, he said: "I would not have condescended to notice this contemptible invention, but several journals have reproduced it. I have only at Arcachon my sister, my daughter, and little boy, who came to see me when I was sick. I wrote them some days since, not to invite them to retain an apartment at Brussels, but to join me at Paris, where I have but little fear of the entry of the Versaillese. The only dread the publication of this note gave me was that my letter had fallen into the hands of the Prefect of Bordeaux, because it contained a check addressed to my family to pay their expenses from Arcachon to Paris; and