Marie Catherine Rogissart was born in 1841[1] into a family of nail-makers in Neufmanil, situated a few kilometres from the Belgian border.
Of the four daughters of Jacques Rémi Rogissart and Marguerite Dominé, Marie Catherine was the only one to reach adulthood.
She left Neufmanil for Paris and in 1861[2] set herself up as a seamstress in Belleville, a town that had recently been annexed to the capital city.
She participated in the search for hostages and in chasing down draft dodgers (all Parisian men aged 19 to 40 were obligated to join the National Guard).
She denied all the charges against her, but a witness, whom she had accused of being a Versailles spy, recalled one of Rogissart's speeches in Saint Éloi against deserters.
The ship carried 340 officers and crew, along with passengers and 540 deportees, both political prisoners and people convicted under common law.
[16] Marriage between deportees was looked upon favourably by the authorities for its stabilising and moral elements, and because of the potential to increase the population of the colony.
[18] Remarried, Rogissart died at the age of 88 on 7 August 1929, at the hospice in Nouméa,[18] six years after Jean Roch Chalier, who is sometimes described as the last remaining deportee.