FRENCH ROYALISTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 June 1927, Page 7

FRENCH ROYALISTS

CHALLENGE TO POLICE. (Australian & N.Z. Cable Assn.) PARIS. June 10. Amazing scenes were witnessed at. the offices of the Royalist. M. Leon Daudet’s newspaper, “L’Action Franchise.” M. Daudet was due to surrender, and to undergo imprisonment for libelling the driver of the taxicab in which his son was found shot. He refused to go, and said: “If the police want me, they must fetch me!”

Hundreds of Royalists were sworn in to prevent his arrest. They surrounded the six-storey building, and began constructing barbed wire and sandbag defences, while others, their pockets bulging with revolvers, carried mysterious boxes, supposed to contain machine guns, into the premises. “I am fighting for the honour of my son,” said M. Daudet, addressing the crowd. “There are thousands oi resolute men at my back, prepared to face death.” A siege was still in progress late tonight, but there were no besiegers, the police not attempting to take the

prisoner. MINIATURE RIOT. PARIS, June 11. Daudet is still defying arrest. He has issued a bulletin this morning that he “passed a good night and is now' taking cafe au lait.” . His partisans caused a» >'iot mst evening. The Royalists’ ironical cheering of their opponents led to a . tiee fight with sticks and bludgeons, fl hen police reinforcements in lo *' ties, and dispersed the rioters, 20 of whom were arrested.