The Press., 1910-10-26

l And now began WOrk that even an I implement so well adapted to the pur. pose found 1t difficult to perform. Each one of the prisoners hatHess and switn his hands tied behind his back. in turn stepped up to 1t, was laid upon 1t strapped to it; the knife fell, his head rolled into the basket. and his body was removed tO make room for the next victim. Fifteen of the twenty one had been executed when ethe Ruillotine refused to work. Whether the knife got wedged in the grooves or whether the machinery that raised the ax or that which detached it after 1t had been raised got out of order doesn't matter. Something had. gone wrong, and those in charge of the exc cutions were unable to fix 1t. The proceedings were stopped, and q messenger was sent for mechanics to put the guillotine in order. This re- Quired time. Waiting is not conducive to discipline. The soldiers who were there to keep the crowd back grew lax. and by the time workmen had arrived people had elbOwed their way close upon the remaining six men standing in line waiting for the repairs on the machine that was to make corpses of them.
 "Get backY' cried the guards, ahov- ing the crowd with the butts of their muskets.
 This was repeated so often and was disobeyed so often that at last very little attention was paid to it. Chateau- brun presently found himself in the first line of spectators. Then, instead of being in the line next the guillotine, he found himself in the second. In the pushing that continued he was wedged back into the third line and at last was at the back of the crowd that was there to see his head cut off,
 There was something radically wrong with the guillotine. The men fixing it hammered and pulled and pushed and screwed and unscrewed. Meanwhile the day was ended, and 1t was growing dark Chateaubrun, con sidering the sight of his execution not worth so long wait. quietly walked away.
 
 beginning of the Champs d'Elysees. Chateaubrun, every moment expecting to be missed. cOnceaIing as well as he could his tied hands. his heart beat ing wildly. passed into the Champs d'EIysees eager to run, but forcing himself to walk leisurely. There he made his way onward in the shadow of the trees. Finally, when he had gone far enough from the scene of his intended execution, meeting man coming toward him.. he said:
 ''M'sieur, a friend of mine just now. who is a great wag. tied my hands be hind my back and ran away with my hat. Kindly unlo0sen me-"
 Certainly, m'sieur; 1t will give me great pleasure to do so."
 Thanking the man who had relieved him of the last mark of being an in- tended guillotine victim. Chateaubrun went into a side street and was lost The guillotine was fixed. but there were twenty instead of twenty-one persons executed.
 No word of Chateaubrun's escape reached his wife during the day of ex- ecution. nor the next. nor the next Indeed, it is questionable if his ab- sence from the number of the con demned was noticed by the authori- ties. Mime. Chateaubrun was in the condition of one stunned Boyer caIl- ed to see her and found her heart broken. She told him she wished to die. He begged her to live for his sake, cOnfessing the love he had long felt for her. She was too paralyzed mentally and physically to even con- slider what he said. Not till some lime afterward did she realize that hemight have had her husband put out of his way.
 But within short time a woman stopped at Mme Chateaubrun's home and told her that her husband was alive in the Netherlands and desired her to come to him. He had not dared write her. fearing to imphcate her as correspondent with an emigre. Without waiting even to announce her happiness to Boyer she set out for. the place of her husbands exile, and i'm a few days he who was supposed to have gone to his long home and the wife who had mourned him were clasped in each others arms.
 Chateaubrun never had any evidence that his old friend had betrayed him except that his wife told him that Boyer had declared his love for her. He believed then that Boyer had caus- cd his downfall. But he never met Boyer again. Subsequent changes placed the Jacobin under. another fac tion. and Boyer met his death by the guillotine he had intended for Cha teaubrun.