The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-01-24 00:00:00

THE DEATH OF "LE THEMBLEUR."

The Paris Journals announce the death of an old soldier
named Ho:eland, who was one of the drummers whose In-
struments drowned the voice of Lords XVI. when he at-
tempted to addre,s the crowd present at his execution. The
horror which the event. of 1793 had inspired him with ho his
old age wax so groat that he could not .peak of them with-
out a quivering of body, and this had earned for him the
nickname of •• Le Tremble"!' among his neighbonre. In
remarking upon this man's death, the Day Taegraph
WWl:

A strance story is related in the French journals,
setting forth how there has lately died, at an advanced
age, • man named flofeland who, in early life, had
been a drummer in the French army, and in that
capacity was stationed on the Place de la ltvolution.
the ci.devant Place Louie XV.' and now the Place de
La Conourde, Paris, on that fatal morning in the year
1793 when the head of Louie XVI. fell beneath the
axe of the guillotine. It will be remembered
that the unhappy King endeavoured from the
scaffold to address the people, but that his
voice was drowned by the roll of the drums.
It is added that Hofeland WM imbued with such
a permanent sensation of horror arising frt m
his participation in the events of the Terror that
, to the end of his life he was afflicted with a continual
nervous shaking—an infirmity which gained for him
the name of "Le Tremblenr." The story Is altogether,
I extremely questionable. and much more like a
canard than a whale. Granting that Hofeland was,
in 1793, the smallest of all the 2.etil3 tambours of the
army of Paris, he could not have been enrolled under
the age of twelve, and must thus have been no less
than ninety-three years old at the time of his death.
Even Mr. Thomae, however, may admit that there is
DO valid reason why Hofeland should not have headed
our own brave old Sir John Burgoyne, who died at the
age of ninetrone' by a couple ot years ; but it is more
difficult to digest the assertion that the ex.drnromer
went on shaking in hie shoes from 1793 to 1874.
What did he do during the wars of the Republic and
the Empire? Certainly Napoleon the Great would
not have approved of an adult drummer of the
" shivery-ahaket7" kind. The death, however, of
• poor old gentleman, who was probably paralytic,
and whose memory as to dates may have grown con-
fined, recalls a carious fact only recently brought to
light by diligent stud...tote who love explored the
grim arclueslogy of the Reign of Terror. It has
been generally supposed and stated by a long
succession of historians of the Revolution that
the officer who gave the command for the drums
to beat when Louie was about to speak was the
famous Sauterre, the same Santerre who had been so
very polite to Dr. Johnson when that sage visited the
establishment of the great Parisian brewer. But it
was not Santerre who caused the drums to beat. The
terse command, "Tambours I.' was given by the chief
of the staff of the Army of Paris, by General Beau •
franeltd, cidevant &Goat, an illegitimate son of Louts
XV. by a courtesan named LO, Morphise. Ia all the
grim ofirmieles of Nemesis can the,e be totted any-
thing more horrible than the instance of this It al
offspring of dead tyranny and profligscy co 41y " as-
sisting," in the place whi-12 once bore Iris lather's
name, at the slaughter of his ionocent kinsman?