The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-26
French President Receives OnIY a Scratch and ASsaiI-
 ant Is Captured
ROYALIST LITERATURE
 FOUND IN MANS POCKET
Police Believe That the Walter Is Only Crack-Brained Individual Who Is Seeking to Make His
 Name Famous.

Paris, December 25.-While Armand Fallieres, the president of France. ac- companied by M Ramondou, his sec- retary, and Colonel Lasson, military attsche at the Elysee Palace, was talk ing a morning stroll near Rue Etoil. a poorly clad individual who evidently had been lying in wait. suddenly jumped upon the president from behind and threw his arms about NJ. Failieres' neck in an effort to seize his beard.
 Colonel Lasson and Secretary Ramon dou sprang to the assistance of the president, ragged off his assailant and turned him over to two special detee- tives who had been following the party on bicycles.
 President Fallieres cane was broken in the struggle. but beyond a scratch on the ear he was not injured and in sisted on continuing his walk.
 As the detectives slipped the hand cuffs on the man he cried:
 q am unarmed. I simply wanted 10 pull the presidents beard" When searched at the station house, the pres idents assailant proved to be Jean tt and a native of the cafe department of savoie, Medals of General Mercier, the former minister of war. stamps bear ing the head of the Duke of Orleans a card of membership in the Patrie Francaise and other royalist documents were found on his person.
 During the examination Mathis boasted of being a royalist and talked confusedly of having done his duty and obeyed the dictates of his "eon- science" Heaps of royalist reactionary literature were found by the police when they ransacked his residence.
 The investigation reveals the fact that Mathis was in close relation with the royalist organization and this gives color to rumors that he was the in strument of a royalist plot. Serious evidence in this direction, however, is lacking up to the present time and 1t is more likely that he is only a crack brained individual seeking notoriety. whose head has been turned by the campaign scandal and villification which reaetionary newspapers like the Libre Parole and LAction have recent ly been conducting. They used the scandal in connection with the Stein hell affair to make every conceivable charge against the government, even to it being guilty of political murders, and insisted upon the insinuation that the late president Faure was killed be- cause he sided against Major Dreyfus
 Early this week the height of audaci- ty was reached when the reactionary papers printed circumstantial stories to make it appear that President Fallieres' son, when found in the company of the wife of Philippe Astresse, an advocate of the court of appeals, "a year ago, shot and killed the attorney and that the police have hushed up the scandal. Authoritative information subsequently, proved that young Fallieres did not even know Mme. Astresse.
 Mathis has been formally charged with assaulting magistrate in the ex- ercse of his functions. This crime is punishable by from two to five years imprisonment.
 The leaders of the reactionary opposi- ton to the government and the news papers championing their cause disa- VOW the assault and claim that 1t was instigated by the police to throw dis credit upon their cause and distract public attention. from graver aues- tions.