Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1917-10-12

cfergerfe to tell her husband or me
failure of her mission and TO bid him
goodby. She was taken from the
prison and carried home In u swoon.
The next morning a number of carts
were backed up to the door OF the Con-
ciergerie. and a soldier In the prison
called the names of twenty-one men
who were to go forth to execution.
Among them was Henri C~hateaubrun.
They all walked out to the carts. some
of them dragging themselves. some
erect, all of them showing In their pale
and 'haggnrd features the mark of
death. Standing In the carts. they were
driven toward the Seine and crossed
1t by a bridge entering the Place de
la Revolution. since called the Place de
la Coneorde. There stood the guillo-
tine with persons to work 1t ready to
lop off twenty-one heads. and there
stood a crowd, kept back by soldiers.
to witness the grewsome sight. The
carts stopped beside the machine. and
the victims descended.
And now began a work that even an
implement so well adapted to the pur-
pose found it difficult to perform. Each
one of the prisoners, hatless and with
his hands tied behind his back, In turn
stepped up to it, was laid upon it,
| strapped to It; the kIi:e fell. bis 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 the
guillotine refused to work. Whether
the knife got wedged In the grooves
or whether the machinery that raised
the ak or that which detached 1t 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 it.
The proceedings were stopped. and a
messenger was sent for mechanics to
put the guillotine In order. This re-
qulred 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 back |" cried the guards, SHOW
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 1t. Chateau
brun presently found himself In the
first line of spectators. Then, instead
of being In the line next the gu~illotine,
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 man fixing 1t
hammered and pulled and pushed and
screwed and unscrewed. Meanwhile the
day was ended, and it was growing
dark. ~Chateaubrun, considering the
sight of his execution not worth so
long a wait, quietly walked away.
The Place de la Concorde is at the
beginning of the Champs Elysees.
Chateaubrun, every moment expecting
to be missed, concealing as well as he
could his tied hands, his heart beat
ing wildly, passed into the Champs
Elysees eager to run. but forcing him
self 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 a nan coming to-
ward 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 u~nloosen me-"
Certainly, m'sier; it will give me
great pleasure to do So"
Thanking the mar who had relieved
him of the last mark of being an in
tended guillotine victim, ~Chateaubrun
went into Q 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 exc
cution nor the next nor the next. In
ueeu. IL 10 QucSLloidpic HIS oOSChSC
from the number of condemned was
noticed by the authorities. Nine. Cha
teaubrun was in the condition of
stunned. Boyer called to see her and
found her heartbroken. 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 consider what he said. Not till
some time afterward did she realize
that he might have had her husband
put out of his way.
But within a short time a woman
stopped at Mime. Ch~ateaubrun'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 imDlicate her as