Note 73 — LXIX.

Paschal Grousset prepared himself for politics by the study of medicine; from the anatomy of heads he passed to the dissection of ideas. Having turned journalist, he wrote scientific articles in Figaro, contributed to the Standard, and was one of the editors of the Marseillaise when the challenge, which gave rise to the death of Victor Noir and the famous trial at Tours, was sent to Prince Pierre Bonaparte. Immediately after the revolution of the eighteenth of March he started the Nouvelle République, an ephemeral publication which only lived a week. On the second of April he commenced the Affranchi, or journal of free men, as he called it, Vesinier joining him in the management of it. The popularity of Grousset caused him to be elected a member of the Commune in April, and the Government soon appointed him Minister of Foreign Affairs. He communicated circulars to the representatives of different nations at Paris, in order to obtain a recognition of the Commune; he also sent proclamations to the large towns of France, appealing to arms. But his means of communication with other governments, and indeed with his own envoys, was very restricted. He was one of those who took refuge at the Mairie of the Eleventh Arrondissement, and who, knowing well that the struggle was really over, said to the silly heroes who protected them, “All is well. The Versailles mob is turned, and you will soon join your brethren in the Champs Elysées.” Many of them that night entered the valley of the shadow of death! On the third of June the ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs was arrested in the Rue Condorcet, dressed as a woman, and marched off to Versailles.