LANDRITS END.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 84, 8 April 1922, Page 14

LANDRITS END.

"I WII-L BE BRAVE."' A STOIC EXIT. ;From Our Own Correspoudeet.) LOXDOX, February 27. I will be brave, 1 will be brave." Muttering these words, Landru, the unfathomable, the inexplicable, laid his head beneath the guillotine yesterday in Paris, in full sight of the public. To these, watching from behind a cordon of police, the last scene appeared but a brief spasm. Deibler had built the guillotine on the pavement within two yards of the prison gate, so that on Landru emerging in trousers and a ■white shirt, from which the collar had been out away, he found himself face to face with it and within three breaths of death. He started slightly, but the priest ■who urged him to be brave he replied firmly that he would. Within thirty seconds he had paid the debt. The bugles at the barracks near at hand had just sounded the revr.i'le. At about -4 o'clock in the morning Landru had awakened from a fitful slumber, and he complained to the warders that it was cold. They gave him an extra covering, and he rested uneasily till the arrival of the officers cf the" law and Maitre Moro Giafferi, Landru's counsel, and a colleague, and the executioners.

It was formally announced to Landid that his petition for pardon had been rejected. Landru asked, "To whom have I the honour of speaking? I do not know you." And it was only after M.. Begum had been properly presented to him that he took notice of the lawyer's announcement. Then Landru said: —'"1 am innocent. But I will die bravely. T forgive you all, as I know it is not your fault." The traditional cigarette and glass of rum he refused, and he rejected the Abbe Loisel's offer to hea/ his confession. Similarly he refused to have Mass said for him. "I would willingly attend Mass, M. l'Abbe," he said, "but I do not wish to keep these gentlemen waiting."

His only complaint was when he thought that the executioners were binding him too tightly, but when they explained that that was "'according to regulations," he raised no further objections. His plea that his beard should not be cut off was listened to. The executioners merely trimmed it a little for form's sake when they were cutting away his shirt collar. He warmly thanked M. lloro Giafferi for his efforts to save "an innocent man," and when M. Beylot, the Proeureur, asked him if lie had any declaration to make, he jinswered, "Such a question addressed to an innocent man who is already almost in the next world, is insulting."