Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 11, 1911 Socialists Throughout the Grieve Deaths of Paul and Laura LaFargue
From The Coming Nation of December 9, 1911:
Death of the LaFargues
Paul LaFargue
That Paul LaFargue, the keen thinker, Jovial writer and cheerful companion, and his wife, Laura Marx LaFargue, the genial hostess, and co-worker of her husband have committed suicide is the startling news that has brought sorrow to hosts of Socialists throughout the world.
Those who had enjoyed the hospitality of their home at Draveil, near Paris, who knew their remarkable personalities and especially their apparently unfailing good humor and optimism the news seems incredible.
The reason given is that for years he had been suffering from a mysterious incurable disease that baffled the skill of even the greatest physicians of Paris to diagnose. Sixty-eight years of age, it seems that he, with his wife, looked upon the world and decided that for them the time had come to leave it and they acted upon that decision bravely and frankly.
Laura Marx LaFargue
For almost half a century Paul LaFargue has been known as a revolutionist. From the time when in 1866 he was expelled from the French University for having taken part in an anti-military demonstration, this expulsion sent him to England where he met Karl Marx, whose daughter Laura he married.
The story of his life has been the story of the revolutionary movement of Europe. Exiled from France, for activity in the Commune he returned to become a member of the Chamber of Deputies. With Jules Guesde he built up the strongest and the most intelligently revolutionary wing of the French Socialist party.
His writings have been translated into almost every language, and their sharp, biting wit, keen analytic power, shot through with that gentle humor so much needed and so seldom found in Socialist writings will go on for many years fighting the cause to which he and his wife gave so many years.
