The most important of all captures was that of Rochefort.  He had been a leading man in the Council of the Commune, but was so great a favorite with men of literature, besides having strong friends and an old schoolfellow in Thiers’ cabinet, that he escaped with transportation to the Southern Seas.  On May 20, when he saw that the end of the Commune was at hand, he procured from the Delegate for Foreign Affairs passports for himself and his secretary.  It is thought that the delegate, enraged at Rochefort’s purpose of deserting his colleagues, betrayed him to the Prussians who held the fort of Vincennes.  The Prussians sent word to the frontier, and there the fugitives were arrested.  Rochefort had no luggage, but in his pocket was a great deal of miscellaneous jewelry, a copy of “Monte Cristo,” and some fine cigars.  Escorted by Uhlans, he was brought to St. Germains, and delivered over to the Versailles Government.  For a long time his fate hung in the balance, and it seemed improbable that even the exertions of M. Thiers, the President, and Jules Favre, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, could save him.

Having told of the last days of the Commune as seen by Count Orsi and the Marquis de Compiegne, there remains one more narrative,—­the experiences of a man still more intimately connected with the events of that terrible period, though, like a soldier in battle, he seems to have been able to see only what was around him, and could take no general view of what went on in other parts of the field.

The writer was all English gentleman who published his narrative immediately after he returned to England in September and October, 1871, in “Macmillan’s Magazine.”  “The writer,” says the editor, “is a young gentleman of good family and position.  His name, though suppressed for good reasons, is known to us, and we have satisfied ourselves of the trustworthiness of the narrative.”  He says: 

“I left England very hurriedly for France on March 29, 1871.  I had neglected to procure a passport, and had no papers to prove my identity.  I travelled from Havre to Paris without trouble, and on the train met two men whom I saw afterwards as members of the Council of the Commune.  The first thing that struck me on my arrival in Paris was the extreme quietness of the streets.  During the first week of my stay I was absorbed in my own business, and saw nothing; but on Monday, April 10, my own part in the concerns of the Commune began.  I was returning home from breakfast about one o’clock in the day, when I met a sergeant and four men in the street, who stopped me, and the sergeant said:  ’Pardon, Citizen, but what is your battalion?’ I answered that, being an Englishman, I did not belong to any battalion.  ‘And your passport, Citizen?’ On my replying that I had none, he requested me to go with him to a neighboring mairie, and I was accordingly escorted thither by the four men.  On my arrival I was shown into a cell, comfortable