Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-06-11
A FRENCH JESSE JAMES
HELD UP NEARLY 1000 MEN FOR
ALMOST A WEEK.
Remarkable Character Was Once Game
keeper at Usseau-Awkward Pre-
dicament From a Sneeze.


special Correspondence of The Star.
PARIS, June g. 1905
Citizens and soldiers are still talking
about the unusual features of case In
which one man held up an army of nearly
one thousand men for over week, then
succeeded in making his escape from his
castle only to be captured by the peas
ants. What adds to the gaiety of the ma
ton is the fact that the man was over
seventy years of age.
The Jesse James of France was formerly
a gamekeeper at Ussuau. near Chatelerault,
In the Vienne He turned his house into
new Fort Chambrel and was captured in
the small hours of the morning as he at
tempted to escape across the fields from his
residence, which was parity destroyed by
the engineers, who used melinite General
Fabin superintendent the operations. The
affair has been treated as a joke by the
Paris papers but the fact remains that for
a whole week Roy detied the authorities
of the department and the government as
well.
He shut himself up In a fort after hav-
Ing fired at and severely wounded a NJ
Grandpied, whom he accused of preventing
him from obtaining employment. M.
Grandpied's daughter was also injured, but
only slightly. by bullet fired by Roy.
Roy next barricaded himself in his house,
whence ne 0Feu AT ana WOundeQ a Ia
official, two gendarmes and in
fantry sergeant. Troops had to be mobll-
lied for the purpose of taking this extra
ordinary septuagenarian,w whose audacity and
determination also required the presence at
USSuau of q general of division a colonel
and a dozen army officers not to speak
of the departmental project and all of the
local judicial authorities. The soldiers en-
ployed in watching the house and the ap-
proaches thereto at one time numbered
than with thpp, hefnu in
gent of engineers from Algiers.
Excitement at Midnight.
These engineers. under the order of a
lieutenant, set to work at midnight All of
the houses in the vicinity of the Roy resi-
dence were emptied of their occupants and
the people We're kept back for nearly a
mile Nevertheless thousands turned out to
witness the excitement. and the roads were
blocked with motor cars Toward /
o'clock in the morning, when everything
was ready and the men had put down their
melinte bomb or petard, they hurried back
to their temporary quarters in the village
Suddenly there was a fearful explosion and
a blue and red flame shot up over Roy's
house, followed by smoke and the fall of
rubbish.
The little wing of the habitation was
completely shattered, but the soldiers did
not dare to enter until daylight. When
they did effect entrance Roy had disap-
peared but found by the natives of
the town wandering In the fields The
troops and gendarmes who have been on
duty around the place have returned with
gladness to their quarters after the expert
ences of unusual mobilization which re-
minded them Of real war.
Sequel to Sneeze.
a sneeze in Paris restaurant has landed
the sneeZer in awkward predicament.
He was fat Frenchman, and he was en-
joying his meal in Duvars restaurant when
he sneeZed again and again. The other
occupants at the table, greatly annoyed
threw a tin of sardines at the man guilty
of the sneezlng the contents falling in his
lap. Then the incensed sneezer arose and
demanded with many imprecations to be
paid the price of his damaged clothes
Finally both parties adjourned to the To-
cal magistrates court to have the matter
settled. AS the stout Frenchman gave his
name to the magistrate, his rival who hap
pened TO be Scotch solicitor. hastily
and thrust them at the astonished French
man, much to the amaZement of the police
officials. 1t then turned out that the solicit
tor had come to Paris to serve this identi-
cal Frenchman with a writ and that he
had hunted the city in vain for him for
three days.