Henri Rochefort

Independent activity Liberalism and republicanism 1831–1913 ○ Natural causes

Journalist who mocked the Second Empire in La Lanterne and La Marseillaise, later a Boulangist and anti-Dreyfusard

Born in Paris in 1831 to a noble family, he wrote vaudevilles and worked as a journalist. In May 1868 he founded La Lanterne, which sold 100,000 copies; prosecuted, he fled to Brussels and smuggled the paper into France. Elected deputy for the Seine at a by-election in November 1869, he founded La Marseillaise in December. In January 1870 its journalist Victor Noir was killed by Pierre Bonaparte, and on 7 February Rochefort was arrested and sentenced to six months. Freed on 4 September, he joined the Government of National Defence but resigned after the rising of 31 October. Condemned for his sympathy with the Commune, he was transported to New Caledonia, escaped in 1874, returned under the amnesty of 1880 and founded L'Intransigeant. He later joined the Boulangist movement and became a leading anti-Dreyfusard.

Also known as: Henri de Rochefort-Luçay · Victor Henri Rochefort