The directory «Plots»

Rochefort Henri
(1831—1913)

Born in 1831 into the French nobility (his full name was the Marquis Victor-Henry de Rochefort-Lucay), Henri Rochefort began his literary career writing comedies, political journalism, and theatre criticism. His opposition to the regime of Napoleon III cost him his position at “Le Figaro,” and in 1868 he began publication of his own opposition review, “La Lanterne.” The journal was soon suppressed and Rochefort driven into exile in Belgium, where he continued to publish the magazine.

Upon his return to France in 1869 he was elected deputy from Paris, and with the fall of the Bonapartist regime was elected to the Government of National Defense in 1871. While not a member of the Commune he was a supporter, continuing his journalism during this period in “Le Mot d'Ordre.” Arrested when trying to escape Paris on May 20, 1871, during the Bloody Week, he was sentenced to deportation for life. His sentence was slightly modified by Thiers so that he would serve his incarceration on French territory and not in New Guinea, to which most of his comrades were sent.

In 1873 the new government reneged on Thiers’ agreement and deported Rochefort to the penal colony of New Caledonia. Four months after his arrival, together with five other exiled Communards, Rochefort escaped the colony and fled to Australia and, later, the United states.

Amnestied in 1880, Rochefort returned to France and political life, and was again elected deputy in 1885. But the former left-wing Rochefort had now moved to the right, and was perhaps the most important publicist for General Georges Boulanger. Boulanger’s overwhelming success in the elections of 1889 fueled a putschist movement that could very well have toppled the Republic had the general himself not lost his nerve. Boulanger went into exile in Brussels (where he committed suicide in 1891) and Rochefort followed him there.

The Rochefort who returned to France in 1895 was very little like the Rochefort of his youth. By the time of the Dreyfus affair he was a firm anti-Dreyfusard, anti-Semite and nationalist.

He died on June 30, 1913. His autobiography, Les aventures de ma vie, fill five fascinating volumes.

Manama, 1972, Henri Rochefort

New Caledonia, 1993, Henri Rochefort