PLACATING HIS CONSCIENCE.

Otago Witness, Volume 14, Issue 2648, 14 December 1904, Page 72

PLACATING HIS CONSCIENCE.

The death of Louis Deibler, the famous French headsman, recalls to mind' the strangest incident in the French Revolution, with which Deibler's still more famous predecessor was connected. Two nuns were living in seclusion" in Paris, and were, giving shelter to an aged priest, the Abbe de Maiolles, who had escaped from the massacres of the Carmelite brotherhood. On January 22, 1793, these ladies were followed to their house by an unknown man, who forced his way after them before they could shut the door. Overwhelmed) by the expectation that they were about to\ be denounced' and handed over to Robespierre and his myrmidons, they nevertheless attempted to brave the matter out, but were v silenced by the appearance of the priest, who left his hiding place and confronted the intruder. ■

Their surprise and relief can better be imagined) than described when they learned tha',t ths man who had so ruthlessly penetrated their secret merely desired the priest to celebrate a requiem Mass for the repose of tho souls of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, who had perished so recently on the scaffold. At the close the man warmly advised the nuns and the priest to remain in hiding where they were for the present, and promised to do what he could for them. In return he begged that the Mass should be repeated every 21st of January, when lie would return and assist at the celebration. Before leaving he handed the priest a small box, in which was afterwards found a handkerchief of the finest texture, ornamented with the Crown of France and stained with" blood — a significant token of the monarchy which had passed so miserably away. At ,last the 9th Thermidor arrived, and Robespierre and his party fell. The nuns and! the priest, who had been well cared for by the unknown, and' who had seen him only at the repetition of the requiem Mass, were now able to leave their house and move about Paris. The priest betook himself to a scent . shop in the Rue St. Honore, a noted Royalist rendezvous, and, while learning the latest news, was startled by the passage of a cart filled with prisoners and surrounded by the rabble.

"What is going forward?" he asked. "The accomplices of Robespierre are being taken to execution. See, the headsman stands at the front of the cart," was the reply. The priest stretched forward quickly, and gazed upon France's executioner, in ivhom, to his utter consternation, he recognised none other than his unknown protector and suppliant at the Mass.