permitted his return to Paris he founded L'Intransigeant in the Radical and Socialist interest. For a short time in 1885–86 he sat in the Chamber of Deputies, but found a great opportunity next year for his talent for inflaming public opinion in the Boulangist agitation. He was condemned- to detention in a fortress in August 1889 at the same time as General Boulanger, whom he had followed into exile. He continued his polemic from London, and after the suicide of General Boulanger he attacked M. Constans, minister of the interior in the Freycinet cabinet, with the utmost violence, in a series of articles which led to an interpellation in the chamber in circumstances of wild excitement and disorder. The Panama scandals furnished him with another occasion, and he created something of a sensation by a statement in the Figaro that he had met M. Clemenceau at the table of the financier Cornélius Herz. In 1895 he returned to Paris, two years before the Dreyfus affair supplied him with another point d'appui. He became a leader of the anti-Dreyfusards, and had a principal share in the organization of the press campaign. Subsequently he was editor of La Patrie.
Besides his plays and articles in the journals he published several separate works, among them being: Les Petits Mystères de l'Hôtel des Ventes (1862), a collection of his art criticisms; Les Dépravés (Geneva, 1882); Les Naufrageurs (1876); L'Évadé (1883), Napoléon dernier (3 vols., 1884); and Les Aventures de ma vie (5 vols., 1896).
ROCHEFORT, a small town of Belgium, situated on the
Lomme, a tributary of the Lesse, in the S.E. of the province
of Namur close to the Ardennes. Resident pop. (1904) 3068,
which in July and August is doubled. It is of ancient origin,
its position at the point where the route to St Hubert crossed
that from Liége to Bouillon having made it at all times a place
of some importance. The ruins of the old castle, which gave
the place its name and a title to a long line of counts who had
the right of coining their own money, still exist. This castle
underwent many sieges and suffered much in the earlier wars,
especially at the hands of Marshal de Chatillon in 1636. Rochefort
is noted for its healthiness, and is a favourite place of
residence. It also attracts every summer a large number of
visitors and tourists, who visit it on account of the remarkable
grottoes in its neighbourhood. One of these is situated in
the town itself and is known by its name. This grotto contains
six halls or chambers, the largest of which is called the Sabbat,
and is remarkable for its great height. But th'e most famous
are the grottoes of Han, situated three miles from Rochefort
at Han sur Lesse. Here the river Lesse passes by a subterranean
and undiscovered passage under the hill called Boème or Boine.
The endeavour to trace the course of the river led to the discovery
of the grottoes, which consist of fifteen separate halls,
connected by passages more or less short and emerging on the
river in a dark and extensive cavern forming a sort of side
creek or bay. Except in flood-time, when the exit has to be
used, the entrance is near the point where the river disappears
at what is called the gap or hole of Belvaux, and the exit is
made by boat from the cavern last described, which leads out
to the open river. A beautiful effect is afforded by the passage
from the complete darkness of this cavern into the light. The
finest stalactites are in the three halls called the Mysterieuses,
the Vigneron and the Draperies. In the last-named is “ the
tomb,” which looks as if chiselled out of white marble. The
central hall—called the Salle d'Armes—is immense, and one
of the river channels flows through it. Electric light has been
introduced. Near Rochefort are the famous red marble quarries
of St Remy, and the old Cistercian abbey of that name is now
a Trappist seminary.
ROCHEFORT, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Charente-Inférieure, 20 m.
S.S.E. of La Rochelle on the State railway from Nantes to
Bordeaux. Pop. (1906) town, 31,433; commune, 36,694. It
is situated on the right bank of the Charente, 9 m. from the
Atlantic, and is built partly on the side of a rocky hill and
partly on an old marshland. The town is laid out with great
regularity, the streets being wide and straight and centring
round the Place Colbert, in the middle of which is a monumental
fountain of the 18th century. The public institutions of
Rochefort comprise the sub-prefecture, tribunals of first instance
and of commerce, a board of trade arbitration, a chamber of
commerce, a lycée for boys, a college for girls and schools of
drawing and architecture. The fortifications are slight. Below
Rochefort the Charente is crossed by a post transbordeur, the
carrier of which is suspended at a height which admits of the
tallest ships passing underneath at any time. There are both
a naval and a commercial harbour. The former has the advantage
of deep anchorage well protected by batteries at the
mouth of the river, and the roadstead is perfectly safe. The
windings of the channel, however, between Rochefort and the
sea, and the bar at the entrance render navigation dangerous.
Rochefort is capital of the fourth maritime arrondissement, which
stretches from the bay of Bourgneuf to the coast of Spain.
The naval harbour and arsenal, separated from the town by a
line of fortifications with three gates, contain large covered
building yards, repairing docks and extensive timber basins
on both banks of the river. The arsenal has also a ropewalk,
dating from 1668, a school of navigation and pilotage, the
offices of the maritime prefecture, the navy commissariat, a
park of artillery and various boards of direction connected
with the navy. Other government establishments at Rochefort
are barracks for infantry, artillery and marines, and the naval
hospital and school of medicine. In the grounds of this last
institution is an artesian well, sunk in 1862–1866 to a depth of
2800 ft., and yielding water with a temperature of 100° F.
The commercial harbour, higher up the river than the naval
harbour, has two small basins, a third basin with an area of
15 acres and a depth at neap-tide of 25 ft., at spring-tide of
29½ ft., and a dry dock 110 yds. long. Besides shipbuilding,
which forms the staple industry, flour- and saw-milling, sailcloth,
&c., are among the local manufactures. At the ports
of Rochefort and Tonnay-Charente (4 m. higher up) there
entered, in 1905, 265 vessels (166 British), with a tonnage of
192,537.
The lordship of Rochefort, held by powerful nobles as early as the 11th century, was united to the French Crown by Philip the Fair early in the 14th century; but it was alternately seized in the course of the Hundred Years' War by the English and the French, and in the Wars of Religion by the Catholics and Protestants. Colbert having in 1665 chosen Rochefort as the seat of a repairing port between Brest and the Gironde, the town rapidly increased in importance; by 1674 it had 20,000 inhabitants; and when the Dutch admiral Cornelius Tromp appeared at the mouth of the river with seventy-two vessels for the purpose of destroying the new arsenal, he found the approaches so well defended that he gave up his enterprise. It was at Rochefort that the naval school, afterwards transferred to Brest, was originally founded. The town continued to flourish in the later part of the 17th century. In 1690 and in 1703 the English made unsuccessful attempts to destroy it. Its fleet, under the command of Admiral la Gallissonnière, a native of the place, defeated Admiral Byng in 1755 and did good service in the wars of the republic. But the destruction of the French fleet by the English in 1809 in the roadstead of Île d'Aix, the preference accorded to the harbours of Brest and Toulon and the unhealthiness of its climate seriously interfered with the prosperity of the place. The convict establishment, founded at Rochefort in 1777, was suppressed in 1852.
ROCHESTER, JOHN WILMOT, 2nd Earl of (1647–1680),
English poet and wit, was the son of Henry Wilmot, 1st earl.
The family was descended from Edward Wilmot of Witney,
Oxfordshire, whose son Charles (c. 1570–c. 1644), having served
with distinction in Ireland during the rebellion at the beginning
of the 17th century, was president of Connaught from 1616
until his death. In 1621 he had been created an Irish peer as
Viscount Wilmot of Athlone, and he was succeeded by his only
surviving son, Henry (c. 1612-1658). Having fought against
the Scots at Newburn and been imprisoned and expelled from
