The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1917-10-30

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 backr' cried the guards, shov-
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 of,
There was something radically wrong
with the guillotine. The man fixing IT
hammered and pulled and pushed and
screwed and unscrewed. Meanwhile the
day was ended, and 1t was growing
dark. Chateaubrun, considering the
sight of his execution not worth 80
long 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 man coming to-
ward him. he said:
"M'sieur, a friend of mine just now,
who is q great veg, tied my hands be-
hind my back and ran away with my
hat. Kindly unloosen me-"
Certainly, m'sier; 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 exc
cution nor the next nor the next. In
deed, 1t is questionable If his absence
from the number Of condemned was
noticed by the authorities. Nine. Cha
teaubrun was In the condition of one
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. 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 implicate her as
correspondent with an emigre. With
out waiting even to announce her hap
piness to BoyNr she set out for the
place of her husbands exile. and in 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 friendChad betrayed him
except that his wife told him that
Boyer had declared his love for her.
He believed then that Boyer had caused
his downfall But he never met Boyer
again. Subsequent changes placed the
Jacobin in another faction. and Boyer
met his death by the guillotine be had
intended for Chateaubrun
One day an old man entered the
building where records pertaining to
the revolution were kept He showed
an order to the keeper to permit him
to examine certain volumes containing
the names of informers during the rev.
olution. A volume was laid on a table
before him. Turning to the letter &C."
he found Chateaubrun In a column
opposite the name was Boyer The old
man was Chateaubrun.